Are the statements true, or has everything been twisted again?
What is it about exactly?
Stefanie von Berg is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens elected to the Hamburg parliament. There are two pictures circulating online with statements that are attributed to her.
In May 2016, as part of the discussion about Islam, she said that Islam should no longer be banished to backyards and that new mosques were needed to give the city's many Muslims a reasonable place to pray.
That is why she called for new places of worship to be built in many parts of the Hanseatic city. This is particularly important for interreligious dialogue and the integration of refugees and it is clear to everyone that this initiative will not meet with open ears everywhere, given the current mood in Germany.
ADVANCE: Both images and statements circulating have been distorted and are not true.
So a collage was quickly created from her statement, which doesn't even begin to get to the heart of the matter, but plays directly into the hands of her critics:
In Hamburg it is not about “over-mosqueization”, but in many cases simply about replacement buildings for existing places of worship. Of a total of at least nine district mosques that urgently need to be built, only 3 are planned as new buildings, the other six as replacements for existing places of worship. She also emphasized the important social aspects of mosques, including in the area of youth and integration work.
With a view to the anti-constitutional activities in some Islamic communities, Ms. von Berg also emphasizes, “But we will certainly always take a close look at which associations want to build a mosque and, under certain circumstances, will then ban such mosque associations.”
But that wasn't the first time that Ms. von Berg was harshly attacked by her critics, to put it mildly. What happened?
On November 11, 2015, she spoke the words to the Hamburg parliament:
“Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our society will change, our city will change radically. I am of the opinion that in 20 or 30 years we will no longer have any ethnic majorities in our city. And I’m telling you very clearly, especially here towards the right: That’s a good thing.”
She probably wanted to express that Hamburg would benefit from diversity, but the added “That's a good thing.” became the starting point for a large-scale smear campaign against Ms. von Berg. The following picture was then created, presumably by highly talented image editors in painstaking detail work, which does not even begin to accurately reflect Ms. von Berg's statement, but instead made waves in the relevant circles and a flood of hate mail rained down on Ms. von Berg let.
Note: For the sake of completeness, the image used in the memes may have civil consequences because it was published under the Wikimedia Common License. A small note on the meme is often not enough, which is why we also mention here:
Photos: Sven Teschke /. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 de via Wikimedia Commons
Why do people distort other people's statements like that?
So that they can distinguish themselves, perhaps because they are inferior in argumentation, or simply want to stir up sentiment against this person and the best way to do that in Germany at the moment is to interpret statements as “anti-German” or to falsify them accordingly.
Sources:
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )