I have an antidote to the hijab poisonous chalice being offered the hitherto “uncontaminated” South-West. Instead of the unstoppable facing the unmovable situation being gradually erected and in the process, tugging at the heart of generational peace, integration and cohabitation, why not a compromise for everyone to move on? Well, that would depend on the real whys, for the resurgence of the hijab cacophony. If it is purely piety and early engagement of the Muslim girl-child, then a give-and-take, should satisfy all.
Though the hijab battle is being mainly fought in the academic domain right now, the socio-psychological impacts on generations are far bigger than the palliatives of the moment. It is very much likely that those pushing on all sides, are forgetting that those impressionable primary and secondary pupils of today, are the men and women of tomorrow, who are being unfortunately implanted with religious hate, because parents and activists want to score all manners of points and possibly for some, to end up with wards of accursed dollars from hate sponsors, elsewhere.
If the damage in the minds of those pupils would be limited to just seeing their current classmates as kafirs, and I mean on both sides, one could argue that all should carry on as required for the determinate period of the completion of study and go their separate ways, possibly never to meet again. Even at that, don’t they say the best of friendship is usually weaved at these levels of schooling, when boys would roll themselves over in sawdust during the usual break-time fights and still go home together at closing time, with arms thrown over each other’s shoulders, while munching oranges together?
But the stoking is of higher damage intensity. Maybe the pro and anti-corners could not see that they would end the society soon at godlessness, because their scoffing is suffocating everyone, including the girl-child being draped and trapped. Do grandstanding parents and activists ever get to check with those they claim to be protecting, on both sides? Saturday Tribune’s investigative findings in the wake of the brouhaha involving Lagos schools, showed, that MURIC and co. on one side and the status quo campaigners on the other, are likely casting their bangles in vain. Do these hijab stragglers know that some of the girls being compelled to wear the veil from home, get to furiously yank it off, without school authorities’ compulsion, immediately they are out of parental sight? And what about those Christian girls deliberately wearing hijab to escape the regulation on low-cut hair for girls in public schools, without the knowledge of their parents, since they also get to cast it off, long before getting home?
With the heavy dose of politicking and religious mimicry lacerating what should ordinarily be the deep spiritual symbolism of the veil, the godliness that hijab should project in the mind of the Muslim girl-child, is now being gradually replaced by daily spectacle of mindless heckling and yelling, leaving those students, male and female, to be searching for the God their hate-loving parents claim to be serving. I have not done much of the Quran but the little the Holy Spirit has helped me search, points to man as the expression of God’s mind and when that man stands without shaking, in the way of the Lord, fellow men, would see the attributes of God through him. Can the feuding parties, with all conscience, claim to be representing God, in their conducts, right now?
My Bible says to me that prayers are answered when we befriend our God in obedience. Before Christian parents would set out on aluta, they should be sure they are not running the errands of flesh, because it is dangerous to engage in a dangerous venture without the dangerous God.
Am I advocating stupid docility on both sides? No, I am preaching spiritual sensibility, sensitivity and sense. Or what is the sense in throwing God far away from the girl-child you want to bring up in deep religiousity? Or where is reasonability in making the generation of such a girl-child godless, by diffusing spirituality with mere worship meme, so much so, that what is left of it, is as confusing as watery in substance? It then becomes a matter of, what shall it profit the parent who gained religious ascendancy for his children and turned them away from the path of eternal life. That would be a shame.
Our soul and not bodily adornment, is the crucial crucible for spiritual growth and that is what any genuinely-loving parent, Muslim or Christian, must target. While in Yobe State, I had seen hyper-active religiousity, complete with hijab, mixing freely with highly-inflammable libido. I have also seen worship leaders in outwardly-respectable Christian choir, having no qualms, befriending the world, despite the divine warning that such association is a complete declaration of enmity with God. So, what exactly are we fighting about and fighting for?
However, if men still want to do the “Proudly XYZ” to show-off their supposed piety, why not allow hijab, officially on Friday, for Muslim female students, to allow all study in peace. I’m only concerned about the reward of such display.
Kai Ladoja!
Was in Ibadan for days in the exited week and yours truly felt the political pulse of everyday Ibadanite. One major problem with educated fellows in our clime, is possibly assuming that grammatical sagacity is equal to supremacy over our non-westernised compatriots, in the matters of political punditry. Wallahi, those everyday people sabi their political environment, despite the inability to forge such deep knowledge in theoretical ism. Three takeaways followed me to Lagos; one, comments on Rashidi Ladoja’s politics were dirge-like. Here is a once-besotted-with leader, now considered unstable and, therefore, unreliable. The high-chief is still loved for his Ibadan-centrism but his politics is beclouding. Maybe, he has to better explain his rolling-stone, roller-coasting partisan politicking before it is too late. Two, Seyi Makinde, the PDP man, should as a matter of urgency, find and fix what is lacking in emotional connectivity with the vulcanizer, the night security guard et al. He is at liberty to dismiss this as an uninformed commentary of a Lagosian who isn’t on ground. And Adelabu peculiarmess? If he emerged the winner; while his loaded financial arsenal would count, the main testimony might be, “there is indeed something in a name”
and then