Common sense must prevail
Apr 22, 2011
The strange decision by education bureaucrats to ban the Muslim hijab worn by school girls must be reversed, reviewed and corrected once and for all. The board of the Office of Basic Education Commission has fumbled this issue badly. It has made a mountain out of a molehill and raised both concern and resentment when there was no need for either. The issue of the Islamic headscarf in government schools was settled long ago in the deep South, and needs no reconsideration.
The Obec got into this minor issue recently when 17 students sought permission to wear the hijab to classes at Wat Nong Chok School in suburban Bangkok. Nong Chok district is home to a large Muslim population. The request from the school girls was more formality than necessity - a polite way of informing school authorities that the girls intended to wear the hijab. For reasons that are unclear, authorities at the school referred the girls' letter to the Obec, which then rejected the wearing of the Islamic scarf.
If turning down the request was strange, the issue turned more bizarre. Obec said it rejected the girls' request to wear the hijab because that particular school was a Buddhist institution located in the compound of a temple. There was no further reasoning. Logically - or rather illogically - Obec authorities seemed to feel that members of one religion should not be seen mixing with those of another. This makes no sense whatsoever. In the first place, the Muslim girls already were registered at the school. In the second, people of various religions mix, meet, work, play, socialise and go to school freely in Thailand.
As the puzzled and outraged Islamic spiritual leader, Chula Ratchamontri Aziz Pitakumpol, said, Muslim students in hijab frequent museums and even temples in the deep South, to further their education. They even speak with monks, and no one is horrified. The Muslims of Thailand find this a normal life; the authorities of Obec somehow find it abnormal.
Obec has got this decision entirely backwards. Worse, however, it has needlessly raised a controversy and even bitterness. The issue of wearing hijab to class in government schools was settled some 30 years ago in the deep South. Back then, some authorities feared that the head scarf would encourage feelings of separatism. In the end they decided, correctly, that banning the hijab would cause far more problems than the dress could possibly cause.Authorities in the 1980s were right; in 2011 they are wrong. The girls of Nong Chok will break no law and pose no threat to school order by wearing the hijab. Once again, authorities risk far more divisiveness and controversy with their illogical ban than the wearing of the headscarf ever could cause. In fact, no problem ever has been recorded in a Thai school over the wearing of the hijab - or any other dress of any other group, religious or otherwise. If anything, the hijab and its attendant modesty helps enforce school decorum and student behaviour.
The best solution to this vexing but still manageable dispute is for the Obec board to meet again, reverse its decision and move on. To do otherwise risks dragging out the issue irrationally. If necessary, other agencies or even the government must move in quickly and override this unjust and unreasonable decision.
Thank you Bangkok Post on March 9, 2011