It's a minor matter: can't Muslim girls in German schools be exempted from coed swimming classes? Well, yes, it's a minor matter, but once again, like the headscarf controversy in France, it has major implications. For one thing, these classes are mandated by German law — a law, of course, which was adopted for people of a different culture.
Also, where will the dividing line of assimilation ultimately be drawn? Or if it will be drawn nowhere, and Muslims will not give up even one element of their traditions or customs in order to fit into European society (as Dyab Abou Jahjah of the Arab European League insists), then Sharia must come also. And that is where this little tempest in a swimming pool begins to have some troubling implications for non-Muslim Europeans.
From Deutsche Welle, with thanks to Cathy J. Palmer:
German schools are increasingly grappling with cases of Muslim girls pushing for exemption from co-ed swimming and sports on religious grounds, sorely testing the country's ability to integrate its Muslim population.With her flawless German, good grades and ambition to study towards a career, Ayse Yilmaz seems a model of Muslim integration at her Berlin high school.
She considers herself part of a growing group of young, educated Muslims who have "a modern understanding of Islam," as the 18-year-old student of Turkish-Kurdish origin puts it. But Yilmaz (Her name has been changed), has angered school authorities by refusing to take off her head scarf during sports class and going on school trips with her classmates.
“I felt uncomfortable about the alcohol, partying and fooling around that takes place there,” said Yilmaz of the trips, adding that school officials told her that they considered the pins keeping her headscarf in place as a danger to her health.
Yilmaz’s dilemma is becoming an all-too familiar one across Germany, as Muslim students and their parents clash with authorities over whether the tenants of their faith are allowed to bend the rules of Germany's secular school system. Though no reliable statistics are available, school authorities across the country say that an increasing number of Muslim parents are demanding exempt their daughters on religious grounds from co-ed swimming, sports and biology classes.
Issue thwarting integration efforts?
The issue has turned into a potent flashpoint in German schools struggling with Muslim integration.
“It’s a difficult situation,” said Marion Berning, director of the Rixdorfer primary school, one of the largest in Berlin’s Neukölln district, where girls with headscarves are a common sight. “We have Muslim girls who say they don’t want to swim with the boys. It’s obvious the parents exert pressure on them, but they (the parents) have to accept that coeducation is part of German schools."
At another school in Berlin's Turkish-dominated Kreuzberg district, principal Annette Spieler worries Muslim girls exempted from biology class are missing out on lessons vital to teenagers.
"When it comes to sex education, it’s shocking how little the Muslim students know about the topic. It’s absolutely taboo in their homes,” she said.
A resurgent Muslim identity
In the absence of a common law governing the issue, some schools have attempted to appease Muslim parents by offering gender-segregated biology and swimming classes, discussing the issue with them in parent-teacher meetings or allowing Muslim girls to wear loose-fitting clothing during sports.
But that hasn’t stopped some Muslim parents from appealing to the courts to enforce their religious rights.
In 1993, a landmark ruling by Germany’s Federal Administrative Court allowed a 13-year-old Turkish girl to be exempted from co-ed sport lessons if the school failed to proved gender-segregated sports class. The girl’s father argued that his daughter would face a moral conflict if she was forced to do sports with boys in tight-fitting clothes.In another instance, a court in Münster in 2002 exempted a Muslim girl in the 10th grade from a class trip after her parents argued their faith forbade their daughter to stay overnight outside of the house without the company of a male relative.
The court cases point to what Islam experts say is the growing need within the Muslim community to assert themselves in Western society.
“The message is ‘we’re here, we’re proud, we’re going to live our religion and not going to hide ourselves anymore’,” said Riem Spielhaus, an Islamic Studies lecturer at Berlin’s Humboldt University.
Next page: A slippery slope to fundamentalism?
But teachers and experts say such court rulings run the risk of subverting German school law, which clearly states that sports and swimming is mandatory for all children. In addition, making exceptions for Muslim students amounts to giving preferential treatment to one religion, and could lead to their isolation, said Turgut Hüner.
The chairman of the Turkish Parents Organization in Berlin-Brandenburg believes the trend among Muslim parents to exempting their children from class has been fueled by the introduction of Islamic religious classes in German schools.
While learning their own language and religion is vital to second-generation Muslims living in the country, Hüner warned that it’s important to know just what is being taught under the guise of religious instruction.
He criticized Berlin school authorities for allowing organizations such as the strongly-conservative Islamic Federation, which is on German law enforcement's watch list, to impart Islamic instruction in 28 schools in the German capital.
“It’s a slippery slope," said Hüner. "That’s when some parents get old-fashioned ideas into their hands and decide not to send their daughters to biology or swimming class."
Living in a Muslim virtual world
Indeed, the Islamic Federation ran into trouble recently with the Berlin education ministry for allegedly handing out application forms printed from the Internet to Muslim parents to get their daughters exempted from co-educative classes.
A look at the virtual world shows just how easy that is. A web site called Muslim-Markt.de run by two Muslim brothers offers Muslims links and information to Muslim doctors, lawyers, hairdressers, companies and so on.
The site "Muslimrecht," based in Hamburg, offers detailed moral and legal guidelines to Muslim parents wanting to free their daughters from co-ed sports and swimming lessons. “If you don’t stand up for your rights, it won’t just become a disadvantage to you, but will also lead to a restriction of rights for the coming generation of students,” it warns its readers.
Headscarf equals "problem child"?
While the debate simmers, some experts say the debate also reflects German teachers’ poor understanding of the delicate integration process underway.
“Many have no idea how difficult it can be for a Muslim girl caught between her traditional parents and a more permissive western society where she’s growing up,” said Spielhaus.
Yilmaz knows that only too well.
“As a Muslim girl with a headscarf you’re immediately labeled ‘dumb’," she said. "I have to work extra hard at school to earn the recognition of my teachers so that they don’t think I’m a problem child."
Hi,
this is Antje from Hamburg, Germany. I`ve just read this interesting article here about the headscarves subject. The teacher who went to court for the right to wear a headscarf at school is sponsered by muslim fundamentalist organisation milli görüs, which
is now beeing watched by the Verfassungsschutz, because this organisation claims that democracy is absolutely not compatible with practising islam. From what I`ve watched during the last years : headscarves and even veils have become a common site in every part of germany, and a constantly increasing number of women and girls wear it. So long, best wishes from eurabia.
As an American having lived in Germany, this article was very interesting. It is sad that Europe has abandoned the Christian morality that made it great. Europe's youth (and America's are on the same path) have become decadent and impure. The Muslims are wrong about a lot but they are right about sexual purity. Their young people will have strength of character because they will be taught sexual restraint. TheEuropean Muslims will be blessed with an increase in their numbers and cultural dominance is, in the end, a game of numbers. Unless Europe returns to its Christian values, it is doomed..........
Peggy,
It's only Muslim women who have to learn self-restraint. Polygamy, temporary 'marriages', easy divorce for men which then allows for a permanent rotation of 'wives' leave no room for sexual self-restraint in Muslim men - quite the opposite. Also, read up on 'les tournantes' in France!
Silvester is right.
Islam restricts women to the role of biological factories, while men are free to indulge any carnal whim. In addition to having four wives, concubines and slaves are permissible; this "human booty" was one of the big motivators for the bandits of the time to convert, to say nothing of the rewards of Islamic paradise. (The infamous 72 "pure ones".)
It's rather telling that Muhammad abused his status as Prophet to permit himself an unlimited retinue of wives. I've been told (by apologists) that he married many of these women for fiscal or philanthropic reasons, but I would challenge them to explain this hadith:
Sahih Bukhari, Volume 1, Book 5, Number 268:
Narrated Qatada:
Anas bin Malik said, "The Prophet used to visit all his wives in a round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the Prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the Prophet was given the strength of thirty (men)." And Sa'id said on the authority of Qatada that Anas had told him about nine wives only (not eleven).
Perhaps the nine-year-old "wife" didn't count as one, hence the error in the spousal registry ;)
Like the french and spanish, germany has made its bed fellows of muslims. Their laws will be changed to suit the muslim and again france, germany, spain and others will no longer exist, but will be muslim states.
America, let this be an object lesson. No immigrant group should be allowed to have special privileges. This will then set a precedent for any and all groups to demand their own, and soon the evils of Balkinazation will occur. Ultimately the strongest immigrant group will take presendence. Guess which that will be! Don't begin the slide down the slippery slope.
Moslem efforts to repress sexuality look to be largely responsible for channelling normal, healthy energies among young males generally into sublimation through violence, aggression and bloodlust.
Why should this cease, when it suits the Islamo-fascist social and political agenda so perfectly?
The Jihadis perceive Europe as "soft", "lost", ripe for subjugation, and there's negligible dispute to this view to be seen or heard coming out of that continent.
Once their exertions at sabotage and subversion, etc, there have laid the groundwork, their armed thrusts - in the shape of local and national "intefadas" & systematic terrorism - will commence in earnest.
They view Europe as the prime "territory of conquest for Islam", to be vanquished as much by Jihadis hailing from the Middle East as by domestically-born and brainwashed "holy warriors".
The indoctrination of the majority of these is greatly eased by letting them express their drives via one way alone, excluding all others (such as sex): purely by violence.
I'm no promoter of fanatic Islamism but coercing religious people to break their laws is no less fanatic.
I'm a religious Jew. Judaism's modesty laws would require me to request exemption for mixed swimming no less than it does for Moslems.
So does that make me a fanatic Jew, that could not integrate with whatever society I live in?
Some of the comments here, especially from Germans, remind me of darker days there, when people who were "different" were eventually eliminated.
Pick your fights carefully. This particular incident should not be one of them.
Don't count Europe out yet. It takes time for things to get to the tipping point, and that is coming up soon. Europe has a long history with Islam. Europe will soon realize that you cannot allow a sizable immigrant community that does not fully assimilate. There's the rub. But the only country on the planet that is based upon assimilation is the USA. No other country has this ability to the extent that we do. A German, a frenchman, a Spaniard, etc derive their sense of nationality from their blood ancestry. An immigrant from Turkey, Algeria, Vietnam, etc will not be accepted as a true German, etc because of this. These countries have allowed immigrants because of labor needs in the past, but never seriously considered the problem of assimilation. Well, now it's on the front burner.
Europe will never become an Islamic colony. That's just patently absurd. The ghosts of Churchill, Bismarck, Lord Nelson, Napoleon, Wallenstein, Charlemagne, Charles Martel, etc will roust Europeans from their sleep. Europe will never submit to an Islamic theocracy.
However, there will be a lot of conflict before this situation sorts itself out. How will it sort itself out?
Either the non-assimilationist islamic immigrants will be forced to leave, or, the islamic immigrants choose to adapt to their new home and create an honest cultural symbiosis.
Either way, sparks will fly.
By the time the western european countries will wake up ,it will probably be too late for them to do anything to reverse the situation.
Should a reversal of the muslim stronghold on western Europe occur,it will only be possible by violent means.
In the end,Europe will have to turn muslim,or fight for the survival of its identity.
I fail to see whats the problem in this story. The Muslim girls, for sheer purposes of piety and modesty, don't want to have gym with boys in the same class. Whats the big deal?! Is it simply because those objecting don't like to know that others don't want to operate or think exactly like them? Or because religious people who strive to maintain their piety refuse to partake of situations they deem bad?
The arguments against these girls are increasingly childish and petty.
Lori A. - The arugment against these girls comes from the fact that they are newcomers to a world that has an established order. They are insisting that the rules already in place by the majority be changed because they refuse to adapt to their new situation.
If a Westerner went to a Muslim school in an Islamic country, do you think that girl could manipulate the system so that Muslims would allow her to adapt their system to suit her? I think not.
If Muslim girls can't adapt to life in the West and insist on special privileges, they should go to schools for Muslims, or better still, find a place in a Muslim country where they can be more comfortable.
It never ceases to amaze how the Western world is letting its liberalism be manipulated by Islam. Where are the native Christians in Turkey today? They cannot even live as humans without fearing things the capital tax imposed on them in WWII and the pogroms of the Greeks in 1955, because it seems every opportunity it gets Turkey takes to repress its few Christians who have survived the Seljuk conquests, Ottoman conquests, the long period of Ottoman dhimmitude, and worst of all the rise of Itthadism and Kemalism. In Egypt Coptic Christians cannot build or even modify a Church without consent from the Prime Minister! Local muslims often build mosques near where the Christians want to build a Church and say they are offended to have a infidel holy place so close to their new mosque.
Yet Germany's liberalism is allowing Turkish immigrants to do today what their ancestors could not do with the Siege of Vienna, create pockets of Islamic backwardness in a German polity. Democracy is not about the West bending over for the muslims while the muslims treat all non-muslims to dhimmitude where they cannot even live as humans under muslim domination. Let us not forget jihad which the muslim world has not abandoned, but which many liberals in the West think is a dead concept.
My dear Nikephoros Phokas,
As a descendant of some of those native Christians of Turkey, who fell victim to jihad terror, I greet and salute you.
Cordially,
Robert Spencer