An Inherited Culture of Hate

• "I hate Christians and Jews. I don't know why. I don't have any apparent reason to hate them but I always hear my mom talking badly about them. She hates them too, and this is why I hate them, I guess. Mom has always told me that Muslims are Allah's favorite people," — F., a 15-year-old Tunisian girl.
• "They said that non-Muslims deserve to die; we should have no pity for them. They will burn in hell, anyway." — M., a 16-year-old Tunisian boy.
• People who do not read tend to fear things they do not know, and this fear can turn into suspicion, aggression and hate. These people need to fill the void, to remove the discomfort, so they turn to terrorism to create a goal in their lives: defending Islam.
• As most Tunisians do not read, they watch TV a lot. "After watching 'The Sultan's Harem,' I wanted to be one of the Sultan's concubines, to live in the Ottoman Empire era; I wanted to be like them," said S., a 14-year-old Tunisian girl.

A Pew Research Center report, published in 2013, entitled, "The World's Muslims, Religion, Politics and Society," explored attitudes and opinions of Muslims around the world regarding religion and its impact on politics, ethics and science.
A sample of 1450 Tunisian Muslims from all the 24 governorates of Tunisia were interviewed between November and December 2011. According to the study, 50% of Tunisians consider themselves living a conflict between their religion and the modern world. According to the report, 32% of Tunisians consider divorce unethical -- the highest rate in the Arab and Muslim world -- compared to 8% in Egypt, 6% in Lebanon and 3% in Jordan. Although 46% respondents said that religion is compatible with the modern world, the study indicated that the Tunisian population is more prone to advocate individual choice -- with 89% favoring -- in wearing the niqab (face-veil).
Similarly, based on the United Nations report and research from the Quilliam Foundation in 2014, Tunisian terrorists represent the highest number (3,800) of foreign terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Syrian authorities also confirmed that the number of Tunisian terrorists is more than 10,000, out of a total of 48,000 terrorists in Syrian territory.
What are the main reasons for Tunisia's high rate of terrorism?
Religions in general are double-edged: they contribute to solving many social problems and help to establish security and safety, due to the ethical laws they impose. It is expected that the majority of people will not commit crimes because they fear God and his punishment. Religion can also represent psychological security and stability for some people who need to be reassured by believing that an unlimited strength of goodness is watching over them.
On the other hand, many people have misinterpreted religion -- sometimes deliberately, sometimes not -- often creating conflicts between different ethnicities and religions, such as the conflict between the Jews and the Muslims. Religion, therefore, has also been used to incite violence, hate and wars -- just as ISIS, a salafi jihadist group that is recruiting more and more soldiers all over the world, has been doing.
The majority of jihadists are indoctrinated from their earliest childhood by television programs. For example, Spacetoon, an Arab children's program, created a fictional female character named Fulla. The program usually shows Fulla as a pious person, praying and wearing a hijab -- an image that influences a lot of children. Y., a 15-year-old girl, explained:

"When I was younger, about seven or eight years old, I used to watch Fulla and ask my mom to wear hijab like her, since I thought this is how a woman is supposed to dress. I also tried to wear hijab several times and asked my mom to let me wear it."

Kindergartens also play a major role in influencing children.
"In kindergarten, the teachers used to tell us about how we will be punished after our death, how we will burn in hell if we behave badly. I was so frightened hearing these stories that I imagined terrible scenes in my head", said T., a 15-year-old boy.
Schools in Tunisia teach compulsory religious education beginning in the first grade, to help children discover and understand their religion's fundamentals.
"I used to cheat on the religious education's exams that come at the end of each term," said E., a 15-year-old girl.

"I wasn't doing it because I was lazy, but because we had only an hour each term to study theology in class, with a teacher who gave us a long surat [section from the Quran] and some ahadith quotes from the prophet to learn. We did not understand anything in class; some of us would just learn it by heart without understanding the meaning. Others just cheated because they couldn't learn something they didn't understand. The problem is, school did not give us the opportunity to discover other religions, since Jews and Christians are considered for most of Muslims as kuffar [infidels]."

This inherited culture of hate towards other religions has created an extremist way of thinking and a feeling of superiority.
"I hate Christians and Jews. I don't know why. I don't have any apparent reason to hate them but I always hear my mom talking badly about them. She hates them too, and this is why I hate them, I guess. Mom has always told me that Muslims are Allah's favorite people," said F., a 15-year-old girl.
"After the Nice attack, I had some friends on social media expressing their disapproval of people who empathized with the victims. They said that non-Muslims deserve to die; we should have no pity for them. They will burn in hell, anyway," said M., a 16-year-old boy.
This extremist way of thinking is bolstered by the fact that 80% of Tunisians do not read books, according to a study conducted in March 2015. People who do not read are living in an emotional void: they tend to fear things they do not know, and this fear can turn into suspicion, aggression and hate. These people need to fill the void, to remove the discomfort, so they turn to terrorism to create a goal in their lives: defending Islam.
"I know this Tunisian boy who lives in Saudi Arabia with his parents, and who comes to Tunisia to spend the holidays, in my neighborhood", said R., a 14 year-old-girl.

"He was a normal 15-year-old teenager, and he used to play football with my brother and his friends. Recently, they all noticed the boy isolated himself and started to read books on faith and Islam. One day, he came to my brother and his friends and told them to stop playing football; it was haram [forbidden]. Soon after, he was seen in the neighborhood, walking in the darkness and reading the Quran."

As most Tunisians do not read, they watch TV a lot. "Hareem Al Sultan" ("The Sultan's Harem"), a Turkish TV series, is popular in Tunisia. The series shows how the attractive concubines try to seduce the Sultan by dancing, singing, and being obedient and submissive -- all of which can encourage girls to join the jihad al-nikah ("sexual jihad"), by which girls provide sex to jihadists.
"After watching Hareem Al Sultan, I wanted to be one of the Sultan's concubines, to live in the Ottoman Empire era; I wanted to be like them," said S., a 14-year-old girl.

"The Sultan's Harem", a Turkish TV series popular in Tunisia, shows attractive concubines trying to seduce the Sultan by dancing, singing, and being obedient and submissive -- all of which can encourage girls to join the "sexual jihad", by which girls provide sex to jihadists.

All of these factors contribute indirectly to forming an extremist and a terrorist way of thinking. We always think that it is in Iraq or in Syria that we should fight terrorism. But the battleground is in schools, in homes, on TV and on social media. It is there that we need to fight extremist ideologies and racial and religious hate -- they are the starting point of every terrorist.

Tharwa Boulifi, aged 15, lives in Tunisia.

Germany: Beginning of the End of the Merkel Era?

• The anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
• The election was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel's open-door migration policy and her decision to allow more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015.
• Merkel rejected any course correction on migration policy: "I am very unsatisfied with the outcome of the election. Obviously it has something to do with the refugee question. I think the decisions that were made were correct." She went on to blame German voters for failing to appreciate her government's "problem-solving abilities".
• Many of the AfD's positions were once held, but later abandoned, by the Merkel's CDU.
• A September 1 poll showed Merkel's popularity rating has plunged to 45%, a five-year low. More than half (51%) of those surveyed said it would "not be good" if Merkel ran for another term in 2017.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a major blow on September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.
With 20.8% of the vote, the AfD came in second place behind the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) (30.6%). Merkel's CDU came in third place, with 19% of the vote, the worst result it has ever had in Meck-Pomm, as the state is called for short.
The election in Meck-Pomm was widely seen as a referendum on Merkel's open-door migration policy and her decision to allow more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East to enter Germany in 2015. The migrant influx has resulted in a notable increase in crime in the country. The growing sense of insecurity has been exacerbated by a series of attacks this summer by Muslim migrants in which ten people were killed and dozens more were injured.
The CDU debacle in Meck-Pomm yields two main conclusions: 1) Merkel's hopes of winning — or even running — for a fourth term in general elections in 2017 are now in doubt; and 2) the AfD is a force to be reckoned with in German politics. It can longer be simply dismissed as a "fringe party."
Observers from across the political spectrum seem to agree that the election in Meck-Pomm marks a turning point for Merkel, who has been head of the CDU since 2000 and chancellor since November 2005. Some say her political career may effectively be over if the CDU suffers heavy losses to the AfD in state elections in Berlin on September 18.
"This was a dark day for Merkel," said Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at the University of Cologne. "Everyone knows she lost this election. Her district in parliament is there, she campaigned there, and refugees are her issue."
The CDU's secretary general, Peter Tauber, agreed: "The strong performance of AfD is bitter for many, for everyone in our party. A sizeable number of people wanted to voice their displeasure and to protest. And we saw that particularly in discussions about refugees."
The leader of the AfD, Frauke Petry, said: "This is a blow for Merkel, not only in Berlin but also in her home state. The voters made a clear statement against Merkel's disastrous immigration policies. This put her in her place."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) suffered a major blow on September 4 when the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany, led by Frauke Petry (right), surged ahead of her Christian Democratic Union in elections in her home state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

Local AfD leader Leif-Erik Holm told supporters: "We are writing history. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of Angela Merkel's chancellorship. This must be our goal."
Gero Neugebauer, a professor of political scientist at Berlin's Free University, said:

"People will see this defeat as the start of the 'Kanzlerdämmerung' (twilight of the chancellor). If a lot of CDU members start seeing this defeat as Merkel's fault, and members of parliament start seeing her as a danger for the party and their own jobs next year, the whole situation could escalate out of control. If the AfD defeats the CDU again in Berlin in two weeks, things could get ugly fast."

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Ralf Stegner, the vice president of the SPD, said the CDU was in a "state of panic" over the rise of the AfD and that Merkel has become a liability to her party:

"Merkel has clearly passed her zenith. It is a disaster for her that the CDU has fallen to third place with under 20% in her own state. This is a serious crisis for the CDU and it bears the names of Merkel and Seehofer. Some people now believe that Merkel no longer leads the debate with Seehofer about her 2017 candidacy. Throughout its history, the CDU has been merciless to its chancellors if there was the impression that the party was facing a massive loss of votes."

Stegner was referring to an August 27 report by Der Spiegel which said that Merkel has postponed an announcement about her candidacy due to opposition from the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which has been increasingly vocal in its criticism of her migration policy:

"Angela Merkel will delay until the spring of 2017 her decision whether to run for another term as chancellor of the CDU in the general election next year. The delay was necessary because only then will CSU chief Horst Seehofer decide whether his party will support Merkel again, according to CDU insiders. This is the second time that Merkel has had to postpone the announcement of her plans.
"Actually, her decision should have been announced a long time ago. The original plan was that Merkel would declare her intentions as early as last spring. But then the refugee crisis and the fierce dispute with the CSU got in the way. The Chancellor decided to wait until this fall.
"This time the delay is more problematic for Merkel. In December, the CDU party congress takes place in Essen, where Merkel wants to be elected as party chairman for another two years.
"But she can only be party chairman if she is a candidate in the general election. The party congress should send a signal that the CDU fully supports the Chancellor. This will not work if the party does not know if Merkel wants to continue.
"From Merkel's perspective, the alternative would be more risky: If she announces her candidacy for chancellor without Seehofer's support, it could hurt her politically."

In a September 6 interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung, CSU leader Horst Seehofer, said the "disastrous" election outcome in Meck-Pomm was a direct consequence Merkel's migration policy. He added that Merkel had ignored "multiple prompts for a course correction" and that her refusal to budge threatens the future of the CDU. "Confidence in the government is dwindling rapidly," he warned. "People do not understand how policy is made in Germany."
CSU Secretary General Andreas Scheuer reiterated the call for Merkel to change course: "We need a cap on refugees, faster deportations and better integration."
Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder agreed: "The result must be a wake-up call for the CDU. The mood of the people can no longer be ignored. A change of course is needed in Berlin."
Merkel remains defiant. A day after the debacle in Meck-Pomm, Merkel rejected any course correction on migration policy:

"I am very unsatisfied with the outcome of the election. Obviously it has something to do with the refugee question. I think the decisions that were made were correct."

She went on to blame German voters for failing to appreciate her government's "problem-solving abilities" (Lösungskompetenz).
On September 7, in a fiery address to the German parliament, Merkel said the AfD's anti-immigration stance posed a threat to Germany. "All of us should realize the AfD is a challenge not only for the Christian Democrats... they are a challenge for everyone in this house." She may also have indicated that she intends to seek another term as chancellor when she said: "There is still a lot of work to be done."

Alternative for Germany (AfD)

In more ways than one, Angela Merkel is directly responsible for the rise of the AfD. In her more than ten years as chancellor, she has moved the CDU to the left on so many key issues that the party is no longer conservative in any meaningful sense of the word.
Under Merkel, the CDU's policies on nuclear energy have become essentially identical to those of the Green Party. Merkel has also adopted many of the social policies of the SPD. In terms the open-door migration policy, the CDU's position is virtually indistinguishable from both the SPD and the Greens. This has created an opening for the AfD.
Launched in 2013, the AfD is now present in nine of Germany's 16 state parliaments. It is poised to enter the federal parliament for the first time in 2017. According to an Insa poll cited by Bild on September 5, if the national election were held today, the AfD would win 15% of the vote, making it the third-largest party in Germany.
The Insa poll also found that in the Meck-Pomm election, the AfD siphoned off more than 55,000 votes from other parties. More than 22,000 CDU voters cast their ballots for the AfD; 15,000 SPD voters voted for the AfD; and more than 22,000 voters affiliated with other parties gave their votes to the AfD.
The party was originally founded to protest the German government's handling of the eurozone crisis. Its founding manifesto stated:

"The Federal Republic of Germany is facing the most serious crisis in its history. The euro currency area has proved to be unworkable. Southern European countries are sliding into poverty under the competitive pressure of the euro. Entire states are on the verge of default.
"Hundreds of billions of euros have already been pledged by the federal government. An end to this policy is not in sight. This is excessive and irresponsible. We, our children and our grandchildren will have to pay for this with taxes, stagnation and inflation. At the same time, this is eroding our democracy. In this situation, the CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP and the Greens know only one answer: Keep it up!"

In April 2013, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung revealed that CDU insiders viewed the rise of the AfD as "the end of Merkel's chancellorship." A strategy was set in place to conduct opposition research and paint the AfD as a "national conservative" party driven by proponents of "market radicalism."
The AfD — similar in many ways to the upstart Tea Party movement in the United States — has suffered self-inflicted wounds as a result of political infighting and internal power struggles. Establishment politicians and the mainstream media have repeatedly seized on outrageous comments made by some within the party to portray it as a "far right" party that poses a threat to German values.
In an interview with the Guardian, Frauke Petry, the AfD leader, said the party has sometimes felt forced to use outspoken language to get its message across. She said:

"Well, sometimes, I don't deny, we think we have to use provocative arguments in order to be heard. Because we tried very hard at the beginning of 2013 to be heard with lots of very sensible thinking and arguments, and we simply couldn't get through to anyone. So what do you do? You put forward a provocative argument, and sometimes you are given the chance to explain what you meant. I know it's a difficult choice to make but sometimes, for us, it feels like the only way."

Petry also said the AfD is not opposed to "real refugees," but it is against the hundreds of thousands of economic migrants who are posing as refugees. "There is enough space for refugees in Germany, but the problem is that we don't distinguish anymore between migrants and asylum seekers," she said.
A comprehensive party manifesto published in May 2016 called for: limited government; term limits; campaign finance reform; reducing the power of political parties; direct elections for chancellor; devolving power to federal states; a referendum on the euro; reforming the United Nations; a strong military based on the NATO alliance; reintroducing conscription; stronger police enforcement; justice reform; gun rights; protecting German borders; labor market reform; eliminating burdensome bureaucracy; promoting the traditional family; encouraging Germans to have more children rather than resorting to mass migration to fix its demographic problems; protecting the rights of the unborn; promoting German culture rather than multiculturalism; promoting the German language as the basis for German identity and for integration; banning the foreign financing of mosques; eliminating government subsidies for radio and television; and so on. Many of the AfD's positions were once held, but later abandoned, by the CDU.
Meanwhile, a September 1 poll for ARD television showed Merkel's popularity rating has plunged to 45%, a five-year low, and down from a high of 67% one year ago. More than half (51%) of those surveyed said it would "not be good" if Merkel ran for another term in 2017. If national elections were held today, the CDU would win just 33%, down from 42% one year ago.
The poll showed one factor in Merkel's favor: the lack of a political rival strong enough to challenge her.

Western Publishers Submit to Islam

• For criticizing Islam, Hamed Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house. This is what the Soviets did to destroy writers: destroy their books.
• At a time when dozens of novelists, journalists and scholars are facing Islamists' threats, it is unforgivable that Western publishers not only agree to bow down, but are often the first to capitulate.
• A Paris court convicted Renaud Camus for "Islamophobia" (a fine of 4,000 euros) for a speech he gave in 2010, in which he spoke of the replacement of the French people under the Trojan horse of multiculturalism. Another writer, Richard Millet, was fired last March by Gallimard publishing house for his ideas on multiculturalism.
• Not only did Rushdie's publishers capitulate; other publishers also decided to break rank and return to do business with Tehran. Oxford University Press decided to take part in the Tehran Book Fair along with two American publishers, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley. Those publishers chose to respond to murderous censorship with surrender.
• It is as if at the time of the Nazis' book-burnings, Western publishers had not only stood silent, but had also invited a German delegation to Paris and New York.

When Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses came out in 1989, Viking Penguin, the British and American publisher of the novel, was subjected to daily Islamist harassment. As Daniel Pipes wrote, the London office resembled "an armed camp," with police protection, metal detectors and escorts for visitors. In Viking's New York offices, dogs sniffed packages and the place was designated a "sensitive location". Many bookshops were attacked and many even refused to sell the book. Viking spent about $3 million on security measures in 1989, the fatal year for Western freedom of expression.
Nonetheless, Viking never flinched. It was a miracle that the novel finally came out. Other publishers, however, faltered. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. Most Western publishers are now faltering. That is the meaning of the new Hamed Abdel-Samad affair.
The Muslim Brotherhood gave Abdel-Samad all that an Egyptian boy could wish for: spirituality, camaraderie, companionship, a purpose. In Giza, Hamed Samad became part of the Brotherhood. His father had taught him the Koran; the Brotherhood explained him how to translate these teachings into practice.
Abdel-Samad repudiated them after one day in the desert. The Brothers had given all the new militants an orange after they had walked under the sun for hours. They were ordered to peel it. Then the Brotherhood asked them to bury the fruit in the sand, and to eat the peel. The next day, Abdel-Samad left the organization. It was the humiliation needed to turn a human being into a terrorist.
Abdel-Samad today is 46 years old and lives in Munich, Germany, where he married a Danish girl and works for the Institute of Jewish History and Culture at the University of Munich. In his native Egyptian village, his first book caused an uproar. Some Muslims wanted to burn it.
Abdel-Samad's recent book, Der Islamische Faschismus: Eine Analyse, has just been burned at the stake not in Cairo by Islamists, but in France by some of the self-righteous French.
The book is a bestseller in Germany, where it has been published by the well-known publisher, Droemer Knaur. An English translation has been published in the U.S. by Prometheus Books, under the title Islamic Fascism. Two years ago, the French publisher, Piranha, acquired the rights to translate Abdel-Samad's book about "Islamic Fascism" into French. A publication date was even posted on Amazon: September 16. But at the last moment, the publisher stopped its release. Jean-Marc Loubet, head of the publishing house, announced to Abdel-Samad's agent that the publication of his book is now unthinkable in France, not only for security reasons, but also because it would reinforce the "extreme right".
For criticizing Islam, Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house. This is what the Soviets did to destroy writers: destroy his books.
Mr. Abdel-Samad's case is not new. At a time when dozens of novelists, journalists and scholars are facing Islamists' threats, it is unforgivable that Western publishers not only agree to bow down, but are often the first to capitulate.

For criticizing Islam, Hamed Abdel-Samad lives under police protection in Germany and, as with Rushdie, a fatwa hangs over him. After the fatwa come the insults: being censored by a free publishing house.

In France, for criticizing Islam in a column titled "We refuse to change civilization" for the daily newspaper, Le Monde, the famous writer, Renaud Camus, lost his publisher, Fayard.
Before he suddenly became "unpopular" in the Paris's literary establishment, Renaud Camus had been friends with Louis Aragon, the famous Communist poet and founder of surrealism, and was close joining "the immortals" of the French Academy. Roland Barthes, the star of the Collège de France, had written the preface to Renaud Camus' most famous novel, Tricks, the cult-classic book of gay culture.
Then a Paris court convicted Camus for "Islamophobia" (a fine of 4,000 euros), for a speech he gave on December 18, 2010, in which he spoke of "Grand Remplacement", the replacement of the French people under the Trojan horse of multiculturalism. It was then that Camus became persona non grata in France.
The Jewel of Medina, a novel by the American writer Sherry Jones about the life of the third wife of Muhammad, was first purchased and then scrapped by the powerful publisher Random House, which had already paid her an advance and launched an ambitious promotional campaign. Sherry Jones's new publisher, Gibson Square, was then firebombed by Islamists in London.
Then there was Yale University Press, which published a book by Jytte Klausen, "The Cartoons That Shook the World", on the history of the controversial "Mohammad cartoons" that were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, and crisis that followed. But Yale University Press published the book without the cartoons, and without any other images of the Muslim prophet Mohammad that were to be included.
"The capitulation of Yale University Press to threats that hadn't even been made yet is the latest and perhaps the worst episode in the steady surrender to religious extremism -- particularly Muslim religious extremism -- that is spreading across our culture," commented the late Christopher Hitchens. Yale was possibly hoping to get in line for the same $20 million donation from Saudi Arabia's Prince Al-Wwaleed bin Talal that he had just bestowed upon George Washington University and Harvard.
In Germany, Gabriele Brinkmann, a popular novelist, was also suddenly left without a publisher. According to her publisher, Droste, the novel Wem Ehre Geburt ("To Whom Honor Gives Birth") could be judged as "insulting to Muslims" and expose the publisher to intimidation. Brinkmann was asked to censor some passages; she refused and lost the publishing house.
This same cowardice and capitulation now pervades the entire publishing industry. Last year, Italy's most prestigious book fair in Turin chose (then shelved) Saudi Arabia as its guest of honor, despite the many writers and bloggers who are imprisoned in the Islamic kingdom. Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and a 10-year sentence, and a $260,000 fine.
Many Western publishers are now also "rejecting works by Israeli authors", according Time.com, despite their political views.
It was after Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses that many Western publishing houses first bowed to intimidation. Christian Bourgois, a French publishing house, refused to publish The Satanic Verses after having bought the rights, as did the German publisher, Kiepenheuer, who apparently said he regretted having acquired the rights to the book and chose to sell them to a consortium of fifty publishers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, gathered under the name "UN-Charta Artikel 19."
Not only did Rushdie's publishers capitulate; other publishers also decided to break ranks and return to do business with Tehran. Oxford University Press decided to take part in the Tehran Book Fair, along with two American publishers, McGraw-Hill and John Wiley, despite the request of Rushdie's publisher, Viking Penguin, to boycott the Iranian event. Those publishers chose to respond to murderous censorship with surrender, willing to sacrifice freedom of expression on the altar of business as usual: selling books was more important than solidarity with threatened colleagues.
It is as if at the time of the Nazis' book-burnings, Western publishers had not only stood silent, but had also invited a German delegation to Paris and New York. Is it so unimaginable today?