“A district spokesman told the site officials consulted with an attorney about the World Hijab Day event, and were advised that ‘there would be more of a legal issue if the school said no to the event’ than to hold lessons on the Muslim scarf.” Really? What kind of a legal issue? Would the school be brought up on charges of “Islamophobia”? Is that trumped-up propaganda term a crime now?
School board president Van Henri White said of the Hijab Day organizer, student Eman Muthana: “She’s not trying to make anybody else anything other than who they are, but she wants people to accept who she is.” How wonderful. How incandescently multicultural, with a soupçon of victimhood thrown in: young Eman just wants acceptance, you greasy Islamophobes. Can’t you just accept her?
I’ll lead the way. Eman Muthana, I accept you. If you want to wear the hijab, please don’t think that I have the slightest objection; I don’t. What I do wonder is when Rochester’s World School of Inquiry will be holding World Uncovered Hair Day, in honor of Aqsa Parvez, whose Muslim father choked her to death with her hijab after she refused to wear it. When will Rochester’s World School of Inquiry be celebrating the memory of Aqsa and Amina Muse Ali, a Christian woman in Somalia whom Muslims murdered because she wasn’t wearing a hijab? And of the 40 women who were murdered in Iraq in 2007 for not wearing the hijab; and of Alya Al-Safar, whose Muslim cousin threatened to kill her and harm her family because she stopped wearing the hijab in Britain; and of Amira Osman Hamid, who faces whipping in Sudan for refusing to wear the hijab; and of the Egyptian girl, also named Amira, who committed suicide after being brutalized for her family for refusing to wear the hijab; and of the Muslim and non-Muslim teachers at the Islamic College of South Australia who were told that they had to wear the hijab or be fired; and of the women in Chechnya whom police shot with paintballs because they weren’t wearing hijab; and of the women also in Chechnya who were threatened by men with automatic rifles for not wearing hijab; and of the elementary school teachers in Tunisia who were threatened with death for not wearing hijab; and of the Syrian schoolgirls who were forbidden to go to school unless they wore hijab; and of the women in Gaza whom Hamas has forced to wear hijab; and of the women in Iran who protested against the regime by daring to take off their legally-required hijab; and of the women in London whom Muslim thugs threatened to murder if they didn’t wear hijab; and of the anonymous young Muslim woman who doffed her hijab outside her home and started living a double life in fear of her parents, and all the other women and girls who have been killed or threatened, or who live in fear for daring not to wear the hijab?
When is their day? When will anyone stand in solidarity with them? Those who taunt or brutalize hijab-wearing women are louts and creeps, and should be prosecuted if they commit any acts of violence. At the same time, the women who don’t wear hijab in Muslim countries are far more likely to be victims of violence than hijabis in the West. Who speaks for them?
“NY school organizes ‘Hijab Day’ for non-Muslim students,” by Victor Skinner, EAG News, February 9, 2016 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Officials at Rochester’s World School of Inquiry spent last week fielding dozens of calls from parents angry about a “World Hijab Day” event that encouraged girls to wear the Muslim religious head covering.
Sophomore Eman Muthana wears a hijab to school and wrote a letter to principal Sheela Webster asking if the school can put on its own World Hijab Day at the school last Friday, WHAM reports.
Webster approved the event – designed to educate students about the religious purposes behind the hijab – but did not inform parents until after the media reports of the event sparked backlash online, and angry calls to the school, according to WHEC.
“As a high school teacher for over 30 years, let me say that this is wrong on so many levels,” Jim Farnholz wrote, according to the news site.
“All religions are taught in our global studies classes. That being said, that is where understanding, tolerance and the good and bad of religion and history are taught. This, however, is a clear violation of separation of church and state.”
WHEC reports teachers brought in about 150 scarves in on Friday and wrapped up volunteers before the first bell. The school set up tables in the cafeteria, where girls tried on a hijab and boys were given carnations for support, according to WHEC, which described the event as “student run.”
“We wanted them to experience it and feel how we feel,” Muthana, originally of Yemen, told the site. “I just feel proud that I’m sharing my culture.”
“I love that we’re having the open conversation. I think that’s the first step into making it a more open and tolerant environment. I think this is the perfect school for it,” English-as-a-Second-Language teacher Kelly Lalonde told WHAM.
A district spokesman told the site officials consulted with an attorney about the World Hijab Day event, and were advised that “there would be more of a legal issue if the school said no to the event” than to hold lessons on the Muslim scarf.
Regardless, Webster, who also donned a hijab, was adamant the school did not promote religion, but rather cultural acceptance.
“Our perspective in it was not religious – it was really about experiential,” she told WHAM. “We are an experiential school; we engage kids in all kinds of activities and projects all of the time, so the perspective of being able to learn what a hijab is, why some women choose to wear it and why some women don’t choose to wear it, and we provide the opportunity to experience it; it is well within protocol of experiential learning.”
She told WHEC the lessons on the hijab had nothing to do with the Muslim religion, it “was actually around learning about the cloth.”
School board president Van Henri White didn’t seem to have a problem with the hijab day when he stopped in on the event Friday.
“She’s not trying to make anybody else anything other than who they are,” White said of Muthana, “but she wants people to accept who she is.”…
“What lesson will they wear a Yarmulke in? Or the Christian cross? Or the Hindu turban?” Dan Lane posted. “Funny how it always seems to be the Muslims they learn about, even in Common Core.”
“How disgusting and irresponsible for any educator to encourage a child to wear a symbol of oppression, whether it be religious or cultural,” Rebecca Sluman wrote….