Dawn of the ‘caliphate’

TAKBĪR! More than 1,000 Muslim protesters took to the streets of Hamburg over the weekend to lament German society’s treatment of Muslims and call for establishment of a caliphate. “A caliphate is the solution,” read many of the signs held up by protesters.
Get your freak on: Germans, to put it mildly, were freaked out by the demo, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Though a recent study commissioned by the government found that many Germans harbor negative feelings towards Islam, Germany has generally had a peaceful coexistence with its Muslim population (with notable exceptions like the murderous rampage by a group of neo-Nazis in the early 2000s).
Radically immune: In contrast to neighboring France, where debates over the influence of Islam have stirred passions for years, Germany has avoided them for the most part. Germany has fewer Muslims than France — 6.5 percent of the total population, vs. 10 percent in France. More important, in contrast to France, Germany doesn’t have a history of colonizing Muslim countries, a legacy that has made the situation in France particularly fraught.
Who me? A radical group called Muslim Interaktiv organized the Hamburg event, which carried the title “Don’t obey the liars. ” In a speech to the crowd, Joe Adade Boateng, the leader the group, railed against “media and political campaigns in which Muslims are portrayed as dangerous actors trying to divide the society.”
Sleeping giant: In between chants of “Allahu Akbar,” another speaker warned Germans that “the sleeping giant would soon awaken,” at which point “the cards will be reshuffled” and those who didn’t support the Muslims “would be held accountable.”
Our favorite: “Today the Muslims are the enemy, tomorrow it will be you!” How odd that anyone would get nervous!
The revolution will not be televised: While the speeches and calls for a caliphate spread like wildfire on social media, Germany’s flagship nightly news program, the “Tageschau” on the ARD public TV channel, which is viewed by an average of 10 million Germans, drew criticism for initially ignoring the demonstration, airing coverage of the student protests in the U.S. instead.
Remigration: Somewhat shockingly, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s first instinct in response to the caliphate demo was the political equivalent of ‘send them back where they came from.’ Or, as she told German television, “I want to be absolutely clear: Anyone who calls for a caliphate in Germany has no home here and no future.”
Clueless: Trouble with Faeser’s jingoistic remedy is that most of the protestors, and the people leading Muslim Interaktiv, are native-born Germans. While they may have roots in the Muslim world, they are as German as Faeser, ergo, there’s nowhere for her to ‘remigrate’ them.
Pot, meet kettle: And wait, isn’t that exactly the kind of talk that Faeser and the rest of Germany’s political establishment was hyperventilating a few months ago after a report about a secret meeting of right wingers at a villa in Potsdam?
Speaking of fascists: The uproar over the Hamburg meeting couldn’t have come at a better time for the far-right AfD. Just as the party was battling allegations, as we outlined last week, that leading party officials were collaborating with Russia and/or China, Hamburg’s Islamists have delivered the AfD a perfect diversion right in its anti-Muslim wheelhouse. Our own James Angelos traveled to the eastern city of Magdeburg to take the pulse of the AfD ahead of the European election. Here’s his dispatch, which makes for depressing reading.
What say Olaf? “I think we need to look closely at what we can do concretely in terms of what the consequences should regarding the things that we saw there” in Hamburg. Ok then!
Hamburg cell: The chancellor knows a thing or two about Islamic extremism in Hamburg, his home city. In 2001, as a group of Hamburg-based Islamists around Mohammed Atta were preparing for 9/11, Scholz was the city’s interior minister.
Shhhh: Scholz had dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday evening, a meeting so secret that their wives and Berlin Playbook’s Hans von der Burchard were the only ones who knew about it.
Return of the dragon: Hans, who may or may not have been sitting at a neighboring table, reports that Scholz declined Macron’s offer to participate in his meetings next week with Chinese President Xi Xingping in Paris. Scholz, who visited China last month, is going to the Baltics instead, including to Lithuania, which has run afoul of Beijing over its support for Taiwan.
What does it all mean? Not clear. Scholz was positively obsequious towards Xi on his visit to China last month, avoiding uncomfortable topics like the fate of the Uighurs. As we noted at the time, Scholz acted like it was 1985, taking along a sizeable business delegation and pouring cold water on EU calls for tariffs on Chinese EVs.
Insulted liverwurst? Scholz’s decision to spurn Xi might have something to do with the Chinese leaders refusal throw the German a bone on the war in Ukraine. Scholz wanted Xi to pressure Putin to back off Ukraine and pursue peace. Xi not only refused, he wouldn’t even agree to attend a planned peace conference in Switzerland in June. Given that Scholz returned from the high-profile trip empty handed, it could well be that he is still smarting over the rebuff and acting like what the Germans call a beleidigte Leberwurst.
Quelle surprise: Scholz’s bold pledge last year to begin deporting rejected asylum seekers “on a grand scale,” has not been fulfilled. In the first quarter, Germany deported about 4,800 people, Der Spiegel reports. While that’s a third more compared to same period in 2023, it’s hardly “a grand scale,” when considering the national backlog of 234,000 failed asylum applicants and others slated for deporation.
Zdravstvuite (again): Foreign minster Annalena Baerbock has summoned the Russian ambassador to protest Moscow’s alleged cyberattack on the SPD. The party’s email servers were hacked in January of last year and the minister said it’s “clear” that Russia was to blame. Just two weeks ago Baerbock summoned the ambassador to complain about espionage after German authorities arrested two suspected Russian agents.
Am Yisrael Chai: The International Court of Justice rejected Nicaragua’s petition for an immediate halt of German arms exports to Israel. Nicaragua initiated proceedings against Germany in the Hague in March, arguing that its arms exports make it an accessory to “genocide” in Gaza. As we reported last week, Western intelligence officials believe Russia is behind the Nicaraguan case.
POLL WATCH:  In German public television’s benchmark Deutschlandtrend poll, the CDU remains well ahead of the field at 31 percent, followed by the AfD at 18, the SPD and Greens at 15 each, and both the FDP and left-wing Wagenknecht party at 5.
Takeaways: Sahra Wagenknecht, a former leader of the Left, who recently split off to form her own list, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (“Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht”), appears to have supplanted her former party, which at the moment wouldn’t get over the 5 percent hurdle for entry into the Bundestag.
Most important: Though the CDU/CSU is leading by a wide margin they’re still stuck at about 30 percent which means they’d likely need a third coalition partner to build a stable coalition. With the FDP on the cusp of extinction, the CDU’s options could be limited.
‘FRIEDRICH MERZ’S DEMONS’: That’s the headline on the cover of the upcoming Der Spiegel, which includes a photo of the conservative leader looking like, well, a demon. As if on cue, the left-leaning weekly appears to be trying to counter Merz’s own attempt at an image makeover. In an effort to appear more moderate, Merz has done a few of what the Germans call “home stories” in recent weeks, i.e. invited reporters into his private life to meet his wife and friends who all attest to how down to earth and “lovable” he is. So much for that!
PUTIN BFF TURNS 80: Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor turned Putin apologist, celebrated his 80th birthday at Borchardt’s, the de facto cantine of Berlin’s political elite. Schröder’s unwavering support for Putin and role in the Nord Stream pipeline project have made him persona non grata in much of official Berlin. Even so, a sizable crowd of has beens and never weres showed up to toast him. The list of attendees included a few unsurprising surprises, including Schröder protégé Sigmar Gabriel, the former SPD leader, vice chancellor, economy minister and foreign minister, who now heads the Atlantik Brücke, a transatlantic lobbying group.
JUST ONE WORD: Plastics. No better way to gauge the health of the German economy than to check on the country’s most famous plastic export: Playmobil. The figurines have come quite a way since yours truly began playing with them as a wee lad in lederhosen.
Yet we digress: As is the case with the rest of Germany Inc., Playmobilland is in crisis. Just as it turns 50, the Bavarian-based firm faces a steep fall in revenue, which has dropped by one third over the past two years. Turns out the new generation would rather play with TikTok than with plastic figurines that look like Germans dressed up as Native Americans, pirates and police. Who knew?
German innovation: The company’s ace in the hole, its CEO tells Bild, is a new celebrity series following the huge success of — wait for it — a Luther figure, as in Martin Luther of the Reformation. When you think of all the iconic Germans of more recent vintage, from Helmut Kohl to Heino, you have to wonder why they didn’t think of this sooner.  
On that bombshell: We will sign off for his week. A heartfelt sorry-not-sorry to all those who took offense at last week’s reference to the hirsute German tribes and think we’re “glib” and “smug” etc. The Bulletin, as the Germans say, is starker Tobak.
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