This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3227
October 23, 2007
Crash detail overlooked |
The school bus accident last Thursday that killed a nine-year-old child and injured others was a sorrowful tragedy.
The amount of media coverage of the accident was appropriate: Children should never predecease their parents.
Calgary's radio stations, newspapers and TV news covered the event exhaustively -- inspecting every detail, and asking good questions about how such accidents might be avoided in the future.
Every detail was examined except one: The woman who was the school bus driver was wearing a Muslim-style head covering that blocked her peripheral vision.
Why was this fact omitted?
We read and heard hundreds of words about other elements of the accident.
We know all about the truck on the side of the road.
We know all about the little bus, and how it "drifted" over.
We know all about the ongoing debate about school bus seatbelts.
We know about every detail except the most important one: The bus driver herself.
I saw two shots of the bus driver -- once, quickly, in a TV newscast, and the other in a newspaper photo. Both showed her wearing a veil.
Not a niqab -- the full, cover-the-face veil some Muslim women wear.
But a smaller hijab -- a scarf that surrounds the face.
In both glimpses, the bus driver's hijab was worn far enough forward that it clearly blocked her peripheral vision.
It looked almost like blinders.
Is that not an extremely relevant fact in an accident where a bus "drifted" off the road, side-swiping a vehicle parked on the side?
Wasn't peripheral vision a key issue?
This was the leading news story of the day. The CBC even flew in its top TV reporter from Vancouver.
Did no one find it odd that a bus driver whose job requires keen eyesight wore a hood-like scarf?
I can't believe that, of the dozen reporters there, none had questions about this.
Who is the woman? What is her name? Why was she wearing a headscarf? Was the scarf a factor?
Reporters are inquisitive people.
They must have asked those questions, at least to themselves.
I think it's obvious why these questions were not asked: because it is politically incorrect to question a religious veil -- or even anything that looks like one -- for fear of being regarded as politically incorrect.
Maybe the woman wasn't Muslim. Maybe it was just a scarf to stay warm.
Why didn't a single reporter even ask?
Of course, it doesn't matter if the woman was Muslim or not, or it if was a religious hijab or just a winter scarf. Or an Eastern European baboushka.
What matters is that a school bus driver was allowed to operate while wearing a hood.
Clearly, that is an unacceptable risk -- and something that should be banned by common sense.
Ten years ago, to say that head scarves on bus drivers should be prohibited would have been uncontroversial.
But to say so today is to be called Islamophobic -- even if the bus driver in question was not a Muslim.
The bus driver has been charged. We'll know what the justice system says caused the crash. But for the dozen reporters there, they'd rather find any other reason than a head scarf -- even a non-religious head scarf worn by a non-Muslim -- than to admit there are simply some parts of modern, secular society where it is inappropriate -- even dangerous -- to allow politically correct multiculturalism to trump common sense.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3227