Pew has released a new report summarizing more findings from the recent Pew Global Attitudes Project that I wrote about last month. The current report focuses on survey responses from the European Muslims who were oversampled in France, Germany, Spain, and Great Britain.
I haven’t had time to read the full report in detail, but one thing that stands out is the number of ways in which the German case is different from other countries. Consider the following:
On Islamic identification…
European Muslims’ perceptions largely match those of the general public, with the exception of Germany. While 84% of the German public sees Muslims having a strong Islamic identity, only 46% of Muslims living in Germany agree.
On thinking immigration is a good thing…
Germany is the outlier in this regard with only 34% of Germans calling immigration from the Middle East and North Africa a good thing compared with 59% who deem it a bad thing. [Between 57-62% of the public in the other three countries say it's a positive thing.] However, Germans are no more welcoming to those migrating from Eastern Europe; only 36% call such immigration a good thing.
On blending in…
For their part, Muslims in France, Great Britain, and Spain are substantially more likely than their general publics to say that Muslims want to adopt the customs and way of life of the country into which they immigrate. Indeed, nearly eight-in-ten French Muslims (78%) believe this.
Again, Germany is different: Only 30% of German Muslims think Muslims coming into that country today want to assimilate - most say they want to be separate and most Germans agree.
It’s interesting that Germans are also the most concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism, even though they haven’t experienced the bombings seen in Spain and Great Britain. Several possible explanations come to mind, but based on my very limited experience living in Berlin, I wonder if segregation in German cities plays a role. I get the sense that it’s partly the spatial and social distance between ethnic Germans and Muslim migrants living in Germany that gives rise to such concerns. I’d love to hear other suggestions.
1 comment so far ↓
I believe that the attitudes of Turkish immigrants living in Germany and the perception of the host country toward immigrants have a dialectical relationship. It is hard to determine the direction of the causal relationship. Although it is usually argued in the literature that the spatial and social distance between the host society and the immigrant society leads to a lack of trust between the two communities, it is also possible to argue that the social, economic and political marginalization of the immigrant community strengthens the tendency of the immigrant group to establish and keep parallel societies , which deepens the already existing ethnic/religious boundaries. Therefore, social scientists engaged in the study of immigrant communities and their formation/reformation of identities should be careful in making strong statements about the nature of this complicated relationship between the host society and the immigrant community.
Regards,
Gonul Tol
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