Sweet Sixteen 20: Stereotype Contd

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“Yeah. This one happened yesterday. I heard it on the radio as I was returning home last night. Quite sad,”Daddy said. “But Daddy, is it true?” I asked. “Is what true?”He asked this without looking at me. “A girl in my class, Rebecca, said all Muslims will go to hell, because Muslims do not believe in Jesus and they like to kill people.

So she said.” “Really? And what did you say to that?”Mummy asked. “I told her she was stupid. I was so upset I felt like slapping her.” “Well, thank God you did not,”Daddy said. “Maybe I should have.

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She was so rude! How could she even say a thing like that?” I felt a new wave of anger rise in me as if my argument with Rebecca just happened. I recalled that day. It was a weekend and we were all in the hostel common room when someone started a conversation about the kidnapped Chibok girls.

Rebecca was not even part of the conversation. She was standing by the door, reading something on the notice board. And then she just turned and said, “It is Aliya’s people now I think it was Sade that asked, “What has Aliya got to do with this?” And the rest of us chorused, “Exactly.” I was the only Muslim girl in the room.

It was then that the stupid girl said that nonsense about Muslims going to hell because they kill people and worship Allah instead of Jesus. I stood up to challenge her, but I was held back by the other girls, who said I should just ignore her. Rebecca had a reputation for being mean and she didn’t have many friends.

Even though I was upset by what she said about Muslims killing people, I also found myself wondering if what she said was true. After all, how come almost all the terrorists were Muslims and they all claim to be fighting a jihad for Islam. Daddy finished his food and pushed the plate away. He grabbed the roll of paper towels on the table and tore off some of it. He wiped his mouth and dropped the crumbled towel on his plate.

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“You see, Aliya,” he said almost in a whisper, drinking the water straight from the bottle, even though there was a glass on the table for him. “In all circumstances, you must learn to control your emotions.

Only animals respond to provocation with a fight. If you had slapped that girl, what you would have achieved was to confirm her notion of Muslims as violent people. I remember, sometime ago, when a Danish cartoonist portrayed Islam as a violent religion. That was quite provocative.

But the reactions of some Muslims who launched attacks on the basis of that and even got some people killed in the process, only served to confirm what the cartoonist was portraying, rather than deny it. You see the irony? Now, to your friend Rebecca.” “She is not my friend!” I protested and gave him a disagreeable look, then smiled.

“She is just plain Rebecca.” “Okay. Rebecca said Muslims will go to hell because they do not worship Jesus and because they like to kill people. Right?”

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I nodded. “Yes.” “I wonder where she got that from,”Mummy said with a frown. “Let’s take the first one,” Daddy continued. “To start with, it is wrong to judge or criticize other people’s belief or faith.

So, she was wrong on that score. The same way you would be wrong if you criticized her religious belief You know of Muhammad Ali, don’t you?” “Of course, everybody does,”I said. “An said, ‘hating people because of their colour is wrong. It does not matter who does the hating. It is just plain wrong.’

I believe he could have said the same of religion. Everybody is entitled to his or her faith. If God had wanted, he could have made all of us Muslims or Christians, but He did not. Why? Because God knows that the most beautiful garden is the one that has different colours and different types of flowers.

So, the beauty of our country, like the rest of the world, is in the diversity of our people, not only in our religion but also in our tribes and cultures.” I liked what Daddy said about flowers in a garden and wanted to write it down. I excused myself and ran to the study.

I took a pen out of a Chelsea mug that held several other pens and pencils and peeled a sheet of A4 paper from the printer. As I resumed my seat, I scribbled on the paper, “The most beautiful garden is the one that has different colours and flowers,” repeating to myself as I wrote. “Good.

Now, to the second point, that Muslims like to kill people…” “That’s actually the one that annoyed me. How could she generalize like that?”I retorted. “That kind of generalization is called a stereotype. You know what that means?” “I think I have an idea. But I can find out, “I said. I picked up Mummy’s phone and pressed the button at the bottom end.

A tiny blue microphone appeared on the Google page. I tapped on it and said, “Okay Google, what is a stereotype?” It answered with a beep. “Stereotype – a set of ideas that people have about what someone or something is, especially an idea that is wrong: racial/sexual stereotypes, “I read out from the phone.

Daddy smiled broadly. “Your generation is so lucky. In our own time, we would have had to wait until we found the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.” “Or Michael West,” Mummy added, and they both laughed.

“Anyway, now we know what ‘stereotype’ means,” Daddy said, all serious again. “Like you just read, it’s usually based on a wrong notion or idea. It is absolutely wrong to ascribe to all people what some people do just because they belong to the same tribe or religion. A Muslim who kills another human being would have done the same if he was a Christian or a believer of any other faith. No religion approves of killings.

Therefore, a killer is a killer, not a Muslim, Christian or Hindu.” “But Daddy, all these terrorists, Boko Haram, ISIS etc.,

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