German court orders Muslim girl to join swim class

At the peak of the crisis that was once again ignited by an offensive film against Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Norway, with its strong civilization, announced the appointment of a young Muslim woman, who is around 30 years of age, as a minister of culture.
This is the same Norway where a fanatic man named Anders Behring Breivik went on a rampage last year, killing about 70 people in protest against the cultural heterogeneity and the migration of Muslims to the Nordic country.
When young Muslim Hadia Tajik was appointed minister of culture in this country which is known for its profound respect for culture, this is an indication that even though there are fanatics such as Breivik, the scope of tolerance is much wider to be narrowed by a crime or a number of crimes of religious nature. This greater tolerance has enabled a young Muslim woman to become a culture minister in a country which has recently witnessed the phenomenon of hate culture which was not known before.
To appreciate the significance of the appointment of a Muslim woman as the minister of culture in Norway, we should remember the sensitivity of this post in a country which has deep-rooted traditions. It is not conceivable that someone who is not fully aware of the cultural sensitivity would be given the charge to look after the cultural affairs of the country despite the risks of him or her committing mistakes which might be harmful to the individual and to the culture as well. The obvious symbolic meaning behind this appointment is that Norway will always stick to its cultural openness to the point that it would not hesitate to put a daughter of a Muslim migrant of Pakistani origin at the head of the ministry as long as she is competent and qualified for the job.
This happens at a time when Islamophobia, which was dormant for a long time in the West, is unleashed again and further enhanced by the incidents of 9/11. Enemies of Islam used Islamophobia to frighten the world of Muslims and Islamic culture.
When we read the CV of Hadia Tajik we find a young woman who was very successful in her studies, work and other activities. Hadia, who is now 29, became a Parliament member in 2009 when she was 26 years old. This makes it clear to us that the Western societies, regardless of the fanaticism against Islam and Islamic culture especially in the recent years, will reward the successful citizens of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. The Muslim communities there should not unnecessarily be bogged down by the feeling of injustice. They should fight prejudices against them only with their educational and vocational excellence not violence. They can form strong organizations and lobbies to counter propaganda against them. Here, we see that a non-Muslim country has given a Muslim woman an opportunity which would not have been given even by some Muslim countries.
Hadia Tajik is not the first Muslim minister or Parliament member in a European country. There are many Muslim ministers in a number of Western countries. In France, which is adamant on its rejection of Islamic hijab (veil), President Francois Hollande and his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy both appointed Muslim women ministers.
The final result is that the experiments of the minorities in the democratic Western countries have proved to us that these minorities can have all their rights and can climb to the highest political, social and economic ladder when they are organized and know how to avail themselves of the opportunities extended to them by the political systems in these countries. We hope that this will also happen to the Muslim minorities in the West. This, however, makes it imperative for the Muslim countries to stop meddling in the affairs of their communities in the Western countries. We actually do more harm than good to our communities outside.

— Courtesy of Al-Jazirah newspaper

It's a testament to the American spirit that the Boston bombings didn’t send people into fits of hysteria every time they saw a Muslim walking down the street. A couple of ding-dongs get it into their heads that marathon runners, university students and 8-year-old boys are responsible for their messed up loser lives so they set off bombs with a cover story that the United States has somehow hurt the Ummah.
Yet there was nary a beep from Bostonians about the whys and what-fors. They understand that murderous idiots unleashed their insecurities on the community and they expect justice to prevail in the end.
There are the inevitable hijab-haters and mouth-breathers that mistake Sikhs for Muslims and vent their own insecurities. But, really, can anybody really say there has been fallout that has affected the American Muslim community. I haven’t seen it. I just wish the Council on American-Islamic Relations and every Western media-friendly imam would stop going on television and condemning terrorist attacks. Why is it that we are the only religious/ethnic group that must articulate our revulsion for terrorism for the cameras when there is zero evidence that the Muslim community as a whole had anything to do with these incidents.
It must be kind of a letdown for the professional bigots like Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer that the citizens of Boston didn’t unleash their fury on Muslims. But Mr. Spencer can take heart that there are more insidious ways to generalize and condemn Muslims as terrorists without ripping off some woman’s hijab in public or punching a Sikh in the face.
Take the new birthday card being sold in Chicago that depicts a young girl wearing a hijab who will “blow your brains out.” The front of the greeting card also has “She’ll Love You to Death” and the inside reads, “Hope your birthday is a BLOW OUT!”
The card is sold in a novelty shop and appears to be a parody of “Aamina, the Muslim doll,” which is a talking doll that teaches basic Arabic phrases like “Asalam Alekum” and “InshaAllah.” So, it basically mocks and denigrates Muslims — Muslim children in this case — and furthers the dangerous stereotype that Muslim girls and women who wear the hijab have terror on their minds 24/7. It only emboldens individuals who feel justified in attacking women on the street with verbal abuse or assaults.
Although I don’t think that Spencer commented specifically on the doll controversy (I’m sure he will get around to it), it fits with his continuing theme that producing hijab wearing terrorist doll greeting cards is a “free speech” issue. There are two types of free speech. One that allows the media and individuals the right to say or publish anything they want because free speech is vital in a robust democracy. This category is in line with Voltaire’s “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
Then there is the second type of free speech favored by the professional Islamophobes: “The First Amendment of the Constitution allows me to spew my bigotry without consequences or concern that it might hurt other people.”
The greeting card does not foster a robust democracy nor does it help develop a better understanding of other segments of society. It’s designed purely to humiliate a specific group of people and create a hostile environment. The primary aim of the second type of free speech is to create hostility, which often leads to violence. Anti-Muslim propaganda, led by Spencer, helped Anders Breivik achieve his murderous goals in the 2011 attacks in Norway that left 77 people — mostly young adults and teens — dead.
According to the FBI, 157 anti-Muslim hate crimes were reported in 2011, down from 160 recorded in 2010 at the height of the Islamophobe campaign against the Park51 mosque project near Ground Zero in New York. The number of anti-Muslim crimes is relatively low compared to hate crimes against Jews, in which 771 incidents were reported in 2011, down from 887 in 2010.
It’s easy to dismiss the terrorist girl greeting card as insignificant because it appears limited to one specific geographic location and sold at novelty shops. And, as Muslims are often told, we should be able to take a joke. But the greeting card is part and parcel of a larger anti-Muslim campaign to marginalize Muslims and ultimately create an environment that encourages violence. The card is just one more tool for the bigots.

sabria_j@hotmail.com