The groundbreaking German-Muslim talks that opened on Wednesday in Berlin needs to answer a very important question: Who in Germany has the authority to represent all Muslims?

The German Muslim community embarked on its first collective talks with the government in Berlin, in a meeting that has an admittedly symbolic character. Nevertheless, the forum marks a turning point in the government's dealings with its own, home-grown Islam: The state is talking WITH the Muslims rather than ABOUT them.

The "Process of Open Dialogue" that started on Wednesday between the state and the "representatives of Islam" is supposed to enhance mutual consideration between the two cultures. It is supposed to work out a basis for future cooperation in the coming two to three years.

Road to integration

The basic question is: How do we regulate the relationship between Muslims and the German state? The answer is by creating Islamic institutions that are on equal footing with already existing religious organizations. And because the primary goals of the conference are to better integrate Muslims into society, raise their visibility and engage them more in the public discourse, then this step can be seen as a first success.

There is no "organized Islam" in Germany, no official representatives of all the Muslims who live in this country. That is something Germans learned as the calls to Muslims got louder after each attempted terror attack. In the name of their religion, Muslims were supposed to clearly distance themselves from terrorism -- but exactly who were these Muslims? The 3.2 million Muslims in Germany are not a homogenous bloc. There are more than 70 Muslim associations, and 2,500 mosques in the country. The argument over the question of who should have been invited to Wednesday's talks made this problem even clearer, since those invited represent less than 15 percent of Muslims living in Germany today.

Nevertheless, these associations went to the conference with high expectations. Last Friday, they came out with a joint statement that said the most important task is to integrate Islam into the German state and integrate Muslims into society.

Need for representatives

The first goal of the conference has been reached; that is, "making it clear to the non-Muslim majority in the country that Islam is a part of Germany," as Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said.

The participants' reactions to the conference were overwhelmingly positive and sophisticated. Yet they should not be deceived about the central, structural problem facing them: the state cannot decide who speaks for Germany's Muslims. It is critical that the inner-Islamic debate over religious associations -- which tend to be conservative, and are often the puppets of Islamic leaders outside of Germany -- be brought out into the open before they are discussed in any high-level conferences.

One long term goal for Germany should be creating a culture of acceptance, which would praise the accomplishments of Islamic Germans. Another should be establishing equality between Islam, Christianity and Judaism. But a prerequisite to this is a wider inner-Islamic consensus over German Islam's representation in society -- with democratic German law as its base.

Middle East expert Loay Mudhoon works in DW-WORLD.DE's Arabic department. (jen)