Re: "No to Ninja Nuisance" ?
*How do we deal with such ideas? Its from a local English daily newspaper. *
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Letter to the Editor
No to Ninja Nuisance
Q. Isa Daudpota
My eighty year old Lahori aunt and the country's police force have one thing in common. My gynecologist aunt refuses to employ any staff in her clinic who wears a hijab, let alone the face-hiding Ninja headgear, which is becoming increasingly common in our cities. Patients need to communicate unambiguously with their care-givers – would you like a Ninja peering down your mouth or another orifice, or asking you questions muffled by a face-clinging fabric?
Lone Ranger had his day. Today the police refuse talking to masked men. They sometimes even haul up those who drive in cars with privacy preserving dark glasses. In our fear-laced times you need to know exactly whom you are talking to.
The same concern applies to educational institutions where it becomes impossible to communicate with Ninja female students with blinking eyes. This is made worse when the lecturer too adopts this garb. While a hijab maybe recommended according to some religious interpretations as a means of maintaining personal modesty, the Ninja version of it isn't! Thus the paragons of modernism in the Ministry of Education and the Higher Education Commission should issue orders banning the masked headgear in all education institutions.
As for the militant women in places such as Jamia Hafsa the solution is clear. If they stopped being supported by government agencies, they could be flushed out by means commonly known. A more humane way is to show them a better alternative: have the Aabpara Community Center located near their madrassa offer good discounted food, show interesting enlightening films, free internet access and classes in modern thought. Also teach skills, which get them employed in a worldly job.
Pakistan's dilemma is clear-cut though: it cannot rest in peace until religion remains mixed up with the workings of the state. It is time that those who gain international publicity using the slogans of modernism show their concern by stamping out the menace of the Ninjas. Such hypocrites refuse to even voice their concern in unambiguous terms.
QID, 252-A, St 52, F-10/4, Islamabad. [EMAIL="[email protected]"][email protected] 2 May 2007
Do you mean the person fearing/opposing the niqaab or their aunt who fears/opposes and doesn't hire those who practice it?
For the former, I'd mostly ignore it and see the my family and I keep doing what we have to do. For the latter I'd do the same as for the former and also take my business elsewhere as much as possible.