‘Islamic’ kindergartens cause a stir in Austria

VIENNA: A debate is raging in Austria after a study suggested Islamic kindergartens in Vienna were helping to create “parallel societies” or even produce the dangerous homegrown radicals of the future.

According to its author, Ednan Aslan, a Turkish-born Austrian professor at Vienna University, some 10,000 children aged two to six attend around 150 Muslim preschools, teaching the Quran much like Christian ones do with Bible studies.

At least a quarter are backed by groups propagating arch conservative strains of Islam like Salafism, or organisations that see religion not just as a private matter but integral to politics and society, Aslan believes.

“Parents are sending their kids to establishments that ensure they are in a Muslim setting and learn a few suras (chapters from the Quran),” Aslan, a respected researcher into Islamic education, said.

“But they are unaware that they are shutting them off from a multicultural society,” he said.

The study, published last year, has been jumped on by critics of immigration – not least the far-right Freedom Party – in the wake of attacks such as Paris and Brussels perpetrated by Muslims who grew up in Europe.

But many reject Aslan’s findings, questioning its methodology.

The magazine Biber, which writes for and about minorities, sent a veiled Muslim reporter undercover posing as a mother looking for a place for her son at 14 Muslim kindergartens.

She found no evidence to back up Aslan’s suggestions that they were churning out “little Salafists” or that things like the children singing – frowned upon by ultrastrict Muslims – were banned.

But around a third were according to the magazine “problematic”, “cutting off or isolating children” from mainstream society. It also voiced concerns about the “openness” of some staff and the level of German spoken. – AFP