For the past 20 years, there will be a dispute in Germany over whether Muslim women teachers with head are allowed to make scarves in the school. A single line, today there are not.
In the past 20 years has done much when it comes to the Integration of Islamic contents in the German education: teaching and have established chairs of Islamic theology at German universities there is teaching of Islam in primary and secondary schools, as well as numerous studies on the use of the Islam teaching for students, educators and parents. However, while the development is progressing, there is another point of contention for years hardly a movement of the “headscarf dispute”. How do they fit together?
Fereshta Ludin is a teacher at an Islamic private school in Berlin. She has brought the dispute to the headscarf in the classroom: The Muslim teacher was taken up in 1998 in the state of Baden-Württemberg in the public school service because she wears a headscarf and refused, for the time of the lesson.
Their constitutional complaint led in 2003 to the first “headscarf decision” of the Federal constitutional court. A ban was only possible if it has a legal basis in the respective state is to be adopted. It is not, this basis, women must continue to be governed with a headscarf.
The result is a legal patchwork: Eight of the Federal länder have created the appropriate headscarf bans in schools and areas of public service. Three States discussed the prohibition regulations. Only in Hamburg, and four new provinces were as yet no bill. For the primary and secondary schools, the länder are schools in Germany. Private schools can set their own rules for teachers.
Symbol of religiosity?
Three years ago, the Federal constitutional court overturned this common practice and an important voice judgment: A blanket ban on the headscarf was not compatible with the basic law. Muslim teachers are allowed to correspond to the “for religious reasons mandatory-understood cover bid” in the school. So: in the classroom wearing of headscarves, because their Faith calls for it. In the opinion of the judges a prohibition is justified only if, by the Wearing – and I quote – “a sufficiently concrete danger” for the school emanates peace.
Ludin: The headscarf is part of my identity.
Since then the principals have to decide for yourself whether or not you hire a teacher with a headscarf or not. Remains open after the recent judgment, what actually constitutes a “disturbance of school peace,” and how the schools should deal with them.
“According to the judgment of the Federal constitutional court, we have demanded as a trade Union, that the decision is not the school to blame, when it comes to the conflict with parents who want their children to be taught by a teacher with a headscarf,” said Marlis Tepe, the Federal Chairman of the education and science trade Union (GEW). “As the school must get help from the respective state government.”
Social consequences for women
The judgment should finish before all the discrimination and unequal treatment of the religions. In Berlin, for example, there is a prohibition law, the so-called neutrality law, in the “complete ideological and religious neutrality of the school as an Institution and of the public service”.
In the capital, none of the teachers with head cloth to teach in public schools, but in vocational schools. Here, it is assumed that the young adults are so impressionable and models are looking for. Again and again teachers complain against the neutrality act – without success.
Countries such as North Rhine-Westphalia, by contrast, had privileged with spongy formulations of Christian symbols in the classroom. “Whether through the Wearing of religious symbols is a violation of the neutrality obligation or the obligation to respect and trustworthy behavior is justified”, is checked here, for example, in a particular case.
“It is necessary that we specify more precisely when the threshold for disruption of the school for peace has been exceeded,” says Tepe of the WT.
Only a few Hundred
“We’re talking about a Problem that is actually not a Problem,” said the trade unionist. Solely in Rhineland-Palatinate, there were an estimated six teachers who teach with a headscarf – from a total of 20,000. “There are probably women with a headscarf to teach, but there are a handful of people,” she says. “In all the Eastern States, the topic is not to come at all, because there is not yet long people with an immigrant background and in a first or second Generation of a teacher training programme have started.”
Tepe: It’s not about the scarf, Yes or no. It is about Integration and inclusion
In fact, it relates, for the Moment at least, only a few people. Heinz-Peter Meidinger, a secondary school teacher and President of the German teachers ‘ Association, estimates that among the approximately 800,000 teachers in Germany, for example, a thousand teachers of the Muslim faith are likely to be. Including only a few ladies who want to wear the headscarf. However, this small number will instrumentalised for the political discourse in Germany.
“A question of equality”
“The affected people must have access to this profession,” calls for the WT-Federal Chairman, “otherwise it would also be a prohibition from practising a profession for women. The majority of Muslims are not on the outside of your clothes visible. But some women, through the Wearing of the headscarf, and that is why it is also a question of equality.” The headscarf debate has grown to a broad discourse, and serve all of the alliances, so Tepe. Meanwhile, the debate also extends over headscarves in primary school.
For the psychologist Ahmad Mansour, this type of veiling is a sign of Patriarchal family structures and conservative religious ideas. The school will accept a taboo of sexuality. It is important for children, ideology to grow up without gender separation and sexualization, as there is a ban on headscarf – whether for teachers or students – would ensure, he said the Evangelical press service.
Suppressed or self-determined?
Outside the courtrooms, the debate continues. The issue of the headscarf continues to make headlines and is being discussed in Social networks or talk shows hot: teachers with headscarf undermined the Christian-oriented evening of country and wanted to kidney small children Missio. With negative Statements like these, populist pick up tables and right-wing parties, the scepticism towards Islam in Parts of the population. The women with headscarf were not informed, oppressed and the man.
And the women concerned? No matter whether with or without a headscarf, Muslim women report discrimination, insults, and intimidation in everyday life. The headscarf is neither a political Statement nor a sign of Protest and differentiation, says Fereshta Ludin, a teacher complained 20 years ago against the head scarf law. Many of the headscarf-wearing women were born here and feel German. In contrast, Muslim women teachers who wear a headscarf have complained that they are reviled by devout Muslim parents as dishonorable.
“Part of my identity”
“Desirable debate would be, instead of the headscarf, the question is: How do we want to live in Germany with people from different cultures. The people who have come as labour migrants, and migrants to us, how are these people in our society. What we can do for you,” says WT-Chairman of Tepe.
20 years after its application, Ludin sums it up: There was “much to celebrate”. Life as a woman with a headscarf had not become easier. And: “I think my whole life would have gone differently,” says Ludin, the German press Agency. For your head, cloth you have decided for religious reasons to volunteer, she says. The headscarf meant for you today a sense of security and happiness. “It is a part of my identity.” But speaking in the Bundestag of the “headscarf girls” that feel “just miserable and undignified”.
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Religious HeadgearKippah
In the 17th century. and 18. Century, there was a kippah (Heb.: Head covering) among the European Jews, and became a religious Symbol. The round cap itself is not decisive, but that pious Jews cover their heads. The Jewish law (Halacha) requires boys and men to cover while Praying in the synagogue or in the study of the Religion of the head.
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Religious HeadgearMitra
The Mitra (end bind) is the liturgical head-covering of the bishops (Bishop’s cap) – especially in the Roman Catholic Church. They came in 11. A century on. On the forehead and side of the Neck on the head-standing sign is located. The inner lining of the mitre is a hat similar to that. Two rear hanging ribbons symbolize the Old and the New Testament.
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Religious HeadgearDastar
Dastar the Turban of the Sikhs, a monotheistic Religion is, in the 15th century. Century was founded in the Punjab (North India). The Dastar is predominantly worn by men in different colors. White is considered the color of wisdom – the Orange is a typical color of the Sikhs. The Dastar is tied every Morning and face down the religious reasons, uncut hair of Sikhs.
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Religious HeadgearChador
Chador means “tent”. It is a large, mostly dark cloth in the Form of a bordered semi-circle, which is wound as a cloak around the head and body. Only the face or parts thereof are left free. Is worn the Chador especially from religiously conservative Muslim women in Iran – and throughout the rest of the clothes.
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Religious HeadgearNuns veil
Order women almost always wear a veil, which is part of the complete garment. In the case of novices, the veil is white mostly, after the vows usually black or has the color of the Habits. This veil, according to the order of different forms. They range from a full covering of hair and neck up to the hair plugged-light headgear.
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Religious HeadgearHead scarf (Islamic)
The headscarf is a religious head covering or an Instrument for the oppression of women? This question is specially discussed in Western societies, again and again violently. It is determined that the head scarf is probably the most known variant for the veiling, and shielding the woman. Turkish women (see picture) tie the head scarf a little differently than the women from the Arab region.
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Religious HeadgearApex
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of faith, the Satmarer Chassidim has a paradoxical requirement for women. All the married women of the sect have to shave your real hair and a wig (Yiddish: vertex). The US-American-German author, Deborah Feldman writes about it in her moving autobiographical debut novel, “Unorthodox”.
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Religious HeadgearHat
Fabric and inserted strips of Cardboard, in the middle of a tassel and finished the hat. The headdress for the Roman Catholic clergy is four-edged and about since the 13th century. Century known. In Germany, England, France and the Netherlands, it has four, in other countries, three horns, or arc-shaped articles. Don Camillo says Hello.
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Religious HeadgearTagelmust
A Tagelmust is a with a veil combo Turban worn by Tuareg men in different countries in West Africa. It can be up to 15 meters long. The Tagelmust, a person admission at the age of 15 to 17 years of age in the adult world. He is allowed to make from now on, praying, ablutions, and to the Koranic school. In the Sahara he is at the same time, head and respiratory protection.
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Religious HeadgearShtreimels
Velvet with a wide fur edge, rule, sable tails, are the materials from which Shtreimels are made. Most of these Jewish head is worn covering of married men during religious festivals and celebrations. The Shtreimels originated in the Hasidic communities of South-Eastern Europe (Romania, Hungary, etc.). This Tradition is extinct by the Shoah in Europe, almost.
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Religious HeadgearHat and hood
The Amish have their roots in the reformation Anabaptist movement, especially in Switzerland and southern Germany. Since the early 18th century. Century emigrated, many to North America, where they believe enjoy since freedom. By their Faith they bring, especially the humility of the expression. This is also reflected in their simple clothes. Men wear felt or straw hats, the hoods of women.