Expert Brief: Educational work with Youth of Muslim-Influenced Migration Background

August 2007

This report is the result of continuing engagement with the subject among experts from the Task Force: Education on Antisemitism.[1]

Dealing with antisemitism among young people of Muslim identity is still uncharted territory in pedagogical theory and practice. We took our critical appraisal of the controversial theater piece “Intifada in the Classroom?!?” created as part of a project by the street workers organization Olle Burg e.V. in Moabit, Berlin, as a starting point to formulate some fundamental ideas on the subject. In the following, we use the term “target group” to describe young people from Muslim-influenced immigration backgrounds. This includes young people from the second and third generation of migrants. We also include those who do not consider themselves practicing Muslims, but nevertheless relate to the cultures of their family countries in constructing their identities.

It should be noted that antisemtism is a frequent phenomenon spread across the society and especially at its right wing fringes. The danger of antisemitism originating from these social groups should not be underestimated. The fact that we deal only with immigrant youth in this report is due solely to the concrete questions involved, and should not be seen as downplaying the significance of other forms of antisemitism in our society.

Educational Challenges in Working with Young People from Muslim-Influenced Immigration Backgrounds

In dealing with this target group, we face particular challenges. The following specifics should be considered:

These young people often themselves experience discrimination and exclusion by the majority society because of their actual or ascribed cultural and religious backgrounds.
They are frequently confronted with educators who know little about their life context.
Some of these young people are also actors who transport problematic ideological fragments, in the form, for example, of anti-democratic ideas, antisemitism or homophobia. Thus immigrant youth can themselves contribute to the exclusion of other social minorities.
Many of them consider themselves members of communities that experience a growing domination of religious, cultural or nationalist identity discourses. In these discourses, people frequently position themselves as adversaries or opponents of western democratic societies and/or Jews or Israelis.
Numerous children and young people have access to antisemitic interpretations of reality that they perceive as explanations for the complex questions of the real world. Frequently these interpretations are conveyed by media from the Arabic, Turkish and Persian-speaking origin, by their social environment, and through the family.
Most of them have little solid knowledge about the countries, cultural reference systems, or religion from which they derive their identities; nevertheless, they relate strongly to them. This half-knowledge constantly lends these identity references an exaggerated, myth-like quality.
Many young people from (Muslim) immigrant backgrounds have little historical knowledge of the Holocaust and antisemitism. At the same time, however, they are aware of the importance of the Holocaust in the German society’s commemoration discourse. They often experience this as a conflict with the commemoration discourse and the narratives of victimhood in their own families.

In summary, it can be stated that educational work involved in engaging with the target group described here and its particular circumstances takes place within the context of interconnected social, political and cultural factors, which in terms are in tension to each other. This leads to a variety of challenges for educational practice.

Proposed Educational Approaches in Working with Young People from Muslim-Influenced Immigrant Backgrounds

In the following, we formulate several educational approaches that apply particularly, though not exclusively, to this specific target group.

Educators should distinguish between problems young people have and problems young people cause. Young people’s experiences with racism and social discrimination are important subject matter for educational work with this group. At the same time, the young people’s own problematic ways of thinking and acting must be explicitly addressed in educational practices. These problematic issues include, above all, anti-democratic ideologies and simplistic, uncritical patterns of interpreting their own living situation and experiences.
Projects involving youth work must have “credibility.” They require professional partners who know the lives of the young people, the discourse in their homes, and their ways of dealing with these experiences. This, among other things, is an important reason why social workers from immigration backgrounds frequently have better access to this target group.
Youth (educational) work requires methods suited to young people. Film, theater, music, media, sports and pop culture are especially useful approaches to reach young people living in a youth culture dominated by media and commercial events.
Educational offerings should further and expand experiences and horizons of young people. In the context of a project on antisemitism, this would include making available information on antisemitism, Judaism, Jewish life, the Holocaust, the Mideast conflict, etc.
Educational projects should expand on the information and perspectives these young people have regarding their ideas of identity. Wherever young people lack information on their own situation and the reference points of their identity (country of origin, history, religion, Mideast conflict, etc.), programs and educational materials should be developed to compensate for these deficits.
Educational offerings should deal with young people’s identity issues. Young people from Muslim backgrounds are often subjected to assumptions and ascriptions. They are classed as part of an “allien” or “wrong” culture and are pressured to decide in favor of a single identity and to profess a single culture. In contrast, educational projects should serve to allow and recognize plural identities, while at the same time encouraging the capacity of self-reflection and critical distance from one’s “own” culture and understanding for the culture of the “others,”. The projects should also promote identites based on knowledge rathe than on blind and unreflective identification. It is important to make clear that neither Islam as a religion nor all Muslims or Arabs necessarily see Jews as opponents, and vice versa.
The task of political and school education is to strengthen young people’s identity as individuals. To immunize young people against communal ideologies and give them various opportunities to explore their own individualism, educational work should more frequently employ critical, multi-identity approaches.
Educators must self-critically evaluate their own attitudes and identifications. Pedagogical experts themselves are not free of various problematic patterns of thinking. Thus they, too, should take advantage of continuing education and other offerings involving theoretical, practical and individual reflection.
Youth education measures must encourage young people to take responsibility. Young people should be supported in taking responsibility for their own actions and environments and shaping these constructively. This includes giving young people the space to make it possible for them to emancipate themselves from traditional and sometimes anti-democratic concepts of identity.
Discussing antisemitism should receive special attention. It is important to engage with the content and form of antisemitic interpretations, as can be found today in the context of young people’s world. Here it can make sense to address the issue of antisemitism as a specific as a distinct topic.
Projects should encourage young people’s media competence. The ability to engage critically with the content of Arab, Turkish and Iranian news broadcasts, should be promoted, as should the ability to question the frequently one-sided reporting on Israel by European news agencies. The same is true of internet sites – often the prime source of information for many young people (aside from television). This consumption of news and information mostly happens without suitable criteria at hand to allow the children and young adults to critically evaluate the media cotent.
Educators must use not only methods of sympathy but also methods of correction in dealing with the views and experiences of the young people. Educators often fall into the trap of either ignoring or identifying with their students. They begin to ignore problematic remarks by young people or experience uncritical solidarity with them, in order to avoid confrontation and not be forced to position themselves, and thus endanger the relationship of trust. Meanwhile the value of educators could only be maximized by them serving as discussion and debate partners, willing also to correctively interact with young people’s problematic views.

Prospects for Future Educational Work

Following are the tasks for future work education work based on the challenges presented above:

Providing young people with knowledge about their points of reference - such as origin or religion. Aside from the fact that their parents or grandparents were “driven out of Palestine,” most youngsters of Palestinian origin rarely know whether their relatives were really expelled by Israeli soldiers during the Israeli-Arab war of 1948 or left their homes at the request of Arab actors, or whether they fled much later, after 1975, because of the civil war in Lebanon. On the one hand, these knowledge gaps are compensated filled by simple explanations (“blame the Jews”). On the other hand, they result in feelings of inferiority out of lack of clear and knowledge based identity points. Such inferiority in turn leads to simplistic ascriptions of responsibility and fault to the “others”. Experience in various projects shows that it is possible to deal with the stories of the origin of such young people in nuanced fashion, and that this approach can sparkle the students’ interest for dealing with the complexities of the Mideast conflict.
Addressing the young people’s actual needs and not holding proxy discourses. Experience in the field of education also indicates that the real educational and emotional needs of young people from this target group mostly do not root in the Mideast conflict at all, but are rather related to their everyday experience in Berlin or in their city districts. This experience also reflects the everyday violence to which these young people are subjected in the family and in their social environment. On the other hand, there is a clear need for recognition and a striving for social prospects (for the future). Most young people are overwhelmed by the challenges of everyday life and need help that is connected to their concrete life experiences.
Taking these young people seriously and not ascribing to them a role as victims who are unable to influence their own lives. It is important to make clear to these young people that they can take responsibility for their own lives and see themselves as actors. Despite all everyday problems, for example, they can learn that not all problems can be solved exclusively through violence and that, in some situations, they are the ones who decide whether a situation escalates or can be otherwise resolved.

Footnote:

1. The Education on Antisemitism Task Force is a network of independent experts and representatives of institutions active in education on antisemitism. The network has existed since 2003 and is coordinated by the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

European Forum on Antisemitism