1 - 2004

Religious diversity in Germany

State and religion in Germany

Excerpts from a speech on religious freedom

by German President Johannes Rau

... State and church in Germany are clearly separated, but in many areas they work together in the interest of the entire society. All in all I consider this the right way, and I see no reason why we should join our French friends and neighbours in their idea of secularity.

... In Europe and in America we experienced how long it can take until people of different faiths live in peace with one another, and until every religion has the statutory right to express unconditionally its claim to validity and to the truth, in public and in private. This must be our goal. It does not include simply transferring our European or American ideas to other countries. These countries must find their own way.

Whether we have in mind the situation in our own country or in the entire world, we should always be aware that there is no such thing as "Judaism” per se, any more than there is "Islam” or "Christianity” or "the West”. The people of the Muslim faith who live here in Germany today come from very different countries with different traditions and systems of values. This is apparent, too, in the debate over the head scarf.

I would counsel all of us, in this debate as well, not to make any generalization. We all know that there are Muslim women who don’t wear head scarves – not because they have adopted our ideas, though there are some who have, but because they have decided that this is not part of their faith. Other Muslim women do wear the head scarf in order to witness openly to their faith. Still other Muslim women are more or less compelled by pressure from their families and communities to do so. And certainly there are Muslim women who wear the head scarf as an expression of their fundamentalist religious and political attitudes.

The debate over the head scarf would be much simpler if it were an unambiguous symbol, but it is not. So it is my firm conviction that the old principle should apply here: just because something might be misused, its use should not be prevented all together. The Constitutional Court pointed this out in its first opinion on the head scarf dispute, and I quote:

"What is being expressed by Muslim women wearing head scarves is interpreted in extremely different ways. It can be a sign of religiously based rules of dress which are experienced as a duty, or of the traditions of the society from which a person comes. Most recently it has been perceived more and more as a political symbol of Islamic fundamentalism. However, the meaning of the head scarf cannot simply be reduced to a sign of society’s oppression of women. New studies show that young Muslim women may freely choose to wear the head scarf in order to lead self-determined lives without breaking with the society from which they come.”

As much as we must combat fundamentalism in every form, we cannot deal with each religion in a different way. Under a democratic government of laws there is a right to be different, but there are not different laws for different people.

In the discussion pro and con forbidding teachers to wear headscarves, it is rightly pointed out that schools are a particularly sensitive public space. It is true that schoolchildren must be protected from undue religious or political influences from teachers.
Every believing person has, as a teacher, a particular duty, a duty stemming from the confidence, which the state and the parents place in him, when they entrust him their children for education. Teachers, therefore, must communicate the values of our constitution and consider the parents’ views on education, and must put these ahead of their own convictions in the classroom. But this does not mean that teachers must conceal their own faith. This is true for all teachers.

I am firmly convinced that we cannot forbid one symbol of one religion – which the head scarf is, among other things – and then believe that we can leave everything else as it is. This is not consistent with the religious freedom which our Constitution guarantees to all persons, and it would open the door to developments which are not desired by most of those who would like to ban the head scarf from schools.
I am afraid, specifically, that banning the head scarf is the first step towards a secular state in which religious signs and symbols would be excluded from public life. That is not what I want. It is not my idea of our country, which has been shaped by Christianity for hundreds of years.

But it is clear to all of us that the question of whether we will carry on this heritage does not depend on dress codes. Whether we continue to be a country shaped by Christianity, depends first of all, and only, upon how many convinced and credible Christians there are among us.

Excerpts from an address by German President Johannes Rau on "Religious Freedom Today – on the relation between the state and religion in Germany”, given at a celebration of the 275th birthday of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 22 January 2004.