The Brainwashing Agenda

Canadians have an inbred sense of fairness.  By and large we want to be accommodating, not to unduly trouble anyone, just to get along.  We are ready and prepared to make sacrifices of our own to ensure that others won't have to.  And that is kind of peculiar in a sense, when it comes to the issues of being comfortable in our own homes, as it were.  On the other hand, to represent oneself as a perfect host one goes to lengths to make guests feel comfortable.

But when guests overstay their welcome they're no longer guests.  They become pests.  Not that new immigrants are pests, anything but; they represent another facet of the future of Canada.  They become Canadians.  It takes a while, understandably, but when people from other backgrounds, other cultures, who practise religions unlike those that most Canadians do, there should be some compromise on their part too, to enable them to integrate with the prevailing cultural mores.

Multiculturalism, although much celebrated and designed to make us feel very good about ourselves being so inordinately indulgent that we welcome all 'differences' and feel ourselves to be enriched by a multitude of customs and languages, religious adherences and heritage symbolisms, has gone a bit too far.  In the wrong direction.  In encouraging people of varying backgrounds to not only celebrate their backgrounds, but bring along with them some habits and customs that do not meld well here.

One of the habits not well designed to bring harmony to the general atmosphere is that of discrimination.  Suspicion of others, for example, and a dislike of those who are different.  Another kind of discrimination is the practise, through cultural heritage, of treatment the genders differently.  And claiming that in so doing one is respecting one's religious heritage.

At first blush most Canadians take offense that a child is refused participation in a sport that she enjoys because she is inadequately clad.  There was a time when a child couldn't take part in organized sport when his parents could not afford a team outfit.  There are now ways to get around that kind of complication.  And then there is the more recent controversy surrounding Muslim girls and women wearing what to many Western sensibilities represents a symbol of cultural oppression.

The appropriateness of a girl wearing a head scarf when she is playing a rough-and-tumble sport has been taken up by professional sport associations.  Sometimes it is just common sense to dress appropriate to the occasion.  And sometimes it makes good sense just to overlook these clumsy intersections between what is deemed appropriate and what is deemed offensive; in this instance, asking a child to remove her hijab.

"I decided to wear the headscarf out of love for Allah.  Some people decide not to do it because they don't have enough courage.  I had the courage to do it."  Thus said Rayane Benatti in explaining why it was that when she was asked to remove her hijab she refused.  That she has been extensively coached by her mother to react as she did, is quite likely.  A nine-year-old child's devotion to religion, to sport, and her conflict about how to proceed does not come out of nowhere.

Her mother is offended at the fact that a coach ruled she had to sit on the sidelines in a game taking place in Quebec.  "It's not because she was wearing a hijab - it's because she was wearing a piece of equipment that is not recognized", said Gatineau soccer official Marc St.Amour.  Well, so be it.  It has been recognized and proper parameters for acceptance are being considered.

But consider this, an intelligent letter to the editor placing it all in even perspective:

"The hijab is not benign

Canadian multiculturalism embraces different cultures within its secular, pluralistic Canadian society.  It was never designed to preserve inequality, or cultural/religious dissent among communities.

Banning the public wearing of the hijab is an essential part of asserting individual rights, including Muslim women attaining equality.  Within Muslim societies, discriminatory cultural constitutions and biased mentalities deny women their individuality, privileges and personal security and make them symbols of honour, leading to domestic abuses, polygamy, marital rape, honour killings, etc., all under the guise of Islam.

Cultural relativists may enjoy that cute nine-year-old Muslim girls are allowed to wear hijabs to play soccer.  However, when these young girls reach puberty, will they be equally romanticized as they pray behind men or accept that adult women "live behind" a niqab and are rendered dependent on their men or the state for their livelihood and existence?  Just as radical Islamists distort Islam, multiculturalism is being distorted by some Canadians, Muslim and otherwise, to promote ideologies detrimental to all Canadians, especially Muslim women.

the hijab is a component of Sharia laws created by Muslim Arab society to protect their familial, tribal powers and hierarchies.  The hijab in a multicultural society is not benign.  It is a brand for a political system, a live logo for radical Muslims to proclaim their Islamist political system on free and democratic Western countries.

Until Muslim women assert themselves and take responsibility for their individual destiny, they will sadly continue to be symbols to be defined and used by radical Muslims, Islamist regimes and their ideologues to promote a regressive socio-political agenda.

Yasmeen S. Loubani.