Mariana
Harder-Kühnel
Children’s
Head Scarf Ban
German
Bundestag, May 29, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/164, pp. 20474-20475
[Mariana Harder-Kühnel is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from the western German state of Hessen. She is a
lawyer and here introduces an AfD motion (Drucksache 19/19522) calling for a
ban on the wearing of children’s head scarves in the public kindergartens and
schools of Germany.]
Right
honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
Going
through the streets of a beloved German city, one often scarcely recognizes one’s
own country and its culture. We are looking after the interests of others and
neglecting our own. We enforce the multicultural society and give up without a
fight our own country and its culture to the benefit of parallel societies
which daily challenge anew our existing order. That, ladies and gentlemen, is
the definition of political madness.
Markus Kurth (Greens): You have an
exclusive on political madness.
What
remains is confusion and loss of orientation.
Lars Castellucci (SPD): Yes, we
notice it.
The
people do not recognize our country and culture because it is ever less our
country.
This
weakness is exploited by a political Islam which appears ever more aggressive.
It does this because you permit it, because you constantly belittle the dangers
emanating from it. Symptomatic of this is the statement of the former
integration commissioner, Frau Özoğuz, that living together must be daily
re-negotiated.
Lars Castellucci (SPD): That is
correct.
The
consequence of this policy is more and more violence against women, honor
killings, forced marriages.
Markus Kurth (Greens): Delusional
notions!
Is
that the drastic change of our country over which Frau Göring-Eckardt has so
rejoiced? Over that, we can quite certainly not rejoice.
An
additional symptom of your policy is now plainly manifested in the
kindergartens and schools. There are seen ever more little girls who have been
forced to wear a head scarf. Clearly, the fewest of them do that voluntarily.
Why should they? The head scarf is like a strait jacket. It becomes a second, irksome
skin which robs the little girl of her freedom and childhood: Free running,
playing, swimming are scarcely possible. The child lives constantly with the
angst that the head scarf could slip and she be punished.
Markus Kurth (Greens): In which
world are you living?
It
is for the little girls nothing other than a permanent bodily and psychic
disciplining at an impressionable age.
Ever
more Moslem girls who refuse to wear a head scarf are mobbed, insulted and
subjected to intense pressure. The children’s head scarf is a symbol of
political child abuse. It prepares oppressed girls for their later role as
oppressed women.
And
please do not now come to me with the freedom of religion; since in Islam there
is no religious command that girls prior to puberty are to wear a head scarf.
Islamic theologians corroborate that. Until recent decades, the children’s head
scarf in Islamic countries was itself thoroughly
unusual. Wearing the children’s head scarf is nothing other than an Islamist
power demonstration and has no place in our country.
Little
girls who are forced to wear the head scarf are being abused as messengers of
an ideology. That is political child abuse and cements what properly is to be
overcome.
Parallel
societies, social dis-integration of young girls, the oppression of women. Such
like ought not to be in Germany.
Markus Kurth (Greens): You are simply
instrumentalizing the children.
Public
day-care facilities and schools have a constitutional nurturing and education
duty. They should promote the development of children and youth as
self-determined personalities and socially integrate them into a community
Lars Castellucci (SPD): With you,
that has failed!
which
adheres to the equal rights of all men. The children’s head scarf deprives many
girls of the possibility of such a development. Therefore it must be forbidden
in the public kindergartens and schools. Such a ban would also be
constitutional. Corroborating this are the legal opinions which have been presented
in the motion; for example, those of Terre de Femmes and the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Immigrantenverbände. The French and the Austrians have
long since acted.
Martin Reichardt (AfD): Hear, hear!
The
head scarf ban there was introduced in the public schools,
Karamba Diaby (SPD): For all religions! Not only for
Islam! You know that. Please speak the truth!
in France
besides with the votes of the socialists.
Let’s
do it like Austria and France! Let’s defend the little Moslem girls from head
scarf coercion
Markus Kurth (Greens): For you, it is certainly not
about the Moslem girls. For you, it is certainly not!
and
Germany from increased parallel societies; since it is still our country!
Gokay Albulut (Linke): No, it is
not. Quite certainly not!
Lars Castellucci (SPD): Why exactly
are you laughing? There is nothing to
laugh about!
The
oppressed children of today must not become the oppressed women of tomorrow.
Many
thanks.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
