Learning is not just for school, but for life.
That’s what a philosophy teacher at the Alleestraße grammar school in Siegburg probably thought and gave his students the following task:
“A Turkish father in Germany marries his daughter to his brother’s son without her consent in order to secure him a residence permit for Germany and thus a livelihood. Discuss the situation with the person sitting next to you. What conflicts do you see in it?
The topic of the philosophy lesson is likely to occupy us for some time in the multi-cultural Germany of the 21st century. It is:
“An ethics for all cultures? – Opening up problems in the field of tension between cultural relativism and universalism.”
So the inevitable happened. The Dortmund-based “Federation of Turkish Parents’ Associations in North Rhine-Westphalia” got wind of the matter. It could just as well have been the red “” Union for Education and Science”” or the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs. The usual charade began, the school had to publicly ask for the indulgence of its sins – and the philosophy teacher was lucky if he got out of the affair relatively unscathed. Maybe he should do something “against right-wing extremism” next? Somehow he has to get rid of the smell of racism.
Remarkably, the “Federation of Turkish Parents’ Associations” does not even claim that there are no forced marriages of Turkish girls by their fathers in Germany. No one is allowed to talk or philosophise about it. And this is so obvious to all the so-called educated and cosmopolitan participants in the hunt for the Siegburg philosophy teacher that they do not even think it necessary to say a single word about it.
Incidentally, the controversial assignment is said to have been taken out of context and to have come “from a textbook approved in North Rhine-Westphalia”, according to the “Bild” newspaper.
https://www.pi-news.net/2022/02/streit-um-schulaufgabe-an-siegburger-gymnasium/