It is unfortunate that a Prague secondary nursing school rejected the request of its two students, Muslim girls, who asked for a permission to wear a headscarf in their classes, Tomas Brolik writes in weekly Respekt out yeterday.
The two girls then left the school on their own to study elsewhere. There was no drama, no extreme emotions, yet the case led to the first “hijab affair” in the Czech Republic, Brolik says.
He notes that the school head Ivanka Kohoutova politely rejected the request, arguing that the school rules permit a covered head neither for students nor for teachers.
But school rules are no wall of concrete and changing them would not be a display of cowardly concession to fundamental Islam, but merely standard responsiveness, Brolik writes.
He says using the school rules as an argument seems misplaced because the two girls did not ask for anything extreme. Some Muslim women simply consider it unbecoming not to wear a headscarf. Similarly, European women would feel unbecoming without a skirt, Brolik adds.
He argues that hijab is neither against European legislation as the veil does not cover the face, nor against the etiquette as it is not indecent for Czech women to have their heads covered.
Hijab has a religious significance, but unlike French schools, the Czech schools are not strictly secular. It is no problem if one wears a cross visibly around one’s neck, which is rather common, Brolik says.
“We certainly do not want teachers to teach in hats and pupils to sit in the classroom in caps,” he quotes Kohoutova as saying.
This is true. But does the headmistress really believe that the teachers would start wearing broad-brimmed hats and pupils knitted caps only because of two girls with a veil? Brolik asks.
Of course not. The two girls simply asked for respect to their life style, Brolik writes.
He says the girls do not want to talk to media anymore, referring to hateful Internet discussions that appeared under articles about their case.
The lawyers dealing with their case started talking of a complaint over discrimination against the girls. This development is bad, Brolik says.
A covered head is not a problem in the Czech Republic but a novelty that will be appearing more and more often. One can hardly imagine a better envoy of the change than two nice young women who want to study a Czech school. An envoy who would explain that the wish to wear a headscarf mostly is no effort at turning the country into Saudi Arabia, but the need to find a compromise and one’s place in life in the Czech Republic, Brolik writes.
But instead of calm explanation there is the accusation of trampling on religious rights and discrimination and perhaps even a court trial, Brolik says.
Czechs who have only few Muslim neighbours, if any, apparently instinctively fear the Islam and the Muslims. This is no wonder when the contact with the Islamic world is reduced to news reports about angry mobs burning a flag of a Western country, Brolik writes.
The trivial conflict between a request by two female students and the school rules could have resulted in a calm debate on mutual understanding. However, we have a miniature clash between Europe and Islam, a hijab affair, and its next round is likely to start soon, Brolik concludes.