I’m offering a $10 iTunes gift certificate to the first person who can point me toward quantitative data showing that Muslim immigrants in Germany have become more religiously conservative over the last 5-10 years. [UPDATE...Sorry, less than 24 hours later I found something on my own; see comments below...]
Sound good? Read on.
I’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks in which Germans have asked me how I would explain the growth of fundamentalism among Muslim immigrants in Germany. I used to launch into various theories, but now I’ve realized that doing so is putting the cart before the horse.
Before answering such a question, you have to establish that the phenomenon actually exists. In other words, is it even the case that Muslim immigrants have become more conservative, or fundamentalist, or radical, or whatever the buzzword is, over the last 5-10 years? How do we know?
The Germans I’ve talked with point to Islamic headscarves, saying that they’ve noticed a growing number of women wearing them in Berlin. Setting aside the debate over what wearing a headscarf really means, I simply wonder the following: (1) are there more covered women in Berlin today than several years ago, and (2) has the percentage of Muslim women wearing the headscarf increased? I’d like to see some data beyond personal anecdotes. It’s possible that Germans are more aware of these women partly because Muslims are now constantly in the news. But this is just one example.
One can approach the “rising fundamentalism” question from different perspectives: does it refer to the Muslims already in Germany becoming more conservative, or to newcomers being of a more fundamentalist persuasion than those in earlier cohorts?
I’ll leave that up to you. I just want to see some quantitative data backing up the perceived trend in rising Islamic fundamentalism. Or some data showing the opposite trend. Or data showing no change at all.
Just show me the data, and I’ll show you the money.
There will probably be some arbitrariness in deciding who gets the gift certificate (all the fine print is offline), but I really do want to have a winner! Feel free to submit your entry in the comments below, and then we’ll all be able to judge.
Good luck!
4 comments ↓
Is this another way of getting someone to do your homework for you? Hmmmmmmm……
Hmm, that’s not a bad idea, but not my intention.
Consider this more of a challenge I’m putting out there. I have a hunch there simply aren’t good data available, but I’d like to be proven wrong.
Stop the presses! I’ve found something. I’ve come across the Foundation Center for Studies on Turkey at Essen University. Their write-ups leave a lot to be desired, but they have apparently conducted two telephone surveys of Turkish Muslims in Germany, one in 2000 and one in 2005, that asked questions on religion. I’ll write up some of the findings in a future post.
I hate to spoil the fun, but now that I know about this data, I think I’ll have to cook up another contest…
Ok , I have just read this post after the second one you’ve posted. (In the wrong order.)So sorry if this comment becomes useless. Anyways, I want to point out another possibility why people might think religiosity might have increased among the Turkish immigrants. It is very likely that over last 5-10 years, the number and the composition of Turkish immigrants haven’t been stable. Germany offically doesn’t accept any immigrants anymore. Newcomers are only coming through family reunifications and / or as politicial refugees. The latter is negligibly small. However the former has different selection processes. Most of the Turkish women who marry with a second generation Turkish immigrant in Germany are actually coming from conservative(traditional/ rural) families in Turkey.
I am also kind of confused about the indicators of increased religiosity. Generally speaking , i can say that “visual religiosity” has also increased in their motherland Turkey over the years. I could agree that you see more headscarfs in Turkey and in Germany. At the same time however, you see lately headscarf-wearing girls going to clubbing, dancing, beaches… etc. which were unthinkable a decade ago for the headscarf wearing people. So whatcould have happened? May be the rural poor out-of- sight people became burgeoise and visible in the last decade. And they started sharing more common spaces with non religious segment of the society. Why can’t a German native think that this is an indicator of increased visibility of muslim women when she sees more headscarfed women in the street? May be they don’t stay as much at home as they used to years ago. May be they join more to the street life in the last 5 years. They go out more or activities like shopping, neighbourhood ogranisations, movies became more available for women too. Does this make them more religious? I don’t know.
But think they’re more integrated with the capitalism in general, their lifestyles became less differenty than non religious people. One interesting data can come from at least for Turkey women driving licencence holders. Their number tripled in the last decade. What is the overall percentage of headscarf wearing women in Turkey? It is estimated to be between 45 -55% percent. This rate is now almost exactly represented among the driving- licence- holder- headscarf-wearing women. May be nowadays as their life began to resembling their non -religious counterpart, these women have assigned additional importance to the religious symbols to differentiate themselves and to keep their identity.
Sorry for writing too long. You must be asking. Ok but Berkay How can one be sure all about this…Show me the data! Well I can’t I am just speculating. Just wanted to make some bla bla bla about this issue … Well, therefore, I claim my share of compassion and tolerance that is provided to anybody who made the comment that ” religiosity has increased” without showing any data…
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