The headscarf as a symbol of liberation? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that!

It could be that the protests in Iran will spark a discussion about the headscarf in German classrooms as well. After all, there is hardly a class in most West German secondary schools in which there is no girl wearing a headscarf.

And one or the other teacher could use the teaching materials from the Münster-based "School-Scout" publishing house. For example, on the worksheets entitled: “The headscarf – a symbol of religious freedom or oppression?” The question would have to be answered like this: The fact that women in Germany are allowed to wear the headscarf, but do not have to, is an expression of freedom. The fact that they have to wear it in Iran and in many other Islamic societies is an expression of oppression.

In the "worksheets" one reads it differently: "In Western cultures today, the headscarf is often seen as a symbol of the oppression of women, for most Arabic cultures, on the other hand, it is a symbol of women's liberation." In order to overcome this contradiction , "the static concept of culture, which is defined by symbolizing origin, demarcation or foreignness, would have to be questioned".

In plain English: When enlightened women – regardless of origin – criticize the headscarf as a symbol of patriarchy, they reveal a “static concept of culture” that is western in character and urgently needs to be “challenged”. The thugs of the morality police couldn't put it any better, portraying Iranian women who symbolically burn their headscarves as agents of an American-Zionist conspiracy.

I think it's a rumor that the headscarf is a "symbol of women's liberation" in even one "Arabic" country. The Apostle Paul said the essentials about the headscarf as a symbol (1 Cor 11.3ff): “If a woman is not wearing a headscarf, she should have her hair cut off immediately. (...) Man must not cover his head, because he is the image and reflection of God; but the woman is the reflection of the man. For man does not come from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for woman, but woman for man.”

Of course, every woman is free to believe such nonsense and act on it. Of course, she is also free to justify her decision in other ways, for example as a confession to her origins. But a provider of teaching materials is not at liberty to reinterpret the symbol of subordination as a symbol of freedom, contrary to all statements in the Torah, the Bible and the Koran, against the testimonies of women in Iran (and many women in this country).

Nowhere are women more at the mercy of male violence than where the headscarf is prescribed for women. Denouncing this is not an expression of a “static concept of culture”, but of a clear head. If work materials are intended to challenge clear heads, they should not be approved for classroom use.