Will the Burqa Be Banned in Berlin?

Many liberals and conservatives in Germany also believe that the head scarf as a religious symbol should be banned


ANNA SAUERBREY July 06, 2015
PHOTO: AFP

BERLIN: In the last few weeks, many Germans have come to know a young Muslim blogger in Berlin named Betul Ulusoy. Having obtained a law degree, Ulusoy applied for several jobs in Berlin’s city administration as a trainee, and was hired for a post in the city district of Neukölln.

But when she came to sign the contract in a head scarf, she says, she was informed that the administration would have to reconsider the decision because of the city’s “neutrality law.” Like several other German states, Berlin requires its employees in certain positions by law to refrain from wearing religious symbols or dressing in a way that makes them recognizable as members of a certain denomination.

Uncowed, she took her story public and set off a fierce debate about the place of the head scarf in German society.

Though opposition to the head scarf is more closely associated with France, many liberals and conservatives in Germany also believe that the head scarf as a religious symbol should be banned from official posts and schools. They are supported by feminists, who see the head scarf as a symbol of the religious submission of women.

Not everyone agrees, of course: Most of Germany’s sizable Muslim population supports wearing head scarves, and parts of the political left and some conservatives view the neutrality rules as an infringement on individuals’ right to freedom of religion.

Ulusoy refuses to fit Germany’s most cherished immigrant stereotype, the oppressed Muslim woman. In the world according to Germany, it’s either-or: A young Muslim woman either wears a head scarf, meaning she is subject to the cruel rule of a strictly religious Muslim family patriarch, doomed to be married off to a distant cousin and a life of endless flatbread-making; or she has a law degree, a blog, strong political ideas — and no recognizable Muslim identity.

That piety and independence, religion and political wit can go together indeed doesn’t fit into many Germans’ heads. Germany has become deeply secular in recent decades. Both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches have been losing members rapidly. Today, over a third of all Germans do not belong to any denomination.

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Immigration, however, is bringing religion to Germany. The number of Muslims in Germany is estimated to be between 3.8 million and 4.3 million, about 5 percent of the population. That makes the Muslim community in Germany the second-largest in Europe, after France.

Though such projections show that Islam will remain marginal in Europe for decades to come, the fear of “Islamization” is widespread. It has led to the rise of right-wing populist parties from Finland to France. Their rise is usually regarded as a political phenomenon. It might as well be seen as a result of cultural alienation, though. In Germany, many have come to see faith as a spooky and potentially dangerous pathology. Want to make a character on a Friday night TV detective show look suspicious? Let him pray.

In Germany’s secular society, religion in general, and Islam in particular, is regarded as an atavism, a relic from a premodern era from which the country has luckily matured. Renunciation and deliberate submission, common elements of religion, throw the average German hedonist into a state of panic (unless they are part of a no-carbs diet or yoga routine). Why would anybody in her right mind refrain from eating or wrap a scarf around her head in the summer? Whoever does so — like Ulusoy — must either be out of her mind or the victim of some dark power.

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Neutrality laws like those in France, Belgium and some of Germany’s federal states also draw from a certain tradition of interpreting religious freedom. In Europe, it tends to be defined as the freedom from religion — not the freedom to practice faith. This approach is deeply rooted in our history, a lesson from the close alliance between monarchy and church, and countless bloody religious wars.

In the rearview mirror, a strict laicism makes sense. But up ahead, there’s a multicultural Europe that requires more room, not less, for religious expression.

At the heart of Europe’s neutrality laws, there’s a bitter misunderstanding: Being antireligious is not neutral. It doesn’t heal the cultural divide that can come with immigration but emphasizes it. Just look at France.

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Since 2004, French students have been prohibited from “ostentatiously” showing or wearing religious symbols at school. Since 2011, the burqa has been banned from streets and public places.

Since the prohibitions, the country has engaged in a petty war over inches of visible skin. Just a few months ago, a Muslim student in the town of Charleville-Mézières was suspended because she was wearing a black skirt that went to her ankles. The girl usually wears a head scarf, but takes it off before school. A local newspaper reported the case, and a nationwide Twitter debate broke loose. The country’s minister of education admitted that a skirt was not a religious symbol per se — but lauded the principal for reinforcing neutrality.

Fortunately, it has become less likely that Germany will follow France down the path of interdiction. In March, the Constitutional Court overturned state legislation banning head scarves for teachers. In its verdict, the court said that the constitutional neutrality of the state “promotes religious freedom for all denominations alike.”

Still, the idea of a postfaith German “Leitkultur,” or common culture, is not dead. Every couple of months a politician from the ranks of the conservative Christian Democratic Union calls for banning the burqa. And Betul Ulusoy’s will certainly not be the last contested head scarf. She still has a lot to do, starting with showing that there is no contradiction between using your head and wrapping it in a scarf.

Courtesy our partner NY TIMES

COMMENTS (4)

Phillip Christensne | 9 years ago | Reply is it just my belief. If I hire out of the company, or any business I do not have the right to choose to clothing. I have to wear! The reason why I say this is because I work for Union Pacific Railroad. We had specific rules. We had to go by in our clothing. We wore! If I was run in the lasers of my head take my rings off I could wear a ring because I could get caught and lose my finger around the machinery I operated. For instance, I had this apprentice and had long hair down to his butt and we was on a mill and I told him put his hair up under his hat. He got his hair caught in the mill just about pulled it all off. Somebody shut the machine down for him. I do not believe any religion should dictate to clothing where they work.
Phillip Christensen | 9 years ago | Reply I do not believe religion has anything to do with the job. I do not care if they are Christians. Moslem or any other kind of religion. When I was working we had to wear certain types of close to protect herself. You know, like steel toed boots, coveralls and stuff like that. I just do not think religion of any sort has any place in the workforce because at all it does is cause a conflict between the workers there selves goods you going to have a people with different beliefs and they are going to say well I want to do this and I gotta do this because of my religion. It is stupid! If people want to do the religion they can do it at church, synagogue or whatever other place they want Maas whatever. They just do not need to do it to work. I worked with all different kinds of religious and stuff throughout the years that I have worked in.. And we got along great. Nobody worried about their religion are done stupid things like go out and pray or I cannot work because it is my time to pray this stupid up there to do a job and if you do not want to do the job do not work there.
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