Sarrazin: SPD leadership partly "in the hands of fundamental Muslims"

BERLIN. Former Berlin finance senator and bestselling author Thilo Sarrazin (SPD) has accused his party of suppressing any internal discussion about Islam in Germany. "The current SPD leadership is apparently partly in the hands of fundamental Muslims who want to prevent a critical discussion of Islam in Germany," said Sarrazin to Tichys Einblick.

The background is the party expulsion Sarrazins sought by the SPD. The Berlin State Arbitration Commission had reached an appeal on Thursday that the SPD was allowed to exclude the author. Sarrazin has been a part of the party since 1973. The arbitration committee of the SPD district association Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf had decided in July last year that Sarrazin had violated the values ​​of the party.

"SPD loses role as People's Party"
"The dissemination of anti-Muslim and cultural-racist statements by the defendant under the guise of his well-known SPD membership, which is repeatedly highlighted in press reports, questions the credibility of the party and its commitment to its values ​​and basic views and does not have to be accepted,” said the decision. Sarrazin appealed against this and was now defeated by the Berlin Arbitration Commission. The bestselling author also wants to contest their verdict.

In an interview with Tichys Einblick , Sarrazin accused his party of withdrawing from the center of society and losing its capacity as a left-wing People's Party. It was not he who changed, but the SPD. "In the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s or even in the early 2000s, the SPD would never have thought of excluding someone from the party because of a book that is critical of religion," emphasized the 74-year-old. "I would also definitely not have been excluded from the SPD if I had written a critical book not about Islam but about the Catholic Church."

Who is Thilo Sarrazin?
Sarrazin was senator of finance for the State of Berlin from January 2002 until April 2009, and former member of the Executive Board of the Deutsche Bundesbank until 2010. However, he is mostly known as a writer. In 2010 he published a book titled Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany Abolishes Itself"), where he denounced the failure of Germany's post-war immigration policy, sparking a nationwide controversy about the costs and benefits of multiculturalism.

Deutschland schafft sich ab 
With the publication of this book Sarrazin argued for restricting Muslim immigration to Germany on the grounds that Muslims who had immigrated to Germany from Turkey and other Muslim countries had failed to assimilate into German society, lived culturally separate lives in densely Muslim neighborhoods, and that two thirds of Germany's Muslim immigrants were on welfare.

Sarrazin argued that if immigration continued, Germany would, over time, become a predominately Muslim country.

The book sparked heated debate. Turkish-born social scientist Necla Kelek argued that Sarrazin's ideas on education and immigration should be debated, without condemning him, and that the political elite declines to engage his arguments.

Selected works:

• Deutschland schafft sich ab, translated as Germany Is Doing Away With Itself (2010)
• Europa braucht den Euro nicht, translated as Europe doesn't need the euro (2012)
• Der neue Tugendterror. Über die Grenzen der Meinungsfreiheit in Deutschland. 1. Auflage. (2014)
• Wunschdenken. Europa, Währung, Bildung, Einwanderung – warum Politik so häufig scheitert (2016)
• Feindliche Übernahme: Wie der Islam den Fortschritt behindert und die Gesellschaft bedroht ("Hostile takeover – how Islam impairs progress and threatens society") (2018)

Sources:
Junge Freiheit
Tichys Einblick
Thilo Sarraazin (Wikipedia)