Bronwyn Bishop - Headscarf Ban

Wow! What has happened to "Multicultural Australia" ? I suppose the use of the term "freedom of speech" can now be heavily bolded in the minds of fellow Australians. Speak freely. Think later. That seems the entire craze right now.

Bronwyn Bishop, New South Wales Liberal MP has recently caused a stir amongst Muslims, people of all faiths and people of no faiths (my prediction is, she probably belongs to the latter group). Ms Bishop, with her religious surname in tact has earned herself the right to have her own surname banned! I will now refer to her simply as, "Bronwyn". She doesn't deserve her surname.

Bronwyn has called for a ban of the headscarf (hijab) in public schools. Poor Prime Minister, Mr John Howard was today left cleaning up Bronwyn's political mess by visiting a Muslim school as well as publicly stating "I don't think it's practical to bring in such a prohibition". The suggested ban was also said to be "ignorant and unAustralian" by Multicultural Affairs Minister John Cobb.

Let's just cut to the chase here. It would be impractical to implement such a ban. If you banned the headscarf, to be fair, you would also have to also ban: the Jewish skullcap (the yarmulke/kippah), prohibit Orthodox Jewish women from wearing head coverings (or wigs), Sikhs from wearing turbans, Christian nuns from covering their hair, common Christians from wearing the cross, monks that wear robes, and so forth. The list could go on forever! It is not easy to implement such a thing, particularly when not following that particular dress-code means that a person will be compromising with something that is compulsory in their faith.

There are so many bad things going on in the world right now with so-called Muslims being fed up with the 'western world' and venting their anger out (apparently) "in the name of Allah (God)". And now it seems the lovely Bronwyn is giving extremists even more of a reason to be furious. Nice one.

Australia has just recently had issues with Muslims not seen as assimilating in society with non-Muslims. Okay, well let's just say hypothetically that the ban on the hijab took place. What would happen? Firstly, Muslim parents would be outraged and they would either request for their child to take off the hijab (this is unlikely to happen), or they will remove their child from that public school. What happens then? The parents of that child after huffing and puffing will place their child in an Islamic school along with all of the other angry parents. The children of the angry parents will be very angry themselves and they will then most likely spend most of their time around fellow Muslims. What will this create? This will create a very narrow-minded upbringing for these Muslim children and provide them with very little time to assimilate with their fellow Australians.

I was brought up in a state school here in Victoria. Although I didn't wear the head scarf back then, there was no way near as much racism towards Muslims and not as many negative connotations. In other words, if I had wanted to wear the head scarf back then, it wouldn't have been as much of a big deal. Australia has moved from being racist against the Aboriginals (yes, unfortunately it is still occurring), then racist against the immigrant Europeans (post World War Two), later they were racist against the Asians - and then for a period everything appeared to sort of ease off. It seemed during the 1990's there was a huge push for "multicultural Australia" and all of that jazz. All of a sudden, a lot of people from different cultures and different religions all felt like one big happy Australian family. And that is the way it should be! But then September 11 occurred in the U.S.A. The sensationalisation of the western media and their ongoing fascination with putting fear in the hearts of common people, with the idea that all Muslims are cave living turban heads that have nothing more to do with their lives than kill people, all of a sudden has caused the racists to turn their focus on the Muslims. Just when Australia was progressing, we took one huge step back!

Bronwyn mentioned that she believes Muslim women are wearing the hijab “as a sort of iconic item of defiance”. I do understand that the hijab can be a bit of a slap in the face to some non-Muslims. They may see the fabric embedded with some sort of hidden printed text that we Muslims cannot see. Perhaps they believe the text is saying “Watch me rebel against your fashion norms”. The definition of defiance is “…bold resistance to an opposing force or authority”. Sorry Bronwyn, that is not why we cover up. We cover up as requested by Allah (God) in the Quran. We do not wear the hijab because we are trying to prove a point to Australia. We do not believe we are superior, nor to we believe we are any different to our fellow Australians. At the end of the day, people of all faiths follow the same principals, namely: compassion and justice.

Our hijab is a compulsory practise for females in our religion. So Bronwyn, next time you see a Muslim lady, do not think she is actively rebelling against your Australian dress-code. Think of her as a woman of faith, a pious and patient sister who is an obedient follower of God and a person of high morals. If anything, a person with morals will only benefit society. Your racism on the other hand Bronwyn, will not.