The Acid Test
How Fear of Foreigners is Threatening our Democracy

Reading and Panel Discussion with the Author Lamya Kaddor (audio recording available, in German)

Everyone is talking about how refugees and immigrants can integrate - Lamya Kaddor turns the perspective around. In her book Die Zerreißprobe. Wie die Angst vor dem Fremden unsere Demokratie bedroht (The Acid Test. How Fear of Foreigners is Threatening our Democracy), Kaddor, Islamic scholar and educator, asks how much the majority society has to change in order to enable successful coexistence and prevent the renouncing of liberal principles.

After Die Zerreißprobe was launched, the author was exposed to such grave threats from the right spectrum that she had to take leave from her teaching position.

recording available

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The Old Building is marked in green

Where

Old Building, level 2, Great Hall
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin

Where, when, what?

Lamya Kaddor will read from her book and discuss the current polarization of society, the exclusion of critical voices from public discourse by right-wing populists, and political and societal counterstrategies with State Minister Aydan Özoğuz and Andreas Zick from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Conflict and Violence Research (Bielefeld University).

Moderation: Yasemin Shooman (Jewish Museum Berlin)