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'Islam lessons needed in German schools'
A conference aimed at easing tensions with Germany’s 3.4 million Muslims began in Berlin on Thursday with the interior minister calling for schoolchildren to learn more about Islam. “We are tackling hate preachers with all possible methods. With religious studies about Islam we are giving them some competition, so to speak,” Wolfgang Schaeuble told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s online edition.
Any requirement that the Muslim kids learn anything about Martin Luther?
“Because if we send children to religious education in state schools, this will be different from religious practice in mosques,” the conservative minister said. At present the content of lessons about religion is worked out by schools in coordination with religious officials, but at present only with Christian and Jewish ones — something which Schaeuble said he planned to rectify..

Bekir Alboga, head of a German Muslim council, said that children should be taught about Islam throughout the country and criticised the lack of teachers qualified to do so. “This is a failure in Germany — a failure of the state,” Alboga told the regional Ruhr Nachrichten daily.

The comments came as the German government on Thursday held the third in a series of meetings on improving relations with the Muslim community, the vast majority of whom are of Turkish origin. The conference was expected to be marked by tensions between the various Islamic groups attending over a proposed joint statement stressing that Muslims living in Germany should adhere to the country’s laws and basic values.

A recent official study showing one in seven Muslims in Germany — and one in four among young Muslims — has a radical political outlook, although 90 percent oppose terrorism.
Posted by: Fred 2008-03-14
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=233191