What The Playland Hijab Incident Tells Us About America Ten Years After 9/11

It should have been a joyous day of frolicking and fun, of pink spun sugar and blue sno-cones and enthusiastic yelps. Instead, the events that began with a young woman’s refusal to comply with safety regulations at a Rye, New York amusement park – and escalated into a confrontation with police – have morphed into a political showdown that highlights chasms in American (and Western) culture first thrust into our consciousness by the attacks of 9/11, and which have since grown only worse.

In case you missed it, what happened, essentially, was this: a group of some 3000 Muslims visited Rye Playland on a trip sponsored by the Muslim American Society of New York to celebrate the end of Ramadan and beginning of the festival of Eid. Although cautioned by park officials that Muslim women in hijab (headscarves) would not be permitted on certain rides without removing their head-coverings, which risk becoming tangled in the machinery, the association failed to convey this bit of news to members of the tour. (The rule, it should be noted, extends to all head-coverings, or what the park calls “headgear,” including yarmulkes, baseball caps, and hats, as well as other loose items of clothing.)

Consequently, when Ola Salem, a 17-year-old Muslim girl from Brooklyn, was told she would have to remove her scarf in order to take a particular ride, she balked. “This has nothing to do with headgear,” she claims to have said. “This is my religion.” The situation, predictably, escalated, until some 40 members of the group had become embroiled in arguments with each other and with park rangers on the scene. Police were called in, and by the end of the day two park rangers had been hospitalized with minor injuries, 13 members of the Muslim group had been arrested, and accusations were flying: the Council For American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a pro-Muslim organization alleged to have ties to foreign terrorist groups, insisted the police had over-reacted. The Muslim American Society (MAS) cried “discrimination!” Playland, in turn, blames the MAS for failing to communicate crucial information about park rules to its guests; and police point to an escalating situation that threatened to engage all 3000 Muslims taking part in the MAS visit, endangering other visitors to the park.

What is notable is that at any other time in history, the entire incident would likely never have happened. In an era before 9/11, it is entirely possible that most of these Muslim women would not have worn headscarves in the first place — an item of clothing that in truth is not religious so much as political; that is not required under Islam, but which more and more Muslim women are adopting in a post-9/11 statement of defiance, declaring their alliance with Islam over and beyond their alliance with the secular, Western cultures in which they live. At the same time, the hypersensitivity of law enforcement to a large – and disruptive – group of Muslims would most certainly not exist without the September 11 attacks and subsequent attempted attacks on US soil over the past ten years, all perpetrated by Islamic extremists.

On the eve of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the Playland incident affords, in other words, a window into the subtle, yet critical changes and fissures tearing at the fabric of our society in its wake.

In fact, it is the “hijab question” perhaps more than any other that articulates these conflicts. Because not only is the hijab not mandated by Islam, but it is outlawed in some Muslim countries, including Syria and – until recently – Turkey. Moreover, headscarf bans in the West do not (all protestations aside) deny Muslims the right to practice their religion; their freedom to pray, to worship, to congregate, is in no way affected by matters of mere dress (a fact that no lesser man than Kemal Ataturk well understood).

Yet even were the hijab a requirement of the faith, I can’t help but wonder: if these girls are so observant and religious that they find it necessary to cover their heads in modesty, what on earth were they doing in an amusement park with a bunch of boys, and no parental guardian along? No Muslim girl that conservative has any business being in such a position; that’s the entire point of the scarf in the first place.

Beyond this, of course, is the nature of the reasoning behind the rule: to save lives. Are these young women so devoted to their religion that they are willing to risk their own lives and the lives of others just to keep a schmatte on their heads? To coin a phrase: What would Mohammed say?

The truth is, Ms. Salem and her cohorts are well aware that their faith was not under attack. Rather, they objected to a perceived censorship of a political statement, an identity badge that confirms them as being part of a specific socio-religious-political group – or more clearly, as “us-and-not-you.” Being asked to remove the scarf became, hence, an assault not on their faith, but on their identity, on their rebelliousness. It’s like a biker or hippie being asked to wear a tie at a country club event – only the response was entirely disproportional and disturbingly out of line. (Can you imagine a gang of midgets becoming so enraged at being barred from rides for which they are too small?)

As Qanta A. Ahmed noted in an astute op-edover the weekend, “By rapidly assuming the default “victim role,” they were following the lead of ‘Muslim advocacy’ groups and […] medialogues, who remain equally oblivious to our serious Islamic duties to preserve society. Yet these echo chambers, in amplifying the shrieks of entitled demands, merely create chasms between Muslims and non-Muslims.”

All of this could not have happened were it not for 9/11; now, it forms a part of its legacy we have not yet quite understood. And we should: it is a trend that is rapidly changing the nature of European countries by the day. It is a form of Muslim exceptionalism and entitlement that manifests itself in women-only hours at public swimming pools, special theater seats for Muslim women , the restaging of classic dramas to accommodate Muslim sensitivities,and endless examples of censorship (think “Danish cartoons”). It is a part of the mindset that has been erupting for years into fury across Europe, in both Muslim and non-Muslim communities: the attitude of exceptionalism in the Muslim communities breeds resentment and anger among non-Muslims, who then call for crackdowns on Muslim groups and mosques, and elect anti-immigrant politicians who promise to “preserve and protect European traditions: from the “influence and threats” posed by “non-Western” cultures that have “infiltrated” the homeland. What you get, in other words, are the Richard Rieds, the Mohammed Bouyeris, the Nidal Hassans – and the Anders Breivik response.

Yet even as we’ve watched such events unfold across the pond, Americans have repeatedly insisted that “American Muslims aren’t like that. It won’t happen here.”

We’ve heard those words before.

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