MUSLIMS IN THE SWIM

Ray Honeyford describes

a dispute with a Muslim about his daughter's schooling

SIR Richard Burton would have felt at home with him. His dramatic white head- piece had a tail at the back. He was bearded, and wore a long white shirt which concealed most of his baggy cream trous- ers. His shoes were straight out of the Arabian Nights. His skin had the burnt look I associated with Afghan warriors. He had style and dignity. A man indubitably to be reckoned with. This could have been an encounter somewhere in the North-West Frontier. It wasn't. It was at the Bradford school where I was the head teacher. And the man sitting opposite me was the father of one of my pupils. He had come to complain.

We must not, he said, allow his little girl to go swimming. I was not completely unarmed. This was not my first contact with Islamic orthodoxy and its insistence on wrapping girls in a purdah mentality. I had learnt to make a kind of progress through the arts of compromise. I had demonstrated my 'flexibility' by dropping the Lord's Prayer from morning assembly, while insisting on the singing of hymns which did not refer to the divinity of Christ. I had allowed girls to wear track suits, but required them to continue with PE and games. I had arranged single-sex swimming for nine-year-olds, but expected participation by all in return.

It was true I had blotted my copybook by protesting about parents whisking their children off to Pakistan during term time. And it was also the case that I had upset the Muslim leadership by taking a firm stand against the characters in the local mosques or Koranic schools who beat some of our pupils black and blue. But we were still oversubscribed by Muslim pa- rents. I still had some kudos. And I had a better chance with this parent since he spoke good English.

So I tried reason — foolishly as it turned out. 'But all our children learn to swim.' He sat impassive and silent, though he did manage a suggestion of a grimace. 'Don't you remember the information sheet we sent you before you sent Amina here?' He merely looked puzzled. 'That made clear the school's policy on swimming — all pupils in the first year go to the baths, including girls.'

`I do not wish her to swim.'

`But she enjoys it. She's working for a badge and certificate. And her confidence all round is improving.'

`I do not likelier to swim.'

`But look, she might drown if she can't swim.'

He raised his palms to heaven, shrugged his shoulders, and said sadly, 'That would be the will of Allah.'

Reason gave way to exasperation. He was the girl's father. His son had learnt to swim. Why not the daughter? Was she worth less? The gulf between us widened as my exasperation, tutored by reflection, was supplanted by something not far from anger. Here he was sustained by more than a thousand years of the teachings and customs of a great religion; a religion which, in practice, assigned girls maternal and domestic roles which were not to be questioned. And here was I with my Western notions about the sovereignty of reason, the uniqueness of the individual; and with new-fangled ideas about the equality of the sexes.

I had listened patiently to Muslim intel- lectuals talking about the exalted place of women in the world assigned by the Koran, but I had seen every day Muslim ladies walking reverently behind proud hus- bands. And I had visited homes where the wife was a prisoner of domesticity, with no hope, or even awareness of the possibility of, a career. And I recalled some recent reading.

An Islamic spokesman was quoted in the Swann Report as saying, 'Most Muslims acknowledge that Britain is a fair place to live in . . . but it is hard to judge how possible it is to live as a Muslim within the society as a whole.' The Islamic scholar, Abdelwahab Bouhdida, in Sexuality in Islam (RKP, 1985) had made at least one aspect of the dilemma explicit: . . . the primacy of man over woman is total and absolute. Woman is chronologically secondary. She finds her finality in man. She is made for his pleasure, his repose, his fulfilment. . . . The Islamic family was to be essentially male-worshipping. For, 'noblesse oblige,' the right to beat one's wife also implies the duty to maintain her, work for

her. . . . In the Quran, God always addres- sed himself to man and never to women.

Quite so. In the meantime I had to run a school which was obliged both from con- viction and legal necessity to ensure equal opportunities for girls. And denying a little girl the right to swim clearly violated our principles. Besides what had created the problem? The English school, or this man's decision to raise his children in a non- Muslim society? After all he had chosen to leave an Islamic state to come here. Could he be protected from the consequences of that decision from within the context of an English state school? In V.S. Naipaul's account of his travels in the world of Islam, Among the Believers, he had pinpointed the dilemma of Islam in the modem world — a love-hate relationship which was never resolved. He tells of the saint of Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan, Maulana Maudoodi, who had spent his life denoun- cing the West — its greed, its materialism, its loose living, its worship of a Godless science. But when his health failed, he had no hesitation in flying off to Boston, and entrusting his life to the machinations of a civilisation he had despised before he needed its magic. This same ambivalence faced me now. Perhaps reason salted with information about the school's concessions to female modesty might swing it our way.

`Look, there are no males present in the baths. The girls are taken across by a lady, and the instruction is always given by a woman. Changing is done in a private cubicle. If you like,' and here I played my trump card, 'I'll take you across to the baths, so you can judge for yourself.' And then he delivered the knockout blow. 'It is against my religion.' I was floored, at least momentarily. The British attachment to religious liberty has been used very suc- cessfully by immigrants who understand our vulnerabilities.

This man had learnt his part well. But no one had told him about his actual religious rights in this sort of school. Our distinction between the sacred and the secular has little meaning in Islam, but its place in state schools is firmly established. He could, indeed, withdraw his child from morning assembly, and RE, but he had no other curricular rights, since granting them would play havoc with the school's coher- ence and identity. If he could withdraw his daughter from swimming, why not from maths, or English, or any other part of the curriculum he didn't fancy? But could he have understood if anyone had explained this Western arrangement?

The problem remained. What was I to do? I decided that the welfare and safety of the child were paramount — about 800 children drown every year, many because they cannot swim. Besides I had no right to restrict her human possibilities in the way he father wanted. Reason having failed, I had recourse to something I knew he would respect — authority. 'Look,' I said, `you're the boss at home. What you say there goes. Here I'm the boss. What I say goes. Since the rules say all pupils learn to swim, Amina has to go swimming. Other- wise you must take her to another school.' All my liberal instincts were affronted.

But the tension left his face. His whole body relaxed, and, raising his hands once more, he shrugged and said, 'I have done my best.' He left. And then I panicked. Supposing he goes down to the offices? The wrath of the anti-racist establishment would descend on my head. I would be castigated for my 'insensitivity'. The racial experts would perform their usual shock- horror routine, and mutter their ritual incantations. I should, at best, become persona non grata. But he did not com- plain. And his little girl did learn to swim.