Mariana Harder-Kühnel, May 29, 2020, Children’s Head Scarf Ban

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]

           

         

           

           

           

           

           

           

        

           

           

           

Björn Höcke, May 15, 2020, Teaching Profession

Björn Höcke

Teaching Profession

Thüringen Landtag, May 15, 2020, Protokoll 7/14, pp. 82-85

[Björn Höcke is the Alternative für Deutschland chairman in the eastern German state of Thüringen as well as leader of the AfD delegation in the Thüringen legislature. He is a teacher.]

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable colleague members.

In regards the theme of “teacher”, it is clear that naturally I must approach the speaker’s podium primarily against the background of all the proposals which you have delivered. Herr colleague Wolf, ja, Wolf’s Story Hour was again presented. Or should I better say, Wolf’s Hot Air Hour? If your speech was transcribed, Herr Wolf, there would be only an uninterrupted series of blank lines on the paper.

The fact is, right honorable colleagues, that in politics almost nothing can be so well planned for as the need for teachers. That, from here – not from the current speaker’s podium, but at our accustomed place of activity – I have often previously articulated. The students, right honorable Herr Minister Holter, who six years ago – thus at the beginning, you were then not yet on board – were born under the red-red-green government, are now of school age and are commonly in the Grundschule. Nothing is better able to be planned than the teacher requirement. Ja, the CDU had made promises for decades in the area of teacher planning and the red-red-green government unfortunately has done no better; and that we regret – unfortunately, not to have done better.

Herr colleague Wolf, your assertion, so unashamed and by ways and means almost mendacious, that the AfD has not concerned itself with the theme of “Education” – that is to be sharply rejected. Education policy is a crucial theme for the AfD delegation in the Thüringen Landtag. Three years ago, we published a comprehensive education policy position paper which was very well received by the public. We conveyed in this paper a variety of ideas on the reform of our education system.

We not only take the pulse of the times but with this approach we are ahead of the times. Among other things, we have in this paper – and today I say yes to more autonomy for the schools – expressed: Yes, we need more autonomy. We have therein indicated that more autonomy means even more responsibility. More responsibility means again more expenditure for the bureaucracy. And we have clearly done that: We simply do not want our teachers – I can report this to you from 15 years professional experience – to be burdened with more administrative and bureaucratic duties. We want to relieve them. We want the teacher to return to the core business and that is the education of our children and youth.

That means, if one says yes to more autonomy, then one must say yes to school assistants, which we introduced into the debate two or three years ago, as you – one must eventually say yes to a business management direction of the school as well as a pedagogical direction of the school. All that we know already from the school reform discussions of the 70s. Yet not all that was then discussed was false and not all ought to be forgotten.    

And we say yes to better pay; for example, for leadership positions in the Grundschule. Yet we all know that certainly in the area of Grundschule leadership in the Free State of Thüringen we have to point to an unacceptable vacancy. We must do it. The Grundschule leadership positions – which must be better paid so that these positions are more attractive for teachers. That is a demand of the AfD delegation which is already a few years old.

Right honorable Herr colleague Tischner, your demand for a standard pay for all teachers unfortunately has a clear tendency to a standard teacher [Einheitslehrer], a tendency to a standard teacher indeed not through the main entrance but through the back door.

For the AfD delegation I can say: We reject this tendency per se. It is a basic law of the market economy: When the demand increases and the supply is scarce or becomes more scarce, then prices increase. The labor market is similar: When workplaces, when given positions, when teachers are demanded, then possibilities in public service must be devised so that there is a more attractive pay scale [Lohngefügen] corresponding to the demand for these positions. That is quite important matter in which we can in common move forward. I am sure of that and on that we are very flexible. We can devise instruments with which to make the teaching profession financially more attractive.

And as I said already: The direction duties, primarily in the Grundschule area, must in any case become more attractive financially, so that we can fill the open positions.

Yet – and as my colleague here before made clear – we must not make the mistake of paying all teachers the same. That would be an equalization which is not goal-oriented. A Gymnasial teacher has an essentially longer training. A course of study completed by a Gymnasial teacher is overwhelmingly science-based. Therefore, the Gymnasial teacher has a right to post-graduate study [Promotionsrecht] and a Grundschule teacher commonly does not. The workload in the schools for the Gymnasial teacher is essentially greater than that for the Grundschule teacher. For that, I could present  you a whole series of studies.

            Henflig (Greens): You are a poor example of that!

 It is self-evidently so. We have a much greater load of correction of classwork, we have a much greater load of school certificate examinations which after the tenth or after the Abitur, or more logically during the Abitur, are to be completed. Into that goes entire weeks of vacation, I can assure you. That is not to be equated with the workload of a Grundschule teacher.

            Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): No, in the Grundschule they just play!

That does not mean that the good work of our Grundschule teachers is to be denied. No!

We can also readily speak of improving the financial situation of all the teaching professions. But that involves the maintenance of a given difference, right honorable colleague members.

            Lukin (Linke): Snobbery!

And now I want at this point to once more get to the basics, as it is always my method [Art] here to embed somewhat. There are comprehensive studies which in the last years and decades have been conducted in the area of sociology. And it is so, right honorable colleague members: Strongly egalitarian societies and very strongly hierarchical societies are fundamentally less peaceful than lightly hierarchical societies [leicht hierarchisch ausgerichtete Gesellschaften]. That is a basic understanding in the sociology of recent decades.

What does that mean for men, what does that also ultimately mean in the area of teacher production? We must look at the fact that we have an incentive system because man is adjusted not only to an orientation but also to a light hierarchy. He then is at peace when he has a goal which is yet not so distant that he cannot attain it with a maximum of effort, and which is so proximate that he must exert himself, yet have the guarantee that in striving he will be able to attain it. Das ist eine gute Ordnung. That means an even [flache] hierarchy in society, yet also in the area of the school system.

To sum up: We need a differentiated pay, good pay, readily higher pay for all teachers, but we need a light hierarchy. We need also the inducement by which through particular achievement one can arrive at positions of advancement – and that ought not to be an accident but a regular result. That is how we increase the professional satisfaction of our teacher corps. I believe that is the understanding of us all.

            Rothe-Beinlich (Greens): All do not agree!

  

Concluding with but a remark on the CDU’s idea to raise the extra hours allowance [Stundendeputat] to 32 hours. Dear colleague Herr Tischner, how high was your extra hours allowance as a teacher? 24-25 hours? That is the result of a total work week of something like 40 to 42, oftentimes 44 hours. An extra hours allowance of 32 hours, right honorable colleague member, produces the burn-out of which we now complain much too often in our schools. I can only warn thereof.

26 hours is, in my eyes and after 15 years of teaching, the maximum which we can demand of our teachers. On grounds of health, more is not responsible.

I am grateful. 

 

[Translated by Todd Martin]