1 - 2004

Religious diversity in Germany

Religious diversity not forced emancipation

Excerpts from the appeal "No law on the head scarf"

... Ultimately the debate is, once again, about whether we are ready for the religions in our immigrant society to exist all together on the same footing.

Head scarf, veil and burka are, for Islamist fundamentalists, instruments for the oppression of women and indispensable political symbols. Thus, a head scarf worn by a women can be a political symbol. What is clear here is that if a woman wearing a head scarf wants to act accordingly in a school, she is not suited for the teaching profession. It is both necessary and possible to stop such women, by means of individual testing for suitability and the law on discipline of public officials, so that they are kept out of public instruction.

We also know, however, that not every Muslim woman who decides to wear a head scarf represents political Islamism or is in sympathy with it. Especially when living in non-Muslim countries, women turn to the head scarf for self-confidence in affirming that they are different, or to make clear that they have a different understanding of morals and virtue from that current in the host country. For many Muslim women there is no contradiction between being emancipated and wearing the head scarf. If we shut out women with head scarves generally from the public schools, without finding out what their individual motives are, we will punish just those women who are seeking emancipation by trying to enter a profession.

Since the head scarf is gender-specific, moreover, what we do always affects women only, and never men ... There is a danger that banning head scarves for teachers adds fuel to our society’s general stigmatising of women who wear them. The message given by such a law, that the head scarf as such is a political statement and should be forbidden, will also affect women in medical practice, shop assistants and perhaps, soon afterwards, school girls as well. This cannot be our intention.

... Treating Islamic symbols differently from the way we treat Christian and Jewish symbols creates severe problems for our integration policies, and aggravates conflicts rather than reducing them. A ban on head scarves on the basis of a general suspicion, and which, moreover, has a gender-specific effect, would be religiously determined discrimination and in practice would result in women being excluded from a profession. ...

The initiators of the appeal "No law on the head scarf” include Marieluise Beck, the government official in charge of integration policy, and former Bundestag (Parliament) President Rita Süssmuth. It is supported by over 70 prominent women including the Bishop of Hamburg (Evangelical Church of Germany), Maria Jepsen.