altmuslim
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Whatever their perspective might be on Muslim women who cover, don’t let anyone ever tell you that “it’s just a piece of cloth.” That small piece of fabric conveys religious and political statements that, last week, have been at the center of lawsuits throughout the Western world. The main battleground over the public display of hijabs have mainly been at schools in Canada and Europe, where they are considered too religious to be a part of a school wardrobe. It’s not that hijabs are a new sight; in fact, people in most major metropolitan areas don’t even bat an eye when they see them. The problem is that some societies feel that hijab threatens the secular nature of state institutions. In Quebec, a private school expelled 16-year old Irene Waseem, a Muslim student who began wearing the scarf, and a coalition of Muslim, Jewish, and Sikh groups are mobilizing to have the expulsion overturned. In England, a teacher was accused of assault after tearing off the hijab off one of her students, apparently because the hijab wasn’t “standard issue” grey. And in Germany, a court ruled that Fereshta Ludin, a Muslim schoolteacher, cannot be forbidden from wearing the scarf at school. The battle over hijab in schools is not over yet, with French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin vowing that hijabs would have no place in French schools. “Why stop them from demonstrating their religion?” commented one non-Muslim student in France. “Nobody says anything to people who come dressed in gothic outfits wearing Satan T-shirts.”
Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.
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