It was story time. A group of 10-year-olds gathered around me at one of the public libraries. It was part of an initiative that had authors volunteer to read to children from different backgrounds.
I had picked out a book of fairytales, filled with stories of princes, princesses, talking animals and magical creatures that granted wishes or spoke in riddles.
This session was for English- speakers and I was surrounded by children of all nationalities.
Midway through a story about a magic bird, a child yelled out:
“Miss. It is haram this story. My teacher told me magic is haram.” Before I could say anything, another child stood up and demanded I continue. “My mother said magic is good,” he argued.
Soon enough, the group started to divide into those who wanted me to continue with the fairy tale and those who didn’t. And it was just a simple story about magic that had triggered it all. The children started to categorise each other: who was Christian or Muslim or neither. And all of this in what was supposed to be a neutral space for storytelling and fun.
But then it’s the same when adults argue over what is right and wrong, haram and halal, Muslim or non-Muslim, good Muslim or bad Muslim. While we say “we respect others”, we are quick to point out how our beliefs are better than theirs.
The incident about the fairy tale helped me understand the challenges faced by parents of mixed backgrounds and school-going children.
“I just worry about my children as I don’t know where they will belong and how to reach that balance,” one mother told me.
“The concept of home and belonging is so complicated these days as so many live away from their place of origin and have multiple citizenship, multiple homes and multiple beliefs.”
It is always difficult to achieve a balance in matters that concern our religious or cultural beliefs.
If a couple is of mixed-faith, there is always going to be a bit of initial debate about what to teach the child.
It is particularly interesting when a family is of Arab origin. The immediate preconception is that they must be Muslim. It is often forgotten that the world’s oldest Christian communities are actually Middle Eastern. Then you have the different other sects and religions in the region, which often get ignored.
Of late, there has been a lot of bad criticism of religion. This is caused by groups like ISIL trying to hijack the faith in order to justify their violent actions.
As a result, I am starting to see more and more people shying away from admitting that they are Muslim, if the company is mixed and may not understand the distinction between extremist claims and a faith. ISIL is about as Muslim as the Ku Klux Klan can be seen to be Christian.
As if we didn’t have enough judgmental people around, ISIL has forced people to come up with a whole new set of boxes to put individuals into.
Now you are a “moderate” Muslim, in that you are distinct from extremists. There are the “practising” vs the “non-practising”Muslims. And there are “real” vs “not really Muslim” people. Then there is “modern” Muslim, which is often just a way to say that they take a non-traditional view of dating and relationships.
There seem to be so many different shades of following a faith now, no wonder people get confused.
In a way though, in all religions, people pick and choose which bits to follow, ignoring the principles that they don’t like.
But it does seem to be a difficult time to be a child. Or even an adult with a mixed background.
People have not yet accepted that you can be a combination of many things – and beliefs.
rghazal@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @Arabianmau