Annette Schavan says: “There are warmongers who embrace religion. But that does not mean that religion promotes war. Religion has the great power to bring peace.” It doesn’t seem to occur to her that there is not a single unified entity called “religion,” or that different religions actually teach different values. She assumes that whatever is labeled “religion” teaches peace, and that anyone who commits violence in the name of “religion” must be importing his violent impulses from elsewhere, not deriving them from the teachings of “religion.”

She also says: “People are upset by the numerous attacks and wonder, ‘Should we equate these images of violence with Islam?’ One gets the impression that Islam is part of the problem. But that’s not true. It must become clear that it is part of the solution.” That is a fine assertion, but that’s all it is. Where have we ever actually seen Islam be part of the solution? Our expectations have become so low; if Islam were really a Religion of Peace that had been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists, we could realistically expect to see a genuine mass Muslim movement against jihad terror comprising a significant segment of the Muslim population worldwide, dedicated to an honest reinterpretation of the Qur’an and Sunnah so as to mitigate their capacity to incite violence. Instead, there is an avalanche of pro-forma Muslim condemnations of terror by groups such as CAIR, which has ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, plus just a handful of Muslim individuals and groups who actually take a stand against jihad activity in all its forms, but have no significant following among Muslims. Many of the latter group, moreover, also deny that there is anything in the Islamic texts that needs reforming.

So we have yet to see Islam be “part of the solution,” but Annette Schavan and her colleagues are betting the future of Europe on the hope that it will “become” part of that solution, any day now.

“Germany’s Vatican ambassador: ‘Islam is part of the solution,'” DW, January 17, 2016: