8th August, 2022
PRESS
RELEASE:
MURIC FAULTS SOYINKA ON HIJAB
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), an Islamic human
rights advocacy group, has disagreed with Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka
on the issue of hijab as part of school uniform. However, the group agreed with
Soyinka on the acceptability of the Muslim-Muslim ticket. On hijab, MURIC
insists that uniformity should not lead to the annihilation of any culture.
The faith-based human rights group spoke through
its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, on Monday, 8th August, 2022.
“Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka,
spoke about Muslim-Muslim ticket and the use of hijab on Tuesday, 2nd
August, 2022. He saw nothing wrong with the former but frowned at the latter. While
we agree with him on the former, we find his hypothesis on the latter full of holes.
“The respected Nobel Laureate had said, ‘There is one other thing going on in my
mind. And I think we have the experts here who will talk about it. There are
some school children over there. And one wonderful thing about them for me is
that they are in uniform. In other words I cannot tell which one is a
Christian, which one is a Muslim, which one is an Orisa worshipper, which one
is a Zoroastrian, which one is a Buddhist. They are school children.’ (https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/08/2023-wole-soyinka-speaks-on-outcry-against-muslim-muslim-ticket/)
“We beg to disagree sir. The children may be in uniform, but
what type of uniform? That is what the respected Nobel Laureate did not see. He
could not see what we see everyday. We see humiliation everyday. We see
intimidation everyday. We see stereotyping, stigmatization and harassment everyday.
Muslim children come home everyday with tales of derision and ostracization in
the hands of school principals and teachers. Our hearts bleed.
“The students Professor Soyinka saw were in Christian uniform
but of course Prof did not see that. Anytime female Muslim children are denied
the right to use hijab, they are forced to use Christian uniform. Any female
Muslim student who wears her uniform without hijab is wearing Christian uniform.
Hijab is our garment of spirituality. It is our symbol of freedom from neo-imperialism.
“A school uniform
for Muslim female students without hijab is alien to Muslim culture. What
Muslims accept as school uniform for their girls is one with a head covering. It
is Christians who do not mind uncovering their heads in public. We do, and our
value system should be respected if there is tolerance in society. Why are
educated Nigerians unwilling to tolerate hijab? Who did this to Nigeria?
“If people gather in a hall in Britain or America
with Africans among them, should the whites compel the blacks to dress like
them? Must we all be in suits? Should one culture dominate the other? God
created us in different shapes and colours. We have different cultures attesting
to our heterogeneity. No attempt should be made to force everyone to adopt a
particular culture.
“By the way, female Muslim students who are demanding hijab are
not asking to use uniforms different from what other students are using. They
will wear the same uniform but they will add a head cover of the same stuff and
colour with the uniform.
“Anyway, Nigerian schools will do better with African dresses as
school uniform instead of this colonial design. What is wrong with using ‘adire’, ‘buba’,
‘sokoto’, ‘iro’ and ‘gele’ as a way of discarding colonial mentality? It will
also be the ‘secular’ uniform since Nigeria’s adoption of Christian uniform has
necessitated the agitation for hijab as an Islamic identity.
“It was Lyndon B.
Johnson who said ‘If we are to live in peace, we must know each other better’. What
opponents of hijab need to do is to get to understand why Muslims want hijab
and once they know that it is a divine instruction (Glorious Qur’an 24:30-31)
there should be no more objection. Any opposition after that must be understood
as a desire to stop Muslims from obeying their Lord and Creator. It becomes
religious repression and Muslims have every right to resist it.
“The school uniform of a Muslim girl is incomplete without
hijab. The Christian girl is comfortable with the ‘conventional’ uniform
because it is a Christian uniform. It must be noted that the uniform used in
Nigerian schools today was designed by the British colonial master who was,
essentially, a Christian.
“The ideal school uniform for a Muslim girl is a pair of
trousers with a gown that goes beyond the knees and hijab on her head. Her male
counterpart should also use trousers with a shirt on top and a cap. But the cap
is not mandatory because it is not part of the directive in the Glorious Qur’an.
“That is why the Nobel Laureate needs to know that there is more
than just one uniform. All he needs to do is to open his kind and large heart
to accept the ‘other’ uniform as well. That is what the British and the
Americans have done by allowing Muslim school girls to use hijab. In contrast,
the authorities in Southern Nigeria appear to have established schools
exclusively for Christians. All the Muslims are asking for is inclusiveness, a
sense of belonging and an end to marginalization.
“The
Nobel Laureate is the face of education and intellectualism not only in Nigeria
but in Africa as a whole and we are all (Muslims and Christians) proud of him. Helen
Keller said the highest result of education is tolerance. We want the revered professor
of English to set the pace in the integration of Muslims in our society.
Muslims are looked upon in Southern Nigeria as outcasts whose way of life
should be rejected. That is what refusal to accept hijab means to us. Soyinka
should lead the way.
“The Nobel Laureate is a widely travelled person.
He must be familiar with Liverpool in the United Kingdom. Several Muslim
children use Hijab on top of their school uniforms in Archbishop
Blanche College (along Smithdan road), King David's College, Blue Coat in
Wavertree Belvedere Girls' School, Toxteth, St Hildas and Holly Lodge Girls'
School (on Queen's Drive), all in Liverpool City Council. Ditto in Birmingham, Leeds,
Bradford, London, Manchester and Rochdale.
“This is
the problem with Nigeria. Our political leaders and scholars take breakfast in London,
lunch in Virginia, dinner in Scotland. They see trams, trolleys, subways and
other modern systems of transportation. But they never think of replicating it
in their own country. They see freedom of religion in form of school children
using hijab but they will come to Nigeria and oppose hijab because they think Nigerian
Muslims are destined to die in colonial bondage.
“Professor Soyinka also said concerning
use of hijab in schools, ‘They are equal and they are being encouraged to see
one another as human beings, not as separate creatures.
“Soyinka’s
‘equal’ status among students is unacceptable to us. Muslim children cannot be ‘equal’
in Christian uniform. This is a subtle way of completing the identity robbery
of Muslims in Nigeria. It was Dr. James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey who said, ‘You can
play a tune of sorts on the white keys, and you can play a tune of sorts on the
black keys. But for harmony you must use both the black and the white.’
“So why can’t we have Christian and
Muslim children using the same uniforms with matching hijab on the heads of the
female Muslim children? Why can’t Muslim children be accepted as Muslims? Why
must they appear like Christians before they are warmly received? Why must
whole schools be paraded as Christian learning centres?
“The picture of Barrack Obama sitting
with an American school girl wearing hijab went viral during his administration.
There were other students in hijab in the same classroom. That picture sent a
strong message to the world. It is only in Southern Nigeria that we want to
perpetuate French assimilation method. The rest of the world has moved on. But Nigerians,
particularly Southerners, remain glued to colonial mentality.
“Even the United Nations condemned French ban on hijab in 2018. The
UN committee ruled that France violated an
international rights treaty when it banned a woman from wearing hijab while she
studied at a school. The UN Human Rights Committee said the ban broke the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/10/1023872;
https://www.france24.com/en/20181023-france-un-ban-full-veil-human-rights). Now,
is Nigeria not part of the UN? Professor Soyinka is known for his stand on
human rights in this country. Is he saying Muslim children should not enjoy
human rights?
“Soyinka does not want Muslim children
to use hijab so that children would not ‘look at one another as different’. Did God create them equal? Do they have same
height, same complexion, same tribal marks? Why don’t the teachers send out the
fair-complexioned children and retain only the black ones in the class if we
want uniformity? Why is it that the Muslim identity alone is Soyinka’s problem?
“These children know themselves and
hijab is no problem among them. Children who use hijab and those who do not use
it have mixed together singing and laughing. There has never been any report of
a clash among students on the issue of hijab.
“The Nobel Laureate also added, ‘And I
want to be informed if it is against democracy that schools insist that
uniforms be worn by children so that they are not distinguished in a very
dramatic way. So that they do not look at one another as different.’
“Our response to this is capital YES. What
is democracy if there is no individual freedom? Kainz defines American form of
democracy as a form of government which prides itself on its recognition of and
commitment to individual freedoms and personal property rights. The demand for
hijab is a civil liberty struggle. But the irony here is that no single human
rights lawyer or activist who is a non-Muslim has deemed it fit to add his or
her voice to the cries of these innocent little girls. Not even the so-called women
liberation groups.
“What did Margoli have in mind when he
defined democracy as ‘equal opportunity to participate’? Why, then, are Muslims
being denied that ‘equal opportunity to participate’ even in the ordinary
choice of what our children will wear to school? We should be carried along in
matters that affect the morality and dignity of our children. Democracy must be
participatory, not exclusive.
“Democracy
is not about allowing every man and woman to vote alone. It also has to do with
allowing those who want to go to the church or mosque to do so while those who do
not want to use Christian uniform are given the freedom to use hijab. Our
understanding of the concept of democracy is therefore fraudulent until we
widen the scope to include freedom to use hijab in ALL schools, including the so-called
Christian schools. You cannot force Christian uniform on Muslim children and
claim you are practicing democracy.
“That is why Otwin Marenin said democracy
exists when the institutions and politics of the society represent the consent
and interests of all citizens. Hijab is what the Muslims want but today these
Muslims who are not even a minority are being denied by an elitist minority.
“Concluding his comment on hijab,
Soyinka said, ‘So now I’m talking to religionists. I’m saying why do you want
to create such marked differentiation at that age, that impressionable age,
when we need to teach our children to look at one another as equals, as the
same people, the same entitled creatures of society?’
“We affirm that it is ‘that impressionable age’ that is the
problem. If Muslim
children do not use hijab in their impressionable age, they are not ever likely
to use it afterwards. Christian
authorities in the schools want to indoctrinate Muslim children against Islam
and against the use of hijab at an impressionable age so that it will be difficult
for their Muslim parents to re-mould them when they mature.
“The learned professor knows that people can only bend a sapling,
not a tree. Muslims are expected to teach their children from childhood. We
will not allow Western education to steal our children from us. Even the Holy
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) instructed Muslims to ensure that their
children are taken to the mosque at seven and to punish them if they fail to
pray when they reach the age of ten. It will be difficult for Muslim children
to start using hijab at tertiary level if they do not use it at primary and
secondary school levels.
“What matters is our mindset. We can inculcate love
for our country in our children without everybody wearing a single type of
school uniform. What happens during the holidays when the children attend
school lessons in the same schools without wearing their school uniforms? Let
us borrow a leaf from Max Learner who said, ‘Either men will learn to live like
brothers or die like beasts’.
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,
Muslim Rights Concern,
(MURIC)
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