FRANKFURT—For the first time, German public schools are offering classes in Islam to primary school students using state-trained teachers and specially written textbooks, as officials try to better integrate the nation’s large Muslim minority and counter the growing influence of radical religious thinking.
The classes offered in Hesse State are part of a growing consensus that Germany, after decades of neglect, should do more to acknowledge and serve its Muslim population if it is to foster social harmony, overcome its aging demographics and head off a potential domestic security threat.
The need, many here say, is ever more urgent. According to German security officials and widespread reports in the German news media, this past semester at least two young Germans in Hesse—one thought to be just 16—were killed in Syria after heeding the call for jihad and apparently being recruited by hard-line Salafist preachers in Frankfurt.
Such cases have stirred alarm not only that some young Germans are increasingly feeling alienated and vulnerable to recruitment, but also that they will eventually bring their fight home, along with new skills in the use of weapons and explosives gained on distant battlefields. Other parts of Europe with expanding Muslim minorities—including France, Britain, Spain and Scandinavian countries—are facing similar challenges of integration and radicalization.
The Hesse curriculum effectively places Islamic instruction on equal footing with similarly state-approved ethics training in the Protestant and Catholic faiths. By offering young Muslims a basic introduction to Islam as early as first grade, emphasizing its teachings on tolerance and acceptance, the authorities hope to inoculate young people against more extreme religious views while also signaling state acceptance of their faith.
Parents have the option to enroll their children in the religious education classes offered in the district. Nurguel Altuntas, who helped develop the Hesse program at the state’s Ministry of Education, said the sign-up for 29 classes in immigrant-heavy districts was enthusiastic.
For German authorities, countering the expansion of more radical religious thinking has presented a vexing problem. For now, the domestic intelligence service keeps close watch on a growing number, with 4,500 Salafists under observation in 2011 and 5,500 in 2012, according to an annual government report. The figures for 2013 are not yet available, but “we are reckoning with another increase, whether sharp or gradual I cannot say,” said a security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
For many teachers, German officials and, not least, Germany’s Muslims, wider instruction in Islam is a belated effort to redress decades of exclusion from the mainstream. Those years of marginalization, they say, meant many of Germany’s Muslims learned their faith by rote teaching at Quran schools, or from the hard-line musings over the Internet or in the courtyard mosques of immigrant neighborhoods in major cities like Hamburg or Berlin.
"I think it’s clear now that for years we made the mistake of alienating people," said Nicola Beer, who as education minister in Hesse was one of several politicians, professors and teachers who pushed for the Islamic instruction. Now, she said, Germans recognize that "we are here together, we work together, and we educate our children together."
Fazil Altin, 34, a lawyer who is president of the Islamic Federation, said Muslims and the city authorities in Berlin had wasted 20 years while they battled in court about whether Islam could be taught. Then, Mr. Altin said, the federation had to overcome suspicions about indoctrination—and all for 40 minutes’ instruction per week, which he called “pretty paltry.”
In his view, it will take more than formal state instruction in Islam to bridge the cultural gap between observant Muslims and a highly secular German society. “It is difficult to be a Muslim in Germany,” said Mr. Altin, who said he had been denied access to clients in jails because of his faith. “The fact is, we are seen as a danger.”
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