Speech by State Secretary Dr Markus Kerber at the official opening ceremony for the Islamkolleg Deutschland ,
State Secretary Dr Markus Kerber
Source: BMI
President Wulff, Minister Thümler, Mayor Griesert, Madam President, Members of the German Bundestag and Members of the Lower Saxony State Parliament, honoured representatives of the religious organisations, Dr Begić, Professor Uçar, students of the Islamkolleg, ladies and gentlemen,
We are celebrating this historic day in a historic city which has a great deal to do with our country's constitutional law on relations between the state and religious organisations. We have gathered here to mark the start of practical training at the Islamkolleg Deutschland. We are able to do this here today thanks to many years of persistent effort by various individuals and institutions, and above all thanks to your commitment, Professor Uçar.
It has been more than ten years since the German Islam Conference published its first recommendations. At that time, we agreed that it was necessary for religious staff of Muslim congregations in Germany to be trained in Germany, because a religion will be able to make its home in a country or society only if its spiritual authorities, its sense of purpose and its teachings fit the realities and way of life in the country where its adherents live. An Islamic community of faith that is at home in Germany – and that also means independent of foreign influence – must train and appoint its own religious leaders and staff.
I am not going to describe every step in the process that brought us to this point, but one important milestone, achieved in agreement with the federal states and the Federal Ministry for Education and Research not long after the German Islam Conference published its recommendations, was establishing Islamic theology as a course of study at German universities. The primary aim was to train teachers of the Islamic religion. But there was naturally also the expectation that the universities’ centres and departments of Islamic theology would produce graduates who would later work in Muslim congregations, whether as imams, teachers, preachers, chaplains or social workers.
But even back then, at a conference you organised here in Osnabrück, Professor Uçar, on training for imams in Europe, it became clear that university graduates would need further practical training. That conference was sponsored by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community and by Lower Saxony's Ministry for Science and Culture. The fact that today, some ten years later, we are again working together as partners is yet another example of how much patience and perseverance are needed to turn recommendations into reality.
And it was worth it. Today, we are celebrating a historic occasion: the beginning of academic training conducted in German for Islamic religious personnel which is not affiliated with any one Muslim umbrella organisation or country of origin. We are celebrating nothing less than the contribution of the many German Muslims to this country and the provision of a religious home for them here. We are on this journey together.
Already at last year's meeting of the German Islam Conference, Federal Minister Seehofer described the model project of the Islamkolleg as enormous progress. I wholeheartedly agree with that description. The Islamkolleg's training programme is self-confidently German and Islamic in the spirit of an Islam, of Muslim life, which is rooted in our society and which shares and respects the values of our Basic Law.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community publicly welcomed the founding of the Islamkolleg a year and a half ago and signalled its support early on. Since then, the ministry has provided significant funding from the budget of the German Islam Conference for the planning phase and for the implementation phase as a model project, which is now starting. I am very pleased that Lower Saxony is co-funding the project, and I would like to thank you, Minister Thümler, for the close and excellent cooperation. We met in February 2019 and decided over coffee that it was time to move beyond talking and start making practical progress.
I would like to emphasise that, despite federal and state funding, this project of training religious personnel now complies with the right to self-determination and will continue to do so. The government does not interfere, but does ensure a free and democratic framework. Our constitutional law on religious organisations enables this kind of cooperation between the state and religious communities. And this is why it is also important that religious umbrella organisations of mosque congregations are directly involved in the Islamkolleg as a registered association and in this project. I would also like to thank you, the representatives of Muslim congregations here today, for your willingness and your courage to take part in this process. I know this was and is not to be taken for granted.
And I would like to add that I would rather see the German government fund such projects than any foreign countries which could then use them for their own political ends and possibly exert undesirable influence. The German government funding also helps our Muslim compatriots create their own, independent institutions. I say this also with reference to the Muslims who have immigrated to Germany since 2015. If we do not want to leave it up to their countries of origin or other foreign countries to address the concerns of Muslims in Germany, and there are good reasons for not doing so, then we – the German government and German Muslims together – must take action. And today we are showing that this works.
Ladies and gentlemen, diversity of religions and world views can enrich a society, but can also bring conflict, as we know not least from the experience of the Thirty Years' War, which was brought to an end in 1648 with seminal peace negotiations held here in Osnabrück and in Münster under the motto pax optima rerum: peace is the highest good. One of the lessons for policy on religion learned from the Thirty Years' War and enshrined in the Peace of Westphalia (despite external opposition) is the equal status of all the religions in the Holy Roman Empire represented by the parties to the peace treaties.
These lessons, ladies and gentlemen, remain valid today, in the form of our free and secular constitutional law on religious organisations. This claim to equal status, entailing equal rights and obligations, is a legacy of the Enlightenment; in our constitution today, which is neutral with regard to religion and world views, this equality extends to all religions and religious communities.
Ensuring that Muslim organisations in Germany also enjoy this equality in practice is currently one of the priorities of policy on religion and integration and even, in a larger sense, of policy on community. The aim is to integrate Islamic organisations into the framework of cooperation between the state and religious communities in Germany: in a manner of speaking, to weave a religion that has been present in our country for a relatively short period of time into the fabric that connects the state and religious communities in Germany.
At the same time, this concerns the entire society. Social solidarity and social cohesion cannot be taken for granted, but must instead be worked for again and again, in the face of opposition from various quarters. Social cohesion and integration are core concerns of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community.
Democratic processes of negotiation are needed to ensure that friction and conflicts which naturally arise in the course of integrating Islam in Germany do not lead to polarisation or even violence. We have created the necessary framework for this in the form of the German Islam Conference.
In my view, what makes the Conference unique is that it is not a top-down measure by the state, but rather a forum for dialogue between the government – at federal, state and local level – and Muslims in Germany to address problems critically and constructively, to seek solutions and then to implement these solutions. That was the intention of Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble when he founded the German Islam Conference in 2006.
As we all know, the processes of negotiation and integration rarely go forward without a hitch; instead, progress is followed by setbacks and vice versa. But today we can see that persistence, tenacity and the courage to take new paths also yield results. First dialogue, then initiative and ultimately cooperation – these are the steps the German Islam Conference takes to achieve success.
You who are responsible for setting up and running the Islamkolleg – academics and umbrella organisations of Islamic congregations – and of course you, the students, have chosen to take responsibility – for the benefit of Muslims in Germany, of our community and our society. Thank you for your commitment. I wish you much success and God's blessings for this new venture.