PINK HIJAB BY: Naeema F. Adani (15 years young)
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I remember my first hijab. That is my scarf
It was pink.
Simple, I know but to 7 year old me,
it was everything;
a symbol of my maturity - that I was finally old enough to cover my hair like my other sisters did.
I wore it day in, day out without fail
even if it didn’t match my outfit.
I remember bragging about it and rubbing it in the faces of all my cousins that I was a ‘big girl’ now and that they were all ‘still children’.
I remember waiting around the washing machine and hanging it and until this day,
I still have it with me, somewhere under the pile of other hijabs that I’ve bought over the years.
If 7 year old me had ever met the Naeema of today, she would be horrified.
Not because of the absurd amount of pimples on my forehead, (though, I’m sure that too would play a role) but because of something else.
It is unfortunate, and I’m ashamed to say
it but do not wear my hijab.
My hijab wears me.
When I walk into a shop and a person looks
over in my direction I want to disappear.
When a person speaks differently to me, thinking
that I do not speak English properly I silently
beg the ground to swallow me whole.
I hate it and for a while, I hated my hijab
for it too.
Though it was subconscious, over a long period
of time, I begun to change aspects of myself
to compensate for the ‘problems’ that
my hijab caused me.
Whenever I caught the eye of a stranger on
me I smiled to show how normal I was.
If I ever spoke to a stranger I would purposely
change the way I spoke to sound cheerier and
happy.
If I was ever offered food I wasn’t sure
of, I would fake a stomach illness or claim
i had already eaten because I cringed at the
thought of having to explain my religious
restrictions.
I did all these things and more yet it never
occurred to me why.
Who was I trying to impress?
To explain myself to?
The public?
I hadn’t realised it but I had separated
myself and other Muslims from the general
public.
I could be myself around my family and friends
but the public were something to fear, to
shy away from.
I could laugh loudly and wear my hijab normally
but I should keep my head down and my mouth
shut around other people?
When had I developed such a mentality?
You see, 7 year old me, though naïve and
somewhat oblivious, took so much pride in
wearing a hijab yet 15 year old me would burn
in shame at the thought of going out in one.
What had changed in the 8 years between those
times?
When had the ability to choose what I wear
become prison instead of a liberty?
I remember when I was 9 I took a walk with
my mum and we got shouted at by a group of
people in a car.
Things like ‘go back to where you came from.’
and ‘bloody Muslims!’
It was a moment I would never forget.
My mother, a strong willed, sassy, women had
become a passive little mouse.
She looked down, face expressionless and walked
away.
In my entire life, I had never hated a piece
of material so much then I had in that moment.
I had never wanted to rip my hijab off until
then.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that it was
a bad thing.
Since then there have been a lot more incidents
all more mortifying than the other.
Something that I use to take great pride in
wearing had turned into something I reluctantly
shoved on every day.
Hijab is something I wish people would understand
and see though the dark image that has been
stamped upon it.
If I could change anything, anything at all,
it would be the bad reputation that hijab
has in society, for my sake and for all the
other young women that are harassed and put
down for their decision to wear one.
In a recent study, it was found that out of
the Muslims who wear a hijab, 79.6% have been
the target of verbal threats and physical
harassment.
1/3 victims had their children present at
the time.
Most occurred in public spaces such as shopping
centres and train stations.
Furthermore, there was no intervention in
a shocking three quarters of cases and only
25% of witness who came forward when there
was, were individuals who identified to be
followers of other religions.
This study was taken In Australia in 2017.
That was last year.
For a country who prides its self on its forward
thinking we sure know how to take several
steps back.
The literal meaning of hijab in Arabic is
‘veil’, or ‘barrier’, something that
shields you.
Hijab is not just the material around my head,
it is the dress that I wear it is everything
that I have on that puts a barrier between
my body and your eyes.
It is meant to conceal, not reveal and in
a day and age like this where a young woman
gets sexually harassed in the world every
20 seconds, is it a crime that I’d feel
safer dressed modestly?
If I choose to wear a hijab, If I want to
keep my body to myself and not leave it lingering
in the minds of others that I walk past, isn’t
it my decision and my decision alone?
I was with my little cousin the other day
and you know what she told me?
She said “Naeema we’re so unlucky.”
I was confused so I asked her why and she
said, “You and I, we have the worst combination.
We’re women, black and were Muslim.
We might as well sign a death warrant because
we’ll never be equal.”
It made me sick.
A 10 year old girl like her shouldn’t even
have those kind of thoughts.
To think that she probably turns away from
all these amazing opportunities because she
believes something like the religion she practices,
has made her incapable of taking part in them.
What kind of world are we living in?
When did it ever become okay to make a young
girl feel disadvantaged because she wore a
headscarf in public?
When a person says that a hijab is oppressive
they are taking away a women’s right to
speak for herself.
How would they know a hijab is oppressive
if they’ve never worn one in their lives?
How can they make these accusations without
putting themselves in her shoes without taking
into a count that this was her choice without
understanding that they are making fun of
a person’s decision to live their life a
certain way?
How can they go to sleep at night knowing
that she now feels ashamed of herself that
she now feels oppressed because they thought
they could play lawyer for a client, who never
hired them in the first place.
I wish people would see that the intention
behind hijab is so pure and beautiful.
I cannot be oppressed by an act I choose to
practice so stop telling me otherwise.
Stop trying to protect me from an act that
you yourself are committing against me.
Don’t tell me how hijab makes me feel because
that is something I should be telling you.
I might be young and I might not have half
the experience that some people have in this
room, but I’ve lived long enough on this
earth to know that a hijab is not a symbol
of oppression, but evidence of the decision
a woman chose to make.
I can only wish that one day, the world will
come to understand that too.
