The national Council in Vienna, has banned the Wearing of headscarves in primary school – without a reason. This shows how Austria’s right-wing government controls the public opinion, says Norbert Mappes-Niediek.
That girl should be wearing before puberty, a head scarf, in Austria actually, nobody: the government as little as the Opposition, no teacher, no education expert, not a public argument of the Imam. The Islamic faith community in Austria, is a Corporation under public Law, is clearly against it. There is though the question is, therefore, the maximum consensus, it has become in the excitement to prepare the country for the rager of the month. The chat rooms sources before posting, in the parliamentary debate on the topic has been widely resorted to in the Full. The high level of attention to say about the relevance of the theme, nothing. You shall be but the testimony about the controls extraordinary skill with which Austria’s right-wing government, the public opinion.
On Thursday, the national Council in Vienna decided against the votes of the Opposition social democratic SPÖ and the liberals, “Neos”, a girl Wearing head to ban scarves in elementary school. In case of violation, a penalty of 440 Euro threatens the parents. A reason for the Initiative, there was no. Some of the Federal States, Carinthia, and Burgenland, is not a single case known; in the Tyrol, 19 girls will be affected. The real goal of the company, however, was reached: to mobilise their own supporters against Islam in the country, to accuse the Opposition of the Kapitulantentums and to polarize the liberal part of the Public.
Islam is meant, but not called
Initially, the Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache from the right-wing FPÖ, the Initiator of the law, and the ÖVP-Chancellor, Sebastian had entered Short even on a constitutional amendment. Unlike in Germany, everything that Parliament stands in the Constitution is deprived of the access to the constitutional court. Since the social Democrats and the Liberal went with, was not the necessary two-thirds majority. Such a simple act was out of it. This raised a Problem which is still unresolved and further debates according to the same patterns of promises.
Ban on headscarves in class rooms: the upsets of the month in a arousal to prepare the country
In order to make the Initiative of the court, was allowed to “Islam”, though meant in the law do not explicitly called. So the “Wear the world, has been generally descriptive, or religious apparel” is forbidden, insofar as it “is associated with the veiling of the head”. The formulation does not meet the kippah of the Jews, but rather the Turban of the Sikhs, was exempted from the prohibition of “veiling” in a determination of the competent parliamentary Committee expressly. Fine thought: What is a Committee, can not object to the court. Real danger threatens the new law from the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. To the jurisdiction of the States of the headscarf bans may be imposed only if they observe a “principle of Neutrality” against all religions. Of Austria, where, in the classrooms, crosses, mandatory, far away.
Specious Arguments
With the provisional legal protection, the way was open to attack on the Bastion of the liberal critics. The headscarf did not mean “sex Segregation”, was the government – a touchy Argument in a country, in the country children in school until today, are required to appear for special occasions in Dirndls and lederhosen to Dirndls for the girls, pants in leather, the boys, mind you. The ÖVP-man Rudolf Taschner, a renowned Right hand, calling the headscarf a “Symbol of oppression of women and girls,” and promised, “to fight with all our strength for the enlightenment”.
The same member occurs for mandatory denominational religious education for all, also for non-believers. The Minister of education, Heinz Fassmann, actually a man of science, and rather free of ideological Complex, to came another Time, the task for the “fight against political Islam”, a stated government objective, liberal justifications imagine.
School? Not so important!
On the impact of law on educational practice will be discussed in Austria. To you, it is not apparently. Critics argue that little girl with the head scarf will not be forced necessarily of the fundamentalist fathers, and that they imitate, like the mom or the aunt. It is complained also that the law applies only in the school – what a cuddle rather could to the alienation of the children from the Institution and Back into the familiar Narrow, just as in the case of sparkling wine children. Conservative parents could drive up the ban on radical groups, criticized the Vienna-working German sociologist Kenan Güngör. In the case of children who do not distinguish between the religious attitudes of their parents and their own identity, could also create the impression that they were not wanted.
For the Viennese government, which has recently reduced the national integration of measures to 80 million euros, all of them are not terrible pictures. On the contrary, as Long as there is a chance that the culture war in the classroom ends with a victory, leads him with the support of the majority. Vice-Chancellor Strache has announced, after the great success of other initiatives. The first goal is the extension of the headscarf ban, up to 14. Years of age.
Norbert Mappes-Niediek lives in Graz, Austria and Southeast Europe correspondent for many German-language Newspapers.