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Abstract
A comparison of the two largest Turkish Islamic organizations in Germany, Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliği and Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş, challenges the dichotomous categorization of Muslim organizations as “good” or “bad.” On the one hand, the Turkish state supports Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliği, which promotes Islam in private life as a source of individual piety and loyalty to the Turkish state. On the other hand, Milli Görüş, which originally supported political Islam in Turkey, is now working to gain public recognition of Islam in Germany. Relying on extensive fieldwork data and interviews with the executive members of these two organizations, this essay concludes that a comparative approach to their views on immigrant integration in general and the headscarf debate in particular shows that they both have ambivalent approaches to Muslim incorporation in Europe.
Notes
1. Some of this data has been used in Gökçe Yurdakul’s monograph From Guest Workers into Muslims: The Transformation of Turkish Immigrant Associations in Germany (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars, 2009) in an earlier version of this article.
2. Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş, “Münchener Poliziei tritt den Rechtsstaat mit den Füßen,” September 30, 2004, www.igmg.de.
3. “Die Ehre des Kennenlernens,” Der Tagesspiegel (daily German newspaper), July 23, 2004.
4. Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon, 2004).
5. Also see Jonker Gerdien, “What is Other about Other Religions?: The Islamic Communities in Berlin between Integration and Segregation,” Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2000), pp. 311–29.
6. Werner Schiffauer, “Das recht, anders zu sein”, Die Zeit, November 18, 2004.
7. Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, “Custom Tailored Islam? Second Generation Female Students of Turko‐Muslim Origin and Their Concepts of Religiousness in the Light of Modernity and Education,” in R. Sackmann, B. Peters and T. Feist (eds.), Identity and Integration: Migrants in Western Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 107–226.
8. Gökçe Yurdakul, “Secular Versus Islamist: The Headscarf Debate in Germany,” in Gerdien Jonker and Valérie Amiraux (eds.), Strategies of Visibility: Young Muslims in European Public Spaces (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2006), pp. 151–168.
9. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Hüseyin Mıdık, 2003.
10. Ahmet Yükleyen, interview with Hasan Damar, 2004.
11. Faruk Şen, “ ‘Euro‐Islam’ Avrupa’daki Göçmen Müslümanların Yeni İslam Anlayışı,” [’Euro‐Islam’ Immigrant Muslims’ New Understanding of Islam in Europe], 6th International Antalya Symposium, Antalya, Turkey. Survey of Stiftung Zentrum fur Turkeistudien, Essen, Germany, 2004, http://www.zft-online.de.
12. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Ali Gülçek, 2003.
13. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Mustafa Yeneroğlu, 2004.
14. “Das Kopftuch ist nicht so Wichtig,” (“The headscarf is not so important”) Die Zeit, June 3, 2004.
15. Schiffauer, “Das recht, anders zu sein.”
16. Michal Bodemann, “Unter Verdacht,” (“Under Suspicion”) Süddeutsche Zeitung, November 30, 2004; Schiffauer, “Das recht, anders zu sein,” (“The right to be different”).
17. “Das Kopftuch ist nicht so Wichtig.”
18. Dagmar Schieck, “Just a Piece of Cloth: German Courts and Employees with Headscarves,” Industrial Law Journal, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2004), pp. 68–73; Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Yeneroğlu, 2004.
19. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Safter Çınar, 2005.
20. Pressemitteilung Üçüncü, “Generalsekretär Ücüncü warnt vor Ausgrenzung muslimischer Frauen,” (Press release, “Secretary General Ücüncü warned against the exclusion of muslim women”) July 4, 2002, www.igmg.de.
21. Ibid.
22. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Yeneroğlu, 2004.
23. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Mustafa Yoldaş, 2004.
24. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Mustafa Yoldaş, 2004.
25. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Yeneroğlu, 2004.
26. “Milli Görüşe John Desteği,” (John’s support for Milli Görüs) Sabah, July 10, 1999; Ulf Häußler, “Muslim Dress Codes in German State Schools,” European Journal of Migration and Law, Vol. 3 (2001), pp. 457–74.
27. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Burhan Kesici, 2004.
28. Website for Die Islamische Föderation in Berlin 2005 and 2008, at http://www.islamische-foederation.de.
29. Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüş, (Islamic Community Milli Görüs) Islamische Portal, 2005, at www.igmg.de.
30. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Burhan Kesici, 2004.
31. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Ali Gülçek, 2003.
32. Serdar Şen, AKP Milli Görüşçü mü? (Is AKP from Milli Görüs?) (Istanbul: Nokta Kitap, 2004), p. 10.
33. Ibid.
34. Rusen Çakır and F. Çalmuk, Recept Tayyip Erdoğan: Bir Dönüşüm Öyküsü (Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The Story of a Transformation) (Istanbul: Metis, 2001).
35. Gökçe Yurdakul, interview with Mustafa Yoldaş, 2004.