"Import Export" column: The muezzin call as a gesture of submission

Who does the public space belong to and who is allowed to fill it with sound?

In Cologne, the muezzins are now allowed to call for Friday prayers.

The city has started a model project for this purpose.

It only takes a few words: headscarf, mosque, minaret, muezzin, and the pulse rises, the comment columns explode, there is an argument.

The debate is always old wine in new bottles: Some see the right to free practice of religion trampled underfoot when it comes to the fact that teachers are not allowed to teach with headscarves, as prescribed by the Berlin Neutrality Act or the Federal Act on the Appearance of Civil Servants .

There is never absolute neutrality

The others see themselves robbed of their cultural identity when an ornamented dome joins a baroque sacred building. Both are nonsense. You know such airs when it comes to crosses in the classroom. Also iconic, as in 2018 Markus Söder held the cross in the camera with a knightly gesture and announced the decree of the cross (“In the entrance area of ​​every service building, a cross must be clearly visible as an expression of the historical and cultural character of Bavaria”) - incidentally, despite church protest. You cannot hang up crosses and ban headscarves at the same time. If already, because already: Equal rights for everyone!

The German state is secular and cannot identify with any religious denomination.

Civil servants are representatives of the state.

The principle of neutrality applies in the school, which means that the school must be an ideologically and religiously neutral place.

Even if there is never absolute neutrality and even if it cannot be determined solely by what is on the head or hanging around the neck, it should at least be aimed for.

Germany is a country of immigration, multi-ethnic and multi-religious.

The cultural identity is pluralistic.

And the secular and ideologically neutral state is, if you will, the ground on which the pluralistic society meets.

The ringing of bells is only sound, not a linguistic message

For a long time, criticism of religion was a left cardinal virtue (opium of the people, etc.). There has been a paradigm shift in recent years. Criticism of religious content is often understood as an attack on identity. The crucial question divides, not only when it comes to the Berlin Neutrality Act, SPD, Greens; Left. Feminists have long defended themselves against sexism and the morality of men in gowns. (No god, no state, no patriarchy!) Today, wearing a hijab is sometimes reinterpreted as an act of emancipation. Feminists take part in #WorldHijabDay. And other feminists respond with #NoHijabDay. At best one is arguing, at worst, criticism of religion is discredited as hatred of Islam. One withdraws into secular niches,finds the new political home with the liberals and conservatives or loses it entirely.

Back to the muezzin call.

The right to exercise one's religion freely, it is often said.

Calling the muezzin is not a religious obligation.

If you don't want to do without it, you can simply download an app.

But it is also said that the muezzin call is ultimately only the Islamic version of the church bells.

True and not true.

The church bells not only ring for prayer - anyone who has lived behind a church knows that. They also signal the time, which is no longer necessary today.

Inaugurated by Erdogan himself

And in contrast to the adhan, the call to prayer, the ringing of bells is only sound, not a linguistic message. Part of the Adhan is also the Islamic creed (“There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger”). Of course one can ask whether it is beneficial to coexistence in a pluralistic society to fill public space with creeds. Because what is welcomed with joy by some Muslims is sometimes re-traumatizing for religious minorities and atheists who fled Islamism to Germany.

Aiman ​​Mazyek, Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims, recently stated: "Cologne sends (...) A sign of tolerance and diversity into the world." Atib is assigned to the gray wolves, as is the Islamic Center Hamburg, which, according to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is subordinate to Ayatollah Khamenei. “Tolerance” is a word like “diversity” and “respect”, which are like old chewing gum that has been chewed on until it no longer tastes like anything. The largest mosque in Cologne is the Ditib Central Mosque.

It was inaugurated in 2018 by Erdogan himself.

After all, the Ditib mosques are subordinate to the Turkish religious authority Diyanet and thus Erdogan.

So when this authority in Turkey or Kurdistan, in occupied Africa, plastered Alevi and Yazidi villages with mosques and blasted them five times a day with the Islamic creed, it is an Islamist gesture of submission, and we should not allow the Cologne branch to do the same.