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The Islamist murder of a French teacher also sparked discussions about the situation in German schools. Teachers must be able to teach confidently, but they must also critically question their own role.
Teachers in Germany sometimes meet students like Isa. The ninth grader with the Arabic name Jesus tried to use my lessons from week to week to convince me and his classmates of “true” Islam.
His “true” Islam, for example, was such that he wanted to recognize equality, but not gender equality, and call people of other faiths or atheists “unbelievers”. He called Muslims with different points of view hypocrites.
Over and over again I made it clear that he represents a fundamentalist understanding of the faith and that I could not flood my lessons with his views. Classmates also asked him to stop his provocation, especially since he himself would not stick to “the rules.”
Talking is part of the process at school
Isa could not be dissuaded, in the end I had to call the school management. Soon after we were sitting with the director. He asked her to explain why she kept worrying about arguing after several lessons. He replied dryly: “According to Article 5 of the Basic Law, everyone has the right to express their opinion freely. That is exactly what Ms. Kaddor taught us in class. What is the problem?”
Teachers are being questioned more than before. That shows this anecdote. Some students no longer simply accept their ex cathedra statements, but want to “review” them critically. Young people obtain information through various means and channels and then urge them to contribute their “knowledge”. I find that profitable. Arguing is part of the school of the future. The era of pure frontal teaching and monologue teaching is over; this may work better in religious education than in mathematics, but it is more general.
As a teacher today I know not only students who take Islamist positions, but also crown deniers, climate change skeptics, right-wing extremists, left-wing extremists, other religious fundamentalists, etc. To work with them, you need a strong democratic attitude and that You must be willing to allow yourself to be questioned, especially with politically demanding issues such as Islamism, the Middle East conflict, anti-Semitism, US foreign policy, refugees, the euro. , the crown crisis, etc., all of which are publicly controversial, feed on fake news and schoolgirls. and lead the students.
Not only students and parents are responsible for problems
The image of teachers is changing. It does not show vision of the future when problems in schools are attributed solely to the students or their parents. Unfortunately, this also applies to the former colleague and president of the Association of German Teachers, Heinz-Peter Meidinger is known for his high profile statements. It represents an outdated image of a teacher if you only point the finger at others and omit your own profession, that is, we the teachers. As one calls the forest, this is how it resonates: who as a teacher approaches a class with prejudices, is part of the problem.
For almost 15 years I have been teaching extremely heterogeneous groups, mainly on the subject of the Islamic religion, but also beyond. Much of this work fell into the high phase of the Salafi threat and was carried out in focus schools in one of the strongholds of violent Islamism in Germany at the time: Dinslaken.
They assaulted me and threw me with a pencil case, two or three times with pens. I had to take care of the sharp weapons that the students carried. Some male students like Isa found it wrong for me to teach religion without a headscarf and made it clear to me.
The situation is not comparable to that of France
In my professional life, therefore, I deal mainly with schoolchildren, one of whom after the brutal attack in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, near Paris, in which an 18-year-old Islamist beheaded a colleague, the teacher story Samuel Paty, on the street, now again more and more as problem cases are discussed. Many horror stories that some tell about everyday school life in Germany simply cannot be confirmed in their supposed breadth.
Yet these days, sadly, some people in this country are trying to jump to conclusions about the terrible fate of Samuel Patys for Germany. The situation here is but not to compare with that of France. Also, here a single case is taken again to wrap up the basics. However, such induction logic is neither convincing nor, in view of its generalizability, immune to circular reasoning.
Therefore, this is not useful for an effective fight against Islamism, because winning it requires the cooperation of marginalized sectors of the population. These are denounced, however, when, in the shadow of the shocking event in Paris, some now demand: Everyone should publish a cartoon of Muhammad on social networks. You can demand that, but it doesn’t get us anywhere, because it’s pure show.
A cartoon show of Muhammad must be prepared
I would show these Muhammad cartoons myself in my class at any time. As a historical event, they belong there. And yes, I used it right after its first post to cover the topic of free speech. This includes resolving both the positives and negatives in these pictures.
However, this requires a greater educational and didactic effort. The projection of the Muhammad cartoons must be prepared and reworked, it cannot be done for the sake of showing. When that happens, the underlying motives are mostly irrelevant.
Also, as a teacher you need a safe instinct, be prepared to face any contradiction and have a certain sensitivity. Because some freedoms in a liberal country can hurt people’s feelings. It is like taking the anti-Semitic cartoons of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” in front of a predominantly Jewish class to demonstrate freedom of expression. Or in front of a class with many devout Christians, Martin Kippenberger’s sculpture “Feet First”, which shows a crucified green or blue frog with an egg and a mug of beer in hand.
Raids on radical clubs in France are long overdue
Basically, however, something like this must be possible in educational work with the aim of empowering people and educating sensitive citizens, and in a completely safe way. The pedagogues cannot retire there, neither for comfort nor for fear. School administrators, society and the state must therefore turn their backs and show limits to extremists or fundamentalists.
Demonstration in Paris: a man holds a sign that reads “I am Samuel” in solidarity with the murdered teacher Samuel Paty. (Source: Hans Lucas / imago images)
France has more to do than Germany in this regard. The raids currently facing the Islamist scene, they are behind. The banning of groups like the “Collectif Sheikh Yassine” and the dissolution of other radical associations should have taken place earlier. They are the spiritual breeding ground for the Islamist violence that France has suffered for so long.
The father of a schoolgirl who pounced on Samuel Paty on the Internet, has been arrested. He and all those who sowed hatred with him are accomplices to the murder. One can only hope that they will be held criminally responsible.
Macron has taken the right path
Muslims in France can only be called upon to object to such people whenever possible. It is always correct and necessary to also make a statement against violence from within the community. Shrugging is not enough.
President Emmanuel Macron pointed the right way when he announced his law against Islamist separatism three weeks ago. In his speech, he was careful not to play down Islamophobes and mindlessly promote anti-Muslim prejudices.
France will have to be careful not to stray from this path. Just hours after Samuel Paty’s murder, two Muslim women of Algerian origin were insulted as “dirty Arabs” and stabbed under the Eiffel Tower. The cycle of hatred must not occur.
Lamya Kaddor is German with Syrian roots. In her column “Zwischenentöne”, the Islamic scholar, Islamic religious educator and journalist for t-online discusses the issues of Islam and migration.
