Study Finds German young devout Muslims more prone to violence

A study conducted by the German authorities has found that the more devout young Muslims become, the more prone to violence they get. The study says the phenomenon is not due to Islam itself, but to the way it is taught.

The willingness to commit violent crimes grows among young Muslim immigrants in Germany the more religious they become, according to a joint survey by the German interior ministry and the Institute for Criminology Research of Lower Saxony (KFN).

By comparison, the study found that just the opposite was true for Christian immigrants. The willingness to commit violent crimes, such as armed robbery or assault and battery, among young Catholics and Protestants decreases with religious fervor, the KFN study revealed.

The study said the reason for this difference had to do with the very different image of masculinity. Muslim devotion promotes the acceptance of macho behavior, said Christian Pfeiffer, the director of the Lower Saxony research institute and one of the authors of the study. Muslim devotion breeds macho behavior, says Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer said that in their religion, and in the family at home, young Muslim immigrants are frequently exposed to a more conservative world view and lay claim to a variety of male privileges.

The problem with imams

In an effort to explain their results, the study's authors draw on the findings of Rauf Ceylan, a religious education expert and himself of Turkish extraction, who points to the number of non-German imams, or Muslim priests, preaching and teaching in Germany.

Ceylan maintains that these foreign imams are generally only in Germany temporarily, speak no German and have little contact with German culture. Most of them, he says, call for a return to a more conservative Islam and retreat into the practitioner's original ethnic culture. For them, male dominance is normal and their teachings demand the same from Muslim youths, Ceylan says.

Christian Pfeiffer, from the KFN, also points out that the phenomenon is not due to Islam itself, but to the way it is taught.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has called for the study's results to be put on the agenda of the next Islam conference.

Different levels of integration

The KFN study interviewed a total of 45,000 14-16 year-olds in 61 cities across Germany between 2007 and 2008. Of these, 10,000 had an immigrant background.

It found that the best adjusted and most integrated immigrants came from non-religious families. More than 41 percent of these were looking to get a high school diploma, nearly 63 percent had German friends and 66 percent viewed themselves as German.

The figures among young Muslims were strikingly different: only 16 percent were pursuing a high school diploma, 28 percent had German friends and about 22 percent considered themselves German.

Author: Gregg Benzow (dpa/AP/AFP)
Editor: Andreas Illmer

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German government rejects GM request for aid for Ope

While Opel is still struggling, GM is posting profits

The German government will not provide General Motors with the 1.1 billion euros in loan guarantees it requested for its struggling subsidiary, said Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle on Wednesday.

General Motors will have to rehabilitate its struggling German subsidiary Opel on its own. The German government has turned down the American automaker's application for 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in state loan guarantees, according to Rainer Bruederle, Germany's economics minister.

"I am confident that Opel has a good future without credit guarantees," Bruederle told reporters after a government committee deadlocked over the issue and asked Bruederle to make the decision.

GM rejected an offer from Berlin last November to lend Opel 4.5 billion euros if it sold the subsidiary to a new owner. It then demanded the loan guarantees from a fund set up to help companies hit hard by the recession.

As GM returned to profitability, however, and the German government announced new austerity measures, the rejection of the loan application had come to be expected.

Berlin says GM has enough cash reserves

GM posted profits for the first three months of 2010, its first gains in three years, after declaring bankruptcy last year. Bruederle said GM has cash reserves of at least 10 billion euros and was fully capable of restructuring the loss-making Opel on its own.

The Opel unit makes mid-priced cars mainly for the European market and has plants in four German states. The company employs roughly 24,000 people in Germany.

Other car companies had contended the loans would have been unfair. But Opel works council head Klaus Franz slammed Bruederle's decision.

"The economics minister is leaving Opel staff standing in the rain, counter to the facts and counter to the interest of the plants in Germany," Franz said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has supported aid for Opel, said Wednesday that "the last word on the future of Opel has not been spoken," adding that she would speak to state leaders Thursday about how to help the automaker.

Author: Holly Fox (AFP/dpa/Reuters)
Editor: Andreas Illmer

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5667817,00.html