At the beginning of the year, reports of four Muslim pupils who enforced the Islamic Stone Age law Sharia at the Nordstadt comprehensive school in Neuss, (photo) North Rhine-Westphalia, by demanding the veiling of girls and women and the introduction of gender segregation, among other things, caused a stir. Other schools were also affected by such incidents. For months, there has been an ‘increased need on the part of Muslim pupils in particular to make their religious affiliations clear to the outside world,’ explained Achim Fischer, spokesman for the comprehensive school heads. In order to counter this, the heads of eleven schools wanted to present a ‘Neuss Declaration’ which, among other things, stipulated that no prayer rooms would be set up. However, the Ministry of Education immediately intervened and ‘urgently’ advised against publishing the declaration.
In January, the Minister of Education, Dorothee Feller (CDU), had said: ‘Nobody should be forced to practise a religion in a certain way at school. We must set clear limits here.’ When asked by the newspaper Bild, a ministry spokesperson claimed that no pressure had been exerted, but that they had been surprised by the ‘short notice’ with which the rules were to be presented. They now want to ‘approach the speakers’ council of the Neuss schools together with the responsible district government in Düsseldorf and discuss the situation.’
The Social Democrats are now trying to exploit the whole thing for domestic political gain. This is ‘a slap in the face for all those who have taken on responsibility in this difficult situation for schools. The state government is nipping any initiative in the bud,’ said North Rhine-Westphalia parliamentary group leader Jochen Ott indignantly – as if the Social Democrats of all parties would stand out anywhere by taking decisive action against the Islamisation that is advancing everywhere.
The case once again shows the typical behaviour in Germany: instead of tackling problems, they prefer to throw a spanner in the works of those who want to do so. So nothing is being done in North Rhine-Westphalia against the advance of Islam in schools, at least for the time being, simply because the Ministry allegedly felt surprised by the schools’ initiative. The fact that Feller has not launched an initiative of his own accord to take action against the Islamisation of the state’s schools after seven months already speaks volumes. When it came to disregarding the schools’ duty of neutrality by calling on teachers to organise demonstrations against the AfD, she wasted no time. With her latest failure, she has once again proven herself to be a complete failure in her position.