Hijab Crises: A Mirror of our Growing Intolerance as a Nation (Recollection of Loss and Promise of Hope) -By Odo Christian Obinna

The ethno-religious problems that engulf Nigeria’s body politic today present a point of concern to any responsible Nigerian who wishes for himself, relatives and family, a country where peace is the basis of existence. Thus, to fully appreciate the great concerns posed by this agglomeration of ethno-religious crises, a personal approach can be more rewarding; first, in that the problem itself is a personal one and, second, it can be put by way of argument that most information supplied through objective analysis in such issues is too generic to account for other specific details which mostly present a better view of these series of events. Taking the small town of Nsukka as my case study, having sown my first toddling steps there and being easily relatable by those who shared the same childhood experiences, even though I cannot maintain that the then-Nsukka was free from all socio-religious intolerance, yet to the extent that my memories serve me right I can argue with conviction that tolerance was very high. We accepted our humanity and recognised our differences in common details without giving up our respect for one another.

At the time, whenever I tuned in to any radio programme using my father’s old transistor radio or going through a flush of fresh-smelling-cream-coloured newspapers which my father took in every week, I was always greeted with expected news of politicians sending out their Machiavellian wiles or performing some funny antics to gain popular support; it may be a report exposing bad leadership issues known to be the fundaments of Nigerian politics from the beginning of self-rule. Farmer-herder clashes did not as yet come to have a permanent place in local news, being totally unknown issues like herders undertaking killing spree on farmers, raping of wives and daughters, or a group of farmers teaming up to cut down a herdsman with matches and cutlasses as a sort of self-help, and rustling his cows, or schools being closed down over what clothes should be adopted as school uniform.

As a child, I and my friends fought with ourselves to suppress the force of excitement with which we were normally overtaken at the sight of herdsmen coming with their herds of cattle: we would break into a gallop like a group of ponies to meet and bid them welcome. Although we could not understand each other, we were very sure of their pleasure at seeing us and appreciation for our shower of welcome by their mouths which flew open and revealed a set of teeth that beamed hearty smiles on us. We would then sit with them, touch and caress their cows and momentarily get lost in the good feelings of being a shepherd.

Sometimes, they would come with young boys who were about our age. We would crowd the young herders, not to attack, but in awe, and they too never withdrew in fear or suspicion of us. At this moment, one thought slashed through our tender minds, arresting and forcing us to admire these young herders – that they too could turn into cows in a split of second like the older herders!

We would stay with them until they were set to leave and follow them deep into the bush, parting from them only on the boundary of the neighbouring villages. We didn’t entertain any fear of coming to harm and they too never suspected us of nurturing evil plans against them. In most of these partings, we always got bushmeat from them or fresh milk. In some cases, we got the two together! While we sweated around the three-stone hearth to cook our ‘loot’ I never for once heard our parents talk us out of eating the bushmeat for fear of its being poisoned nor do I remember them warning us against going near the herders. There was such trust unbreakable by the existing diversity of culture, traditions, religion and morals.

I was barely six when I learnt to respect and tolerate others’ religions. As a Christian child, used to attending and worshipping in church, seeing people that ardently and wholeheartedly worshiped and prayed to their God on spread material or on bare ground by the roadside, corners of building and other free spaces, or seeing folks masking themselves with white substance and processioning with live fowls, all must have been a sort of strangeness to me. The ‘strangeness’ of it, however, didn’t step into my path of exercising good judgment, though I did it out of habit then. I remember that I always kept at least one pool distance from the praying material. And most of the times, chancing upon a Muslim at prayer while sauntering in the bush, I would stop in the beaten tracks and wait for him to finish his prayer and roll out the thing he prayed on, before continuing on my way even though there were other free spaces I could have easily slid through – thanks that I did that, having lately learnt that crossing prayers is like vitiating them. Nowadays, each time my mind slips off to these events of early twenty-first century, I always find myself wondering what had made me to behave that way. However, it does not require much mental exercise to realize that my behaviour was simply a reflex action to how the older folks behaved, too. This conditioned my mind to see tolerating people as the right thing to do or just normal.

Today, all these have become nothing but a char of memories. Memories that, I fear to admit, have been stolen from us as if we were unworthy of keeping them and broken into its tiny pieces by the new normal that is coasting home to becoming our modern culture.

Nowadays, I don’t tune in to radio or turn on the TV or go through papers expecting to hear or see only those indices of poor leadership because other seemingly novel issues – hijab crises, farmer-herdsmen clashes and other pointers to our increasingly fast-growing intolerance – would take turns to make their vile and hideous presence known. This became so bad that we are now forced to tow the easier route of asking a thousand and one questions of how it all happened, how it all crashed, how we lost it all rather than proffering solutions or answers. How and when did the new normal steal the show? How were we maneuvered by this vile reality? We would ask, knowing that asking is a much easier exercise, knowing that the answers to our thousand questions are like a mist that would never take on any definite shape.

The new normal, I have repeated more than once in this write-up, one would be wondering how evil is now normal. But that was exactly what most of us did four years ago when we gave a seemingly novel evil our tacit approval. It was the story of a young law graduate from the university of Ilorin who was not allowed to take part in Bar final exams on the ground of her refusal to take off her hijab. The story generated so much attention that it found ways into our national discourse. The incident would serve as the fertile ground upon which other subsequent hijab crises would grow buoyantly, not that the issue was not accorded the attention it required, but largely because of our initial approach to it. I had stake in the issue as a concerned Nigerian and followed the stories closely both online and offline. It was saddening for me and to all concerned Nigerians to note how the larger population of our people trivialized such sensitive identity issue as this.

Some said the young lady was not prepared for her final exams hence her resort to hijab excuses. Some even sank low to dig up her grade – a third class honours, according to them – and use it against her as just an academically frustrated fellow. Some others launched a campaign of tirades on her school for being ‘ a breeding ground for extremists.’ In all, the merit of the issue was left to rot in the background by this class of our population who were unfortunately huge in number, mostly the youths. Though the young lady was later allowed to take her exams in the subsequent batch after certain important figures in the society stepped in, a wound was already cut in the social organic whole. And though we could not see the bleeding of the wound, it has its painful consequences which must be felt – by the concerned and unconcerned alike.

Not too long after the law school saga, International School Ibadan was mired in the same hijab crises. As if dancing to melodious tunes, other schools in Osun, Ogun and Lagos joined the music-blasting party. Now is Kwara brimming hot and sending steam out with crises which led to the closure of a number of schools in the state. Despite the interventions from both the government actors and those of non-governmental actors, the crises still continue to ferociously eat into the social cohesion and peace of the state.

Imagine taking an idle walk around and bumping into a man rolling and wetting the floor with his tears. Your first primordial instinct would be to wonder what has made this full-grown adult man to cry like a baby. His cry is simply a reflex to something. In the same vein, hijab crises springing here and there in our country are the working of some causes. Many causes have been ascribed to these controversies, however, one least mentioned yet more grievous, accounts more for this as it strikes directly at the roots of other causes. It’s the fears held by parents, mostly Christians, of their children being exposed and targeted at schools by terrorists if the school children are to be grouped into their different religious leanings through the demarcation of hijab. In light of the increasing insecurity in the country and the increasing influence and strength of non-state elements such as terrorist groups and other coordinated criminal groups, these fears are legitimate. However, accepting these fears or this line of reasoning wholly amounts to ascribing terrorism to Islam which is not the case. No doubt, there are extremists in Islam but this is not only peculiar to Islam; there are also extremists in Christianity and other religions. These extremists may differ in their religious beliefs or orientations but they are united by one thought process which is that the ways of their gods are slow and that their gods need their help to accelerate their popularity and public acceptance.

Furthermore, looking at this objectively terrorist groups might be a product of wrong conceptions of a religion’s values and beliefs but it’s not always the case that their interests represent that of the religion they blindly think they are following or fighting for. The Boko Haram insurgents, for instance, have vigorously asserted their ‘Allah-given mandate’ to establish Islamic state in Nigeria yet we have confirmed cases of how they kidnap, torture and kill both Christians, Muslims and traditionalists, target and bomb both churches and mosques without discrimination. Thus, it is better to regard these terrorists as agents of a classified religion which cloaked its misandry under some established religious claims.

The above presents a picture of distrust among us as a heterogenous people divided along different lines – religion, ethnicity, language, etc. It’s on the ground of our multi-lingual, multi-ethnic and multi-religious characteristics as a nation that Nigerian state recognizes the need to reconcile our differences by trying to maintain unity and cohesion and disabuse ourselves of distrust in its diverse composition and cultures through the instrument of secularity. Therefore, any perceived attempt by any religion to dye our national life with its coloration would not only receive a feedback of condemnation but can be legally challenged in our courts. The essence of the state playing neutral card has been said to foster unity and cohesion and to establish an orderly state where different religious groups in the country such as traditionalists, Muslims, and Christians would coexist and accommodate each other without flaunting their religious symbols and attempting to impose trappings on others in matters that bring them all together such as schooling, use of public resources and facilities and other aspects of national life.

At this juncture, a poser naturally begs our attention, which we must approach with a measure of objectivity if we are to find our ways out of the entangled web of the multiplicity of hijab crises rocking our nation. Nigeria being foundationally religiously-neutral in its policy is sacrosanct for our mutual co-existence but can we say hijab is a pure question of religion so that allowing it in our schools is a symptom of officializing a particular religion? Hijab, no doubt, originated from Islam but over the years it has acquired its own independent character and significant. Hijab is now more of a question of identity rather than religion. A Muslim girl child acquires this identity at birth; she is born into it and has little or no control over it . She grows seeing this as normal, something that is a part and parcel of her and how she would be seen and addressed in the larger society. But growing up, she realizes that her identity is not acceptable to the society that would not allow her to school, or would deny her the opportunity to take part in exams, unless she takes off her hijab, her identity – which to her is as good as going naked in public. What we are forgetting is that every time we deny the girl the right to wear out her hijab, she is denied the opportunity to express her identity which is tantamount to the loss of her sense of self, deprivation of her identity and crises within her.

Identity, in some cases, is not inborn but acquired and deepened and refined with time. Once acquired, it becomes a mirror to the possessor, reflecting the image of its possessor and how he or she should be seen. For instance, a man who is ordained a catholic priest instantly acquires a new identity by the circumstance of his ordination. He, for example, stops taking alcohol or smoking in the public because that is exactly what he has become and expected to be seen in that light by others. A Muslim sister goes out wearing hijab because that is her identity, who she is and exactly how she expects others to see her. Ordering her to take off her hijab for a minute is asking her to suspend her identity for a minute and forcing people to suspend who they are is dehumanizing their persons.

Nevertheless, It is very true that when people are allowed to acquire all sorts of identities and expect others to respect them there is bound to be confusion and problems in the society. To forestall such from wearing a flowing, sizeless robe of reality, there is a responsibility on the state to sieve all acquired identities through the test of reasonableness to conform with the minimum societal standards which are better attended to by that fraction of the society to which they apply. Would you say that hijab falls short of this test even from your subjective reasonable standards?

Last week, I was having a heated argument with a friend on hijab being domiciled in the realms of identity rather than religion, agreeing little with my line of thought, he shifted the argument a little off from identity to the religious background of these schools. He argued that if Muslims and adherents of other religions are to be allowed in Christian schools, they must conform to the dress codes and rules guiding them. This argument is very common as we have heard tell of it in the heat of the crises, but however it is very sound. It will be stretching the doctrine of tolerance to absurdity to suggest that a Muslim or traditionalist should be allowed in a core Christian school without conforming to the rules guiding such school. But the issue we are having here is drawing a line between the founders of these schools and the schools themselves and the education they offer.

These schools in question were founded by the Christian missionaries and their contribution to humanity through the propagation of education to every nook and cranny of Nigeria can never be over-emphasized. However, the schools have been subsumed by the national or sub-national government and are being run with the taxpayers’ money. The conversion of these schools took place at different times and the first of this conversion took place immediately after independence and the reason was to foster a common Nigerian identity. This was followed by another conversion or nationalization after Nigerian civil war which was meant to de-emphasize tribal and religious consciousness and foster national and oneness of spirit. My point, however, is not to dispute the true ownership of these schools because any attempt at that would put each one of us on the defensive and the subsequent scramble to defend our positions on this would defeat every good this write-up intends to achieve. My point, exactly, is that we should try to separate the ownership of these schools from the schools themselves and the education they offer. Do they offer religious education or education that is of a general nature. In the latter, students are taught basically arithmetic, calculation and writing. The former, however, is a little more than that. Its core aim is to propagate certain religious values or order. As conceived by Encyclopedia of Education Research (1979) in Stellenbosch Theological Journal, religious education is seen as those enterprises of religion to induct each new generation into the attitudes, beliefs and practices of particular religion, therefore perpetuating the religion and at the same time providing for the individual unifying centre for his life. Would we call these schools Christian schools in this sense? From the ongoing, it will amount to foolhardiness to send your child to Islamic school where Islamic education is offered and start fighting against the religiously dyed rules guiding it or sending your child to a seminary school and start campaigning for your child’s religious differences to be respected. If we truly understand ourselves and have as little tolerance as a drop of water, we should not be giving much thought and headache to the ownership of these schools, rather we should concern ourselves with their religious leanings and the type of education they offer.

A visitor owns his host a cultured obligation of departure. It’s time to call it a day, but before then, even though much have been said already on this little would be achieved if we do not call on our religious leaders to shield their swords and act the noble and befitting role of a unifying character. Instead of reminding those under them who look up to them of their differences, why not preach to them of their similarities? Is it not better to emphasize those things that unite us than to punch holes into the center that holds us together through our actions and inactions? We should not be hearing from our religious leaders things like “It’s a Christian school! Our own! Let them leave our school for us or our God will visit them with a sword of destruction in His fury,” ” It’s Islamic school. Our own! They should leave it for us with punishment etc.” Of course, you are entitled to these opinions but your strategic position as the religious leaders of your people make them low and unfitting of your office. Do not forget that there are people under you who do not have already made opinions on certain issues but consciously and unconsciously laying ambush on your opinions as their religious leaders to serve as a catalyst to their own opinion formation. And don’t forget also that apart from spiritual manipulation being the strongest of all forms of manipulation, you are part of the environment your people see and interact with, and people, most often, are a creation of their environments. I didn’t form the judgement of keeping a reasonable distance from prayer places when they are being observed simply on the merit of it but because I saw that it was what others were doing!
Just last week I was reading the news of how Australian school, Baptist college, changed its dress code to accommodate a hijab student and I felt a new sense of loss. The news reminded my subconscious of something we used to have in fat lump but now emaciated beyond recognition. Despite that, the news carried with it a hope, a hope that within us is still a faint life of tolerance; we only need to search inwards and nurture it to life again.