# taz.de -- New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne: “It is a poisoned debate“ | |
> Fantasies of the right seemed to have come true. Sociologist explains why | |
> that very night leaves more of an impression than the terror attacks. | |
Bild: A blick from the Dom to the Main Station: how will be New Year's Eve this… | |
Mr. Nassehi, it has been one year since the Cologne new year's eve with its | |
incidents. Since then there have been terrorist attacks in Würzburg, | |
Ansbach and, most recently, Berlin. Does Cologne still stand out? | |
Armin Nassehi: Yes. The terrorist attacks were carried out by individuals | |
who were different from the refugee crowd after all. Cologne on the other | |
hand looked like a mass phenomenon. | |
What do you mean by that? | |
An image, almost a cliché, had come to life. Strangers you’d usually meet | |
around town suddenly become a collective thread. The perpetrators of | |
Cologne often were described as an amorphous crowd of people that was all | |
equally wild, equally dangerous. Even if you hadn’t seen it, you could | |
vividly imagine it. | |
Like a figment of the imagination of Pegida? | |
Yes. By now we know that about half of these people were refugees. The | |
other half were people of an migration background who have been in Germany | |
for longer and come from partly problematic, ethnically segregated areas | |
and hid behind a large number of refugees. These had been deviously hiding | |
behind a large number of refugees. For the attacked women and, even more in | |
the public debate, it looked like a homogeneous group. | |
Was there a connection between these men? | |
As a scientist I teach my students that talking about other cultures and | |
large groups creates more identity than there actually is. Groups we | |
identify from the outside as such are very heterogeneous themselves. During | |
that New Year’s Eve, on the other hand, there had also been a culture | |
clash. There were men who had experienced a more authoritarian upbringing | |
than most people know in Germany. Men who come from societies where | |
traditional domination plays an important role, especially in the home | |
countries of most of the perpetrators. | |
I can see that you feel uncomfortable when saying this. | |
It is a dilemma: do I use a generalising and culturalising argument? Or do | |
I, as a scientist, express adequately that it is no coincidence that these | |
men originate from certain family structures where the concept of honour, | |
the family bond, religion as a source of identity and orientation towards | |
patriarchal peer groups play an important role? This dilemma already begins | |
with the identification of such cultural obstinacy, because this does not | |
serve as an explanation for everything, regardless of the fact that the | |
social structure in gangs committing right-wing violence is very similar. | |
In the end, the entire communication about these issues is poisoned because | |
every exaggerated term describing a collective is as inadequate as the | |
denial of the negative effects of migration and fleeing a country. In | |
Cologne this dilemma reached a visible climax, even if it only affected a | |
small part of the migrant population. | |
By now some of the perpetrators were sentenced for theft and two for sexual | |
harassment. Is an adequate appraisal of the events possible? | |
Hardly. The night of Cologne almost has something mythical about it by now. | |
People say “Cologne“ or “Domplatte“ (the local name for the cathedral) … | |
everyone knowswhat is meant by that. At the same time we still don’t know | |
what has really happened. It was difficult to gather evidence, the police | |
could not handle the situation. The state can not give closure to the | |
victims. It can only punish what can be proved. This is actually proof that | |
the state functions according to the rule of law. But this must sound | |
cynical to many of the affected women. | |
The right immediately found a language to express themselves after this | |
event. A lot of leftists found that difficult. Why? | |
When communicating, there is an excessive fear of being racist by pointing | |
out any differences at all. This is actually a sign of a certain dishonesty | |
in the leftists’ argumentation that pays too much attention to origin and | |
cultural affiliation. Now this slightly neurotic sensitivity clashes with | |
the allegation of being sexist. Which issue is more serious? Some tried to | |
escape this by putting it into perspective. Such things would happen at | |
Oktoberfest as well. This has been perceived as a mockery of the victims. | |
Why is it mocking to say: this kind of behaviour seems familiar –from | |
festivities in Germany? | |
It was perceived as mockery because the behaviour in Cologne was unique in | |
its dynamic and its extent. The reaction seemed to prove that leftist and | |
feminist groups are completely insensitive to negative effects of fleeing a | |
country and migration, even if a mere fraction of the migrants are | |
concerned. This is why that night could turn into a symbol of the failed | |
multicultural society. Each statement relativising the events sounds like a | |
wish to distort them, because you wish them to be different. It also shows | |
that we in Germany have no experience of debating the negative effects of | |
migration controversially. | |
Aren’t we constantly discussing this? | |
But we avoid uncomfortable questions. Look how it is often uncomfortable | |
for leftists to talk about the origin of the men in Cologne. But one of the | |
principles of leftist thinking is that specific circumstances define us. | |
This includes cultural backgrounds. You simply have to take into acccount | |
that some standards and experiences with public and private institutions of | |
many countries of origin are not compatible with those in Europe. This is | |
not an argument in favour of culturalization. To turn a blind eye to it | |
plays down the dimension of some of the events. And it is not helpful that | |
incompatible groups like this, for example potentially violent far-right | |
peer groups, exist in Europe as well. The number of attacks on refugees | |
from the far-right speaks for itself. At the same time, from the | |
sociological point of view it must be made clear that terms such as “the | |
North Africans“, “the blacks“, and “the women“ are not defensable in | |
empirical terms, because there are big differences within these groups. | |
Nevertheless, there are cultural differences, and cultural conflicts. Even | |
if it is uncomfortable, those who mean well in particular have to seriously | |
consider these issues. We cannot leave the debate to those who say: we have | |
always known it. | |
After the Berlin attack the perpetrator’s possible country of origin was | |
quickly mentioned. Has the debate been more measured than the one after | |
Cologne? | |
You can identify two stages. During the first one everyone, including me, | |
hoped that it wouldn’t be a refugee. I was afraid that after that a | |
reasonable debate about the effects of migration and escape from danger | |
wouldn’t be possible anymore. Others were hoping that it would be a | |
refugee, because they can use it to underline their politics. During the | |
second stage the perpetrator was discussed in a more differentiated way, as | |
was the strategy of the 'Islamic State’. | |
Do you think it matters for many Germans whether the perpetrator was a | |
refugee or a migrant? | |
For many it probably doesn’t. But the tone of the debate was moderate. The | |
AfD (Alternative for Germany) and the Identitarian movement couldn’t | |
mobilise a lot of people for their demonstrations after the attacks. But we | |
could see many Muslims on the street protesting against violence and | |
showing their grief. It was impressive. | |
Is this the beginning of a new “Us“ that stands against the fear strategy | |
of AfD and IS? | |
Some would like it to be. But I don’t believe so, especially as such | |
beliefs in an “Us“ are rather trite. There is something beguiling about the | |
atmosphere after an attack: everyone stands together, encourages each | |
other, demonstrates that life goes on. It resembles mourning rituals we | |
know from religions. But this beguilement doesn’t last long. Also this | |
beguiling 'Us’ isn’t maintainable. It satisfies the need for strong | |
statements and moral support, but it is politically insignificant. | |
Do you fear that this “Us“could be exploited by politicians? | |
That might then be called “Leitkultur“ (leading culture). In modern, | |
liberal societies there should simply be as little “Us“ as possible, since | |
integration – of all population groups – is not a problem of commitment but | |
a question of practice. Integration means putting up with each other and | |
having the decency not to pester each other. The question is under which | |
circumstances this is possible. Strongly segregated, patriarchal migrant | |
communities conflict with that just as much as the petit bourgeois general | |
suspicion against everything that is different. | |
Currently, public discourse seems obscene. Leftists celebrate in social | |
networks because the man who kicked a woman down the stairs in Berlin is a | |
Christian Bulgarian and not a Syrian. The teenagers who tried to set a | |
homeless man on fire in Berlin are refugees, which makes rightists cheer. | |
Many people feel that these times are confusing, both leftists and | |
rightists. Something like a fundamental law of perception applies here: If | |
things get complicated, we hold on to visible things. Nothing generates | |
more attention and order than: origin, skin-colour, religion, language. Of | |
course, these features mean something, but just not everything. What all | |
these differences have in common is that it’s about strongly male-dominated | |
peer groups, where the violation of rules is not considered deviant | |
behaviour but the consistent condition for belonging to the group. | |
A left-wing club in Leipzig has recently written in an open letter that | |
there have been problems with sexual assaults by guests who were refugees. | |
I am a learned pedagogue and one of the experiences one acquires in this | |
job is that the people you support can indeed be arseholes. Those people in | |
Leipzig were smart enough not to steal away nor to simply change sides, but | |
to admit that they are caught in a dilemma. | |
Some leftists thought that it would have been better to sort that out | |
internally. | |
Luckily they haven’t done that. We should be happy about everyone who can | |
admit that they are caught in a dilemma. Our political discourse suffers | |
from the fact that only few people have the courage to do that. That does | |
not only apply to leftists. | |
To speak out on dilemmas is unattractive. Saying that the world is | |
complicated doesn’t make politicians seem particularly strong. | |
That’s true, currently, elections are rather won with simplifications. But | |
where credible decisions are concerned, simplification quickly reaches a | |
dead end. If Merkel’s “We can do it“ had at least hinted at the related | |
dilemmas, the hateful campaigns against refugee politics might have had | |
more difficulties. | |
Someone who admits a dilemma must expect to be applauded by the wrong side… | |
…otherwise it wouldn’t be a dilemma. This fear of reaction is | |
characteristic of the tribal culture we live in. We feel that we belong to | |
our own tribe and, if possible, should not do anything which could appeal | |
to other tribes. In a speech, I once praised the CSU’s operative | |
integration policy. If you ignore mainstream nonsense and populist semantic | |
excesses, this policy in Bavaria really is going in the right direction. | |
For saying that, I have had to take harsh criticism. And for writing that | |
young, underemployed men can produce problems in public space, six weeks | |
before Cologne. | |
Why? Crime statistics show that young men are a dangerous group. I grew up | |
in East Germany and had to learn to avoid such groups. | |
Many well-meaning persons would have no problem with saying that about | |
extreme right-wing male peer groups who are prone to violence in East | |
Germany, but when it comes to refugees, they fear being considered racist. | |
That’s how simple semantic cultures are sometimes. Good and bad, black and | |
white, instead of empirically looking more closely. | |
Much surround the refugee debates is reminiscent of discussions in | |
countries where war is raging. In Ukraine, for example, people with a | |
different opinion are often accused of helping the enemy. | |
There is a similarity. What we have been experiencing for several years now | |
is an increasingly fierce culture war for who has the narrative authority | |
to decide what can be said and what is deemed “normal“. It is not a | |
coincidence that issues such as family politics, gender roles, sexual | |
orientation and the migration question are the decisive triggers of this | |
culture war. | |
Are they the marginalised and left-behind who are talked about so much? | |
Without a doubt, there is a problem with the increasing economic | |
precariousness of some population groups, but this does not explain the | |
success of right-wing populist, xenophobic and reactionary thinking. This | |
purely economic thesis sometimes sounds like the left-wing equivalent to | |
the oversimplified AfD-story of overwhelming immigration as an explanation | |
for almost everything. There is precarity in the well-to-do classes. They | |
are the losers of modernisation in the sense that they have lost the | |
authority to consistently say what is the right way of life. | |
But this has been developing for a while. | |
Indeed. For three decades, sociologists have been continuously diagnosing | |
new complexities – and thereby underestimate the force of inertia of | |
well-established institutions and forms of life. Therefore, a culture war | |
arises between winners and losers in the fight for the power of definition | |
and over what can be said. A previously excluded third party is now | |
entering this battlefield: refugees. One party can show solidarity with | |
them, the other can’t. For those who feel dependant on their power to | |
define, the refugees are proof that everything here is going wrong. | |
A lot of this sounds like what the CDU used to say in the past. | |
At least until the 1970s, yes. The change is most visible in the CDU/CSU. | |
How fundamental is the change of power among the people who have a say in | |
deciding what is considered as normal? As fundamental as the change from | |
nobility to the bourgeoisie as the leading class? | |
I would not call it a real change of era. Quite the contrary: it is almost | |
as if what had always been promised by the Enlightenment is now coming to | |
pass. It is always about establishing new speakers: the lower classes, | |
people who have a different denomination, women, people who are culturally | |
and ethnically different, homosexuals. There are increasingly fewer groups | |
who can clearly assert themselves over others. Until recently, that was a | |
privilege for well-educated, native, heterosexual men with careers… | |
…that is, for old, white men. | |
This is what they are disrespectfully called – it’s culturally symbolic, | |
standing for these new rights. At some points, there have certainly been | |
semantic exaggerations, in academic environments, for example. But all of | |
that is just a symbol for the fact that the issue of the power of | |
definition of what is valid, has become more confusing. In any case, these | |
rights don’t make the world simpler, instead they reorganise power options. | |
Right-wing populism all over Europe has, at any rate, shifted the focus | |
from questions of distribution to questions of cultural definitions. | |
What is the AfD’s utopia? | |
The 1950s. That’s why they jump at everything that was different back then. | |
Why are people interested in gender roles today? Why are they interested in | |
sexuality? Why do people talk about migration? Because it was the time of | |
the self-sufficient, homogeneous nation-state, where the foreigner really | |
was a stranger. Back then, even the Frenchman was a stranger. But today, | |
not even the AfD could say that without sounding ridiculous. The utopia is | |
a less complex society. | |
And what is the alternative utopia, more complexity? That doesn’t sound | |
very appealing. | |
The question is how we can become more resistant to deviations in a | |
volatile world, how we can better tolerate what is different. Since this is | |
difficult at the moment, many people are content with very simple | |
explanations. This applies to the whole arsenal of right-wing cultural | |
criticism, to the left-wing illusion that everything is just a problem of | |
distribution. Maybe we need a completely new understanding of what makes up | |
modern conditions of life, which we possibly still envisage far too much in | |
terms of the categories of the classical industrial society’s institutions. | |
Original in German/auf Deutsch: [1][„Die Diskussion ist vergiftet“] | |
8 Feb 2018 | |
## LINKS | |
[1] /Soziologe-ueber-Silvester-vor-einem-Jahr/!5369637 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Daniel Schulz | |
## TAGS | |
taz international | |
taz in English | |
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