The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior has, for the first time, provided details about the creation of the failed online video against Salafism and Islamism. The animated clip, released at the beginning of September, aimed to show how young people are being radicalized by extremist preachers about everyday issues. It shows a woman who, among other things, disappears into the huge maw of a bearded man.
It was supposed to be the start of a major awareness campaign on social media. The lack of distinction between religion and extremism and the stereotypical imagery were criticized. The ministry deleted the video after a few hours, stopped the campaign for the time being and regretted any irritation. Now, in response to a written request from Florian Siekmann (Greens), deputy head of the Interior Committee in the state parliament, it explained how the clip came about. The SZ has the answer, which has not yet been published.
The campaign was therefore created by the Ministry of the Interior itself, with advice from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the State Criminal Police Office. External experts or representatives of Muslim associations were not involved. A communications agency was commissioned with the technical and design implementation. They, in turn, played the video “accidentally prematurely”, i.e. apparently without approval and final control – on “X” and YouTube, but not on other channels at the time. The largest part of the planned advertising budget is earmarked for the Tiktok channel, which is very popular with young people.
As a result, the usual “visual and optical orientation that works heavily with simplifications” emerged. A revision is currently taking place. The goal remains: Islamists lure young people with seemingly harmless questions and with their media habits. The latter “often fall into the clutches of extremists unnoticed” – this requires “counter-narratives”. Costs of 140,000 euros are estimated for the entire campaign. The individual video was not billed separately.
“It was a serious strategic mistake by the CSU Interior Minister to launch a campaign against Salafism without involving the liberal Muslim community,” complains the Green Siekmann. “The damage of serving Salafist victim narratives instead of fighting them could have been avoided.” The liberal Muslim community must be at the table during the revision, “they are an ally in the fight against extremism.”
Four weeks ago, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann apologized “explicitly” to Muslims for the video at a meeting of the CSU-affiliated Hanns Seidel Foundation: “The chosen imagery gave the unwanted impression that the campaign was generally against Muslims According to the response to the Greens, criminal complaints have been received by the Munich public prosecutor’s office because of the clip and are “in the review process”.