By Colin Seger
Earlier this year, Metropolitan State College of Denver hosted the Rocky Mountain regional Model Arab League. The event brought together delegates from the University of Utah, Air Force Academy, University of Northern Colorado, Regis and Metro.
Each school represented one or more nation within the 22-nation Arab League and each delegate was expected to carry the foreign policy, including the traditional alliances, antagonisms and current strains of their respective countries, to the parliamentary discussion forum. The Model Arab League provides insight into the nations and people in a part of the world that is too often neglected and misunderstood by the West.
For me, however, it provided not only insight into the Arab world, it also offered an unparalleled learning experience about America. Most of the women who participated for Metro wore the Hijab during their participation in the Model Arab League regardless of their personal religious beliefs. Only two women, a student liaison and organizer of the event and the other a participant representing part of the delegation from Saudi Arabia, were Muslim and wear the Hijab every day. The rest of the women from Metro were not Muslim and largely had no experience with the traditional scarf worn by some women in the Muslim world.
The first insight into the American view of Muslims is that we as a culture apparently like to stare. Muslim women who wear the Hijab in America have the unenviable position of looking different from most Americans and therefore attracting the gaze of many an American. During a break from the Model Arab League, I decided to ask one of the non-Muslim participants if she had been treated any differently while wearing the Hijab. She responded with an emphatic “Yeah. Men especially stare at you, and if you look at them they turn away quickly.”
“Yeah, you get used to that,” chimed in one of the Muslim women in our group as we walked to dinner. Curious, I decided to watch other people as we walked. At first I didn’t think that such a uniform response was possible, but as we crossed Speer Boulevard the row of cars waiting to turn all had the same reaction. Heads cocked to the right tracking our group as we made our way across, then as we got close enough to each car, their gaze snapped forward to the car ahead as if a their inattention to driving had suddenly shocked them back to attention. I am sure that it was not the fact that I was wearing a full suit and tie for the first time in years that attracted such a response. Still, the uniform reaction of drivers downtown and the concurrence of a Hijabi regular was enough to peak my curiosity and elicit a further inquiry.
After dinner I approached another non-Muslim woman who was wearing the Hijab for Metro State in the Model Arab League. Emboldened by the success of my recent staring experiment I asked the same question to her: “Have you noticed anyone staring while wearing the Hijab?”
“No,” she answered, “but some guy just yelled at us.”
Expecting a “yeah, maybe,” I was taken aback by what she had said and asked her to elaborate. She had been walking with the student organizer of the Arab League, herself a Muslim, and both were wearing the Hijab. He walked by and said “You’re in America.” Her Muslim walking companion “must have been used to it” she said, “as she instantly addressed the man as ‘ignorant’ while I fumbled on a response and then just echoed the same.”
I do not know what possesses a man to feel it necessary to harass women, especially because they wear the Hijab. I don’t know if he really harnessed enough hate that it simply could not be contained and suddenly like a boiling pot spilled over the side in a hissing and splattering mess that stains both pot and stove. I do know, however, that by simply hearing about the incident I learned a great deal about the interconnectedness of hatred and ignorance.
The election of Barack Obama did not usher in an era of “post racial” American discourse, no matter how much the popular media tried to push the story. Hatred and its big brother ignorance are alive and well, however, I do not hold with those who argue that hatred is in aberration solely evident in the Western world, or those who claim this nation churns out ignorance and hatred like a lucrative puppy mill. It is, nevertheless, a lesson learned through the demonstration of a particularly virulent and nasty form of American thinking. It is a way of thinking that is forged through intimacy with all things bigoted and culturally centric.
The situation as I observed it was this: With no small amount of poetic justice and irony an angry man told two Americans, one wearing the Hijab only to increase the authenticity of her experience, that they were “in America.” The man who felt compelled enough to forcefully display his ignorance was a man who allowed himself to be governed by hatred and intolerance. Presumably the outward display was meant to exhibit his preference that they not be Muslim, even though one was not.
The lesson I learned is this: No matter who is elected to office, as long as boastful ideological ignorance is a cherished and encouraged foundation for cultural literacy, there will continue to be social interactions built on intolerance. And more importantly, when someone seeks to learn about a different culture, they might learn more about their own.
Colin A. Seger is a student at Metro and lives in Boulder. EDITOR’S NOTE: This online-only guest commentary has not been edited. Guest commentary submissions of up to 650 words may be sent to openforum@denverpost.com.
