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October 12, 2006

Morocco: Images Of Muslim Headscarf Removed From Schoolbooks

We wrote yesterday on the antipathy towards the Muslim headscarf in Tunisia, which has been officially banned from schools and public offices since 1981.

Tunisia has been Muslim for centuries, but in a speech which should be noted by Britain's politically obsessed Muslim women, who mostly derive from Pakistan or Bangladesh, the Tunisian religious affairs minister said that the hijab had no relevance to Tunisia's history and culture.

In Britain, where Muslim women claim to be British but also have issues about their ethnic, cultural and religious identity, there is absolutely no religious justification to wear the hijab, nor the nikab (face-veil) or burka. Perhaps because they are culturally rootless, Muslim women in Britain are hiding behind their stance of religion as a political statement. Neither the burka nor the veil have any historical or cultural associations with either Pakistan, India or Bangladesh.

These Middle Eastern garments are widely promoted by extremist religious groups such as Tablighi Jamaat, to propagandize and make a statement of contempt and disdain for the "inferior morality" of Westernized societies. These items are the visible marks of losers, who have chips on their shoulders about their real identity, who can only express their individuality via the outward symbols of a politicized herd mentality. Politically correct Britons unfortunately accept these losers' statements that veils, burkas or hijabs make them feel "liberated". Not so for people from North Africa, who are more aware of what such symbols truly mean.

Today, AKI reports that in Morocco, the hijab or headscarf, is being treated as something culturally "alien", as it is in Tunisia.

The images of a hijab-clad woman have been removed from the country's copies of school textbooks. Author and intellectual Fatema Mernissi has commended the decision to remove the images, as it was taken after consultation with womens' rights activists. She said: "For the first time in Moroccan history, civically active women were invited as part of the team charged to re-write school textbooks....And they argued: 'Children shouldn't be forced to think that the veil is a necessary tool'."

The removal of the hijab images was announced this month, following pressure from women's rights groups in this Muslim country, which is said to have the most progressive laws on the rights of women, including family law, in the Arab world.

Ms Mernissi states that Morocco is combatting fundamentalism and promoting moderate interpretations of Islam. The removal of the hijab image was part of the drive to reduce fundamentalist influences on young people.

She said: "You have to remember that because Morocco has no oil wealth, we are betting on the human brain as the privileged energy source. By including women's brains in the public strategies, Morocco is betting on a human intelligence-fuelled future."

She says that policy makers are trying to "democratise access to public offices such as enforcing women's rights to be judges in courts or to be imams in mosques."

She is, however, against the banning of these items of clothing, saying: "If the Moroccan state were to decide one day to ban the veil, I would take to the street to protest against this law because it would be like when Hitler imposed on the Jews a discriminatory sign in public places."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at October 12, 2006 9:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: Christian at October 13, 2006 8:05 AM

Posted by: StillFedUp at October 13, 2006 11:02 AM

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