Madam, - The debate on the wearing of the hijab in schools brought about by Breda O'Brien's column of May 31st is welcome and long overdue. Forty years ago we would not have been having this debate - and not just because there were far fewer Muslims living in Ireland at that time.
For in the 1960s, throughout the Arab and Muslim world, the headscarf was commonly viewed as being confined to rural areas, being worn by the oldest, most conservative and traditional members of society. A look at photos of female university students from this period will reinforce the point that the overwhelming majority of middle-class women did not wear the headscarf. Unfortunately, since then Muslim societies all over the world have turned in on themselves in an attempt to return to an "original" or "pure" interpretation of their religion. The clearest manifestation of this has been in the ever-increasing numbers of Muslim women who wear the hijab. In one sense, I have no problem with this change. Parents are allowed to bring up their children in the manner they see fit. But as I understand it, there is no Muslim secondary school in this State, so Muslim girls who pursue a secondary education in Ireland do so in schools which are either run, for the most part, by Christian churches or by the Irish State. Until Muslims in Ireland set up their own secondary schools, they should respect the school uniform policy, if there is any, of Irish schools and those who administer these schools.
From my own experience of living and teaching for two years in the Middle East, I learnt that the vast majority of girls and women who wear the headscarf do not do so because of some autonomous "choice", but on the instruction of their father or some other male figure of family authority. That is why there is the obscenity of girls who are only nine years of age being forced to wear the hijab - the logic being that if they wear it when they are young, they will do so for the rest of their lives.
Breda O'Brien writes that "Islam is not a monolith". She is correct. I have Muslim friends who drink alcohol and eat pork and and I know Muslim girls who do not cover their hair. This is no different from Catholics who are divorced or use contraception and Jews who do not attend the synagogue. They regard themselves as no less Muslim than those who choose to obey these proscriptions.
Why must we always focus on the most zealous Muslims and present these as the norm? In the context of schools in Ireland, how soon will it be before the same people who now demand the right to wear the hijab demand that pork is excluded from school menus because it goes against their religion? Or that boys and girls be seated apart from each other in secondary school classrooms?
I do not expect any leadership from our politicians on this question. No doubt they will shirk the issue until such a time as it can no longer be avoided, when they will cobble together some half-baked compromise which will please no one, especially those who work in education.
- Yours, etc,
DAVID DOYLE, Gilford Park, Sandymount, Dublin 4.