Multicultural Symbol or Gateway to Fundamentalism?

Having spent the last 15 years of her life wearing the Muslim hijab, Emine Oztürk, who is studying to become a teacher, can’t imagine taking it off in public, even for just one minute.

But that’s exactly what Oztürk might have to do if she ever wants to get a job in a Berlin public school.

“It’s part of my identity,” said the 25-year-old German of Turkish descent. “How can I lay my identity at the door of the classroom?”

It is a question on the minds of many here following a decision last fall by Germany’s highest court allowing teacher Fereshta Ludin to wear her head scarf in class as long as there were no state laws against it. Though the court upheld Ludin's right to wear the hijab, it also opened the door for states to pass laws banning teachers from donning it in the classroom. Since the decision, the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, where Ludin first brought her case, has passed just such a law.

The state government in Berlin has proposed a law banning all religious symbols, including the Jewish Kippa and Christian crucifix, from jobs in the public sector. A majority of Germany’s 16 states are expected to pass similar laws.

Banned in France, encouraged in England

In the debate taking place across Germany, politicians and Muslim leaders have begun to ask some very serious questions about the place their religion and identity holds in a Europe rooted in Christianity and Judaism, but with a growing and powerful Muslim population.

“You have a new generation of Muslims …reasonably educated, fluent in the cultures and languages they live in … demanding a sort of legitimization. They want it without having to become assimilated,” said Shireen Hunter, the head of the Islam Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., and editor of “Islam, Europe’s Second Religion.”

In March, the French parliament approved legislation that banned head scarves and other religious symbols from state schools beginning in September. In Great Britain and Sweden, a more open attitude prevails. Teachers and even female Muslim police officers are allowed to wear their head scarves.

Germany’s relationship to its 3.2 million Muslims is decidedly more fragile.

Touchy issues of integration such as Muslim dress and the ritual slaughter of sheep in accordance with Islamic law have been brought before courts in recent years. Earlier this summer, the constitutional court ruled that a department store could not fire a Muslim woman because she wanted to wear her head scarf during work.

A cloth menace?

The legal conflicts are symptoms of the neglect of both the German government and the Turkish community in addressing the issue of integration, say historians. By the time integration became a topic, the sons and grandsons of the Turkish guest workers that arrived in the 1960s had already carved out little Ankaras and Istanbuls in Germany’s major cities. The hijab has long been part of the German streetscape.

“We live in a free, modern society, where everyone has their own self-awareness,” says Ali Kizilkaya, head of the powerful and controversial Islam Council, Germany’s largest Muslim group. “Are we so weak that a square foot of cloth can make us feel threatened?”

Opponents argue that it is not the head scarf, but the fact that Ludin wants to wear it in the public school classroom in a country with a strong secular tradition. Eight years ago, the constitutional court ruled that crucifixes would have to be removed from classrooms in Bavaria if just one student objected. The fact that Muslims want what many see as more freedom to express their religion than German Christians makes parliamentarian Wolfgang Bosbach angry.

Next page: Accommodate Islam? No way.

“The debate is absurd,” says the domestic affairs expert for the conservative Christian Democrats in the German parliament (photo). “This is not an Islamic country, it’s a Christian country, and we should not be forced to accommodate Islam.”

The headscarf also remains a sore spot because many consider it a symbol of fundamentalism and female discrimination in a Western society.

“There are very few women who wear the head scarf voluntarily, and their number is so small they are not worth talking about,” said Seyran Ates, a women’s rights activist and lawyer in Berlin.

"What we're talking about is fundamentalism"

The 40-year-old, who wrote a book about leaving her traditional Turkish home in Berlin, says she is astounded at the legitimacy with which some German politicians give the headscarf. “We need to never forget that what we’re talking about here is fundamentalism,” she said.

Instead of deciding what place a piece of cloth that represents religious freedom to some, fundamentalism to others has in a state-run school, Germany’s constitutional court referred the question to the state parliaments and the public domain--where many believe it belongs.

“We’re (as a society) not ready for such a decision,” says Riem Spielhaus, an Islamic Studies lecturer at Berlin’s Humboldt University. Referring to Germany’s integration problems, Spielhaus said “we need an atmosphere of openness where we can accept that other religions might also change our values.“

How a headscarf ban produces terrorists

The direction the debate is going worries both Muslims and Germans. Misconceptions that the head scarf and fundamentalist Islam are one and the same could have the opposite effect of closing German minds to the religion and alienating Muslims in the country. Scenarios of the most extreme critics of the head scarf would have pockets of devout Muslims, facing limited job opportunities because of their religious dress, withdrawing into parallel societies that might harbor the type of terrorist nests that produced the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Others dismiss such ideas as scare tactics.

“There’s not a fundamentalist under every head scarf, and thinking that would be fatal,” said Spielhaus. “Mrs. Ludin’s head scarf, which she willingly puts on, is good for the Western society. Banning head scarves would be a victory for fundamentalists.”

Oztürk makes a similar argument, adding that her head scarf could even help dismantle prejudices before they arise in her young students.

“I think it’s very sad that this society continues to look at the head scarf as something of a threat,” said Oztürk. “I find it shocking that so many things are projected onto the headscarf without anyone ever asking the women who wear them.”