An eleven year old girl, Asmahan Mansour from Ottawa, was ejected from a soccer tournament in Quebec last weekend because she refused to remove her hijab (a head scarf worn by devout Muslim females). The ejection prompted her team and four others to pull out of the tournament and prompted a storm of controversy. It was her team mates who made the decision to follow their team mate and friend off the field when she was ejected.
Reasonable accommodation of ethnic minorities in the province has been a hot button issue there for seveal months. According to her mother, who is Italian heritage and doesn’t wear the hijab, her daughter chose to wear the hijab when she was 9 years old. Her father is Lebanese. In an interview on Canada AM her mother said that the youngster announced her decision to wear the hijab to her parents on her own and they were very proud of her.
The Quebec Soccer Federation maintains that they are simply enforcing FIFA’s (an international governing body) rules. An official at FIFA said that non-standard equipment is allowed as long as it isn’t dangerours and that there is no specific rule against headgear being worn. The Quebec Federation claims that she could strangle herself with the scarf and it is dangerous. Meanwhile teams regularly play in other provinces with girls wearing hijabs without incident. Mansour tucks her scarf into her uniform shirt when playing.
The youngster has played in tournaments in Ontario and two previous games at the Lavel tournament before the referee in the third game ordered her to remove the hijab. The Federation seems to feel that because the referee is Muslim that doesn’t make the ruling discriminatory. The youngster was not told at the time of registering for any of her games that the hijab was not allowed.
The tournament organizer placed the blame for allowing her play in the first two games on the refs. Which begs the question, if the rule about the hijab being worn is clear, why was she not told at registration and not subjected to being centered out in front of the crowd by being ejected by the ref?
One of the wonderful things about covert racism is the ability to claim “we’re just following the rules” to justify the discrimination. It is very clear in looking at this story that the ability to be flexible and allow the hijab are present in FIFAs rules that the Quebec Federation could and should show the tolerance that their governing body has shown. There are soccer teams in Muslim countries on which women wear their hijabs. I haven’t heard of any of them being killed on the soccer field.
A Bengali in TO maintains that Quebec is the most racist province in Canada, even more so than redneck Alberta. He also comments:
The right of a woman to wear the hijab is non-negotiable. It is a shame that while Canada fights in Afghanistan to “free” women so they can wear what they want, that right is stripped away at home. What is it with the French and the hijab?
Comments at The Offside include:
How a head scarf could be a danger to anyone is beyond me. I guess in theory a players hand might get caught in it and that could somehow lead to an injury. I guess. But if player safety is really the issue here than rules should be made to make the ball less dangerous for one’s head, the ground softer to fall on and there should be absolutely no contact allowed between players.
On the flipside Rob on his MySpace blog posted:
I have huge problems with the fact this is even news! This isn’t important, this isn’t life altering, this is someone who doesn’t like the rules complaining. I remember when I was younger and playing sports with sports glasses on (I couldn’t wear contacts at the time). Before every game, I had to get approval from the ref to be able to compete with them on. Some gave their approval, others didn’t and when that happened, I took them off and played with everything very blurry, but I still played by the rules.
dd
notice: The content of this post contains my opinions and my right to express them. I will respect your right to express your opinion in the comments as long as you’re not abusive and you respect my right to my opinion.
