crime
Extremism researchers warn of increasing radicalization
Ahmad Mansour at the presentation of the nationwide “Mosques for Integration” project. photo
© Jörg Carstensen/dpa
The fall meeting of the Federal Criminal Police Office will address the question of how waves of violence can be broken. Expert Mansour calls for more “digital social work”.
The extremism researcher Ahmad Mansour sees anti-Semitic propaganda in… Germany has an increasing potential for radicalization, for example among right-wing extremists and Muslim young people. “That worries me very much,” he said in an interview with the German Press Agency. The author and psychologist is expected to speak at the autumn meeting of the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden on Thursday. The topic of the expert conference is “Causes and dynamics of violence – how do we break the wave?”.
According to figures from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, more than 3,500 crimes have been registered in Germany in this context since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th. According to the information, almost 500 clearly anti-Semitic crimes are known to date.
Hamas is waging a war on several fronts – “and one of these fronts is in Europe and the ability to mobilize people on the streets here,” explained Mansour. While Hamas reaches people with the help of highly emotional images and fake news on social media, among other things, there is an enormous amount of catching up to do in “digital social work” in Germany, said Mansour.
“We need to use social media much more to do prevention and education, to create counter-narratives,” said the expert. The Internet is a “very important place when you consider that young people and adults get their information there for several hours a day.”
Counteract the radicalization process
In order to counteract a radicalization process, anti-Semitism must be discussed differently and brought into the center of society, demanded Mansour. “In every time of crisis there is a boom for radicals,” he said. The current time of multiple crises is causing more and more people to become overwhelmed – and to long for simplification. “Populists are able to provide these simplifications by identifying those who are supposedly responsible for the crisis.”
According to Mansour, the media and politics sometimes have a “misunderstood definition of democracy.” “The majority believes we need consensus, we need harmony, and voices that step out of line are disruptive factors,” he explained. “But it is precisely these disruptive factors that disrupt democracy – without an exchange of arguments, if you do not allow different opinions, then democracy suffers.”
Mansour is convinced that politicians should not be afraid to address uncomfortable topics. That is the best way to protect democracy, he said. Mansour grew up as a Palestinian in Israel and is involved in social projects, including the fight against anti-Semitism.