Original Post Chris Selley Jul 12, 2012
A 9-year-old Gatineau girl who refused to remove her hijab was forced to stand on the sideline Saturday.
In Zurich last week, the International Football Association Board, soccer’s rules-making body, approved unanimously the wearing of headscarves on the field of play. Since then, Quebec’s soccer federation has been taking even more heat than usual for banning the hijab. The most recent controversy came on Sunday in Gatineau, where nine-year-old Rayane Benatti refused to remove her headscarf and watched the game from the sidelines. “It made me feel very sad,” she told Postmedia News. “I love soccer.”
By the letter of the law, Quebec is justified in hanging on to its policy for now. IFAB won’t decide what “design, colour and material” will be permitted until October. But it is understandable that the situation exasperates many Canadians. It’s an awfully long way from a boardroom full of top football executives to a pitch full of nine-year-olds in Gatineau.
Ontario and British Columbia have allowed hijabs on the field, with no reports of trouble. “Currently there is no medical literature concerning injuries as a result of wearing a headscarf,” IFAB noted — and logically, there seems no risk of injury at all to anyone other than the player wearing the headscarf. A Montreal woman has designed a sports headscarf that releases under pressure, like a ski binding. And let’s face it: If there is any danger of hijab-related soccer injuries, it is bloody small.
It is also understandable that people blame intolerance and bigotry for this controversy. But I think it’s more complicated than that. “It’s not because she was wearing a hijab — it’s because she was wearing a piece of equipment that is not recognized,” Gatineau soccer official Marc St-Amour insists. Let’s take him at his word. It is also true that if Quebec’s redneck-baiting media had caught wind of young Rayane being allowed to play in a hijab, Mr. St-Amour might well have found himself on the front page of Monday’s Journal de Montréal, embroiled in yet another “reasonable accommodations” freak-out.
Quebec is a place where it’s controversial when a privately run cabane-à-sucre offers paying clients a pork-free menu; when a meatpacker is accused of selling Halal chicken to non-Muslims; when a YMCA compromises with its Orthodox Jewish neighbours and puts up frosted glass to conceal buxom exercisers from the passersby. In such an environment, there is no incentive for a reasonable person to make a reasonable decision and just let nine year olds play soccer.
This is sort of thing that happens when political leaders like Jean Charest cringe and pander instead of trying to inject sanity. And assuming that Quebec’s soccer boffins eventually adopt the IFAB policy, they will no doubt suffer the same high-pitched abuse as the cabane-à-sucre, the meatpacker and the YMCA.
France, after all, is sticking to its guns on banning hijabs on the pitch, despite the IFAB’s ruling. “The French Football Federation reiterates its duty to respect the constitutional and legislative principles of secularism that prevail in our country and feature in its laws,” the federation announced last week. Quebec could follow suit, if it wanted.
It’s a strange argument, though. It’s one thing if a player wants to represent the obsessively secular Republic of France while wearing a headscarf. But it’s difficult to see how playing club soccer is any more a statement on a country’s constitutional and legislative principles than walking down the street. And since neither France nor Quebec bans the hijab for people walking down the street, with the safety argument debunked, it’s difficult to see the point of insisting on such a policy except to score political points — and easy to see the downside, which is the exclusion of girls from the game.
All that said, to my godless mind, there is something very frustrating about the idea of a nine year old not playing soccer because a government policy conflicts with her parents’ interpretation of some dusty old scripture. “I decided to wear the headscarf out of love for Allah,” Rayane told Postmedia. “Some people decide not to do it because they don’t have enough courage. I had the courage to do it.”
Like I say, I’m firmly on her side. But that’s an argument about religious symbols, not safety. Soccer’s rules compel Christians to remove their crucifixes for safety’s sake; Sikh players don’t charge upfield wearing their kirpans. For the sake of the children, as they say, is a little headscarf flexibility too much to ask from the players and their parents — at least until Quebec comes to its senses?
Al Muhajabat Blog 