German Leaders Attend Antiterror Vigil Organized by Muslim Groups - WSJ

BERLIN—An antiterrorism vigil staged by German Muslim groups in Berlin on Tuesday drew 10,000 people, including the country’s political leaders, in a bid to display national unity in the wake of months of anti-Islam protests.

Germany’s president, spoke of the challenges of diversity and multiculturalism, with which the nation is increasingly grappling..

“The distance between immigrants and natives, and sometimes between immigrants of different backgrounds, is still too seldom overcome,” Mr. Gauck, who holds a largely ceremonial role as Germany’s head of state, said. “I wish our entire society would stand together as we do today.”

The new intensity of the German debate over Islam’s role in society was apparent in the same square in front of the Brandenburg Gate the day before, when  several hundred demonstrators protested  against the “Islamization” of Germany. A similar rally in the eastern city of Dresden drew 25,000 people, the largest crowd since the weekly anti-Islam protests began in October.

Protest organizers, as well as some antiestablishment politicians on the right, say the Paris terrorist attacks are evidence of the threat that Islam and its more fundamental strains pose to a European way of life. Mainstream German politicians, though, have condemned the protest movement as xenophobic.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel  has sought to tamp down anti-Islam sentiment, which could energize an increasingly organized populist movement to her right. She faces a delicate political balancing act: calming Germans worried about Islamist violence and a loss of cultural identity, while making sure the country remains open to immigrants as its population ages.

‘Xenophobia, racism and extremism have no room in this country’ —Chancellor Angela Merkel

Ms. Merkel attended Tuesday’s vigil but didn’t speak. On Monday, she declared, “Islam belongs in Germany”—repeating a phrase of former German President Christian Wulff, who made waves when he uttered it in 2010.

“Of course, Muslims who live in this country, who acknowledge this country—Germany—no question they belong to German society,” Mr. Friedrich said on German public radio. But, he added, “Islam is not a formative, constitutive element of our country’s identity.”

“There is a real, dangerous situation,” said Bekir Alboga, secretary of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, a German Muslim umbrella group. “Anti-Islam forces are using the existing fears and prejudices in society to spread even more fear and more dread.”

Tuesday’s vigil, organized by two large Muslim groups, appeared to be arranged in part as a response to criticism that Muslim leaders had done too little to root out extremism in their communities.

Berlin police said about 10,000 people attended the event in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which was lighted in the red, white, and blue of the French flag. Israeli, Turkish, French, European Union and German flags waved in the crowd. Members of parliament as well as Christian and Jewish leaders attended.  Read More at “Islam belongs in Germany”

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