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COMMENTARY
December 15, 2007
Hijab
Let me wade into an issue almost everyone is talking about. It was a domestic tragedy, upon which the law will rule, and before even starting the journalist must specify that, obvious as the facts of the case may seem, it is not for me to judge guilt or innocence.A Muslim father in Mississauga is accused of strangling his daughter, supposedly for refusing to wear the hijab. One of his sons is also accused, of obstructing police. From what can be read, the girl, Aqsa Parvez, age 16 and a student in a public high school, was one of many caught in a painful cultural trap, between a “traditional” Islamic family trying to maintain its cultural and religious identity in this strange New World, and the demands and temptations of the intensely secular, image-conscious, shallow adolescent environment she must encounter among her contemporaries at school. I know something of this conflict through a 19-year-old university student. Her family came from Lahore, Pakistan. Her father and three brothers have been “on her case” for many years now: more or less since she was nine; for from the moment they landed in Canada, she took to her new environment like fish to water. She has a sympathetic mother and younger brother in no position to stand up for her, at home. And like Aqsa Pervez (from what we have read), she has been in the habit of leaving home in hijab each morning, then changing on the way to class. She also works evenings -- I know her from a common interest in art -- less, I think, for the money, than for the excuse of staying “in town.” This girl -- let us call her Harata, not her real name -- won a giant concession from her family in being allowed to attend university at all. She is extremely intelligent, and getting high marks. She has a very droll, and I would say, distinctly Lahori sense of humour, that is often self-deprecating, and makes riot with the politically-correct platitudes that poison the air around us. Her wonderful sense of the ridiculous may be universally comprehensible, but in style it was obviously acquired at home, and from the same father, and brothers, and mother, whom she deems so oppressive. Let me dwell on this point for a moment. We tend to classify “traditional Muslims” as “religious extremists,” and then to assume all religious people are dour. This is generally the opposite of the truth, not only for “traditional Christians” and Orthodox Jews, but also for Koran-wielding Muslims. The ability to make jest, even of their own cultural isolation, is common among members of all minorities of which I've ever been aware. Muslims are no exception in this respect. Their religion often separates them from us, but their humanity brings them near. Harata has a keen understanding of the precariousness of her situation, between two worlds. She calls herself a chameleon, and says, “You would not recognize me if you saw me at home.” Yet her choice between worlds is unambiguous: she wants out of that home and into this world. Brilliant though she is, and with a wit so acute that it often gives the impression of wisdom beyond her years, she is in fact young and foolish. She compensates for her “repressive” home environment by behaving very recklessly away from it, especially with boys. This is done with words, not acts; but if her father ever read her words, he would never believe she is actually quite chaste. Unfortunately, she has left enough traces of her wild, mostly imaginary, “alternative life” -- in places like the Internet where anyone could find them -- that I fear for her. She herself contacted me immediately after the death of Aqsa Pervez was reported, saying, “That could have been me.” There is no possible excuse to be made for the crime of which Mohammad Parvez is accused. This was made clear enough by spokesmen at a news conference held by the Islamic Society of North America, in Mississauga, yesterday. But their awkwardly-phrased pleas for understanding should also be attended to. For it is worth asking ourselves if the society Aqsa Pervez wished to escape into, and in which this Harata wants to be ensconced, offers anything better than what they left at home. For it does not offer a better or deeper or more merciful religion. It only offers an escape from religion, and therefore from any religious formation that can make a person whole. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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