Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Does My Head Look Big In This

Bismillahirahmanirahim..

This is a 350 pages story of an Australian-born-Muslim-Palestinian struggle to be a full-timer. The word full-timer is used by Amal (the heroin in this book) for a girl who wears veil full time.


I started reading this book at 8 pm and finished by 1.30 am. Approximately 5 hours non-stop except for Maghrib and Isyak Prayer break. Not bad.
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The slide opened and I heard a gentle, kind voice:
‘What is your confession, my child?’
I was stuffed. The priest would declare me a heretic; my parents would call me a traitor…
The priest asked me again: ‘What is your confession, my child?”
‘I’m Muslim,’ I whispered.
This dialogue happened during a Eucharist session in a church during her days in a Catholic Primary School which Amal Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel Hakim had attended. She used to be the odd one out from as young as Grade One. Her parents send her to a Catholic Primary School where she had to sing Lord's Prayer and declare salvation through Jesus every morning at assembly. This Australian-Palestinian-Muslim girl then attends the elite high school in McCleans for Year 11 and Year 12. Despite her bad experience with non-Muslim colleagues, she is determined to become a full time Muslim.

She is seriously contemplating to wear hijab in McClean, a snotty grammar school where you're seriously doomed to the non-cool list if you're one issue behind the latest Cleo fashion. The challenge is huge. The peer pressure is high. First and foremost, she has to face the headmistress of this old and private high school who does not allow her to wear the hijab. Then, Tia and her friends who definitely will make fun of her. Next in the list is Adam, the cool guy who she had a crush. Eventually, she writes a list of people who might agree and not agree with her decision to go full timer. She comes out with 13 OK and not-so-OK people. She was struggling to grip with her various identity hyphens.
It’s hard enough to be cool as a teenage when being one issue behind the latest Cosmo disqualifies you from the in-group. Try wearing a veil on your head and getting in the ‘bums up’ position at lunchtime and you know you’re in for a tough time. Luckily my friends support me, although they’ve got a few troubles of their own. Simone, blonde and gorgeous, has got serious image problems, and Leila’s really intelligent but her parents are more interested in her getting a marriage certificate than her high school certificate. And I thought I had problems…

But, the determination to be a good Allah servant is above all. She managed to get over the challenges to wear the hijab even though she has to face the tension environment during Bali bomb attack and 9/11 in her early days of wearing the hijab.

I think the primary purpose of this book is to help the world understands the life and struggle of a young Muslim girl in a Muslim-paranoid-community. But I also discovered a completely different world about girls in this so-called-modern society.

After reading this book, I was surprise to find out that Australian high school girls are over conscious about their image, body and appearance. For no other reason than to impress the guys. Realising this fact, Amal's father asked her to test run wearing hijab at Chadstone on Thursday night first before allowing her to wear it in the school. "If she can cope with Chadstone, she can cope with anything" he says. Chadstone is a shopping complex, but for girls Chadstone on Thurday night means make-up, designer clothes and great hair. Amal might not be as overly conscious as other girls, but she used to take up to one hour to get ready every time she goes to Chadstone on Thursday night.
"If you're at my age and you're at Chadstone shopping centre on Thursday night with your friends, you're not there for sock sales. You're there to make an impression, muck about at Timezone, hang around the entrances for a smoke and a perve, and to piss off the security guards who see a midriff top or goatee and think "troublemaker" "
Amal's friend, Simone is one of the examples how girls can lose their minds in order to have a beautiful body. She is convinced that she is overweight by Tia Tamos bully who makes her tries many diets, including living only with celery and carrot sticks daily. But she keeps craving and finally she takes up smoking after hearing from Tia that it stops her cravings.

Amal has proved that she can be a student that her school can be proud of despite the fact that she's a Muslim. The pressure that she has received from teachers and friends never discourages her from being the top student in high school as well as being the best debater in the school debating team. "It's not in spite of Islam, but because of it" she said.

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