Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance.
- Will Durant (1885-1981)
Well hi! This blog post is mainly spurred on by the fact that I have a lot of thoughts and I don't want to annoy my Facebook friends by writing them all on there. Because we all know what that's like!
The quote titling this blog post spoke to me, more than the normal inspirational quote tagged alongside a selfie normally does. And I'll explain why...
In Australia right now, there is a minority party Senator called Jacqui Lambie who is stirring the pot in regards to the oh-so-dreaded (read with sarcasm there, please) burqa. This has been a hot topic in Australia of late. She has also been known to publicly say that she likes her men 'well-hung'. So you get the idea at what kind of a woman she might be, let alone what kind of always-in-the-public-eye-Senator she might be. Previously she has said that she thinks the burqa should be banned. I saw a news article this morning that she plans to introduce a Bill to Parliament to make Muslim parents to face jail and $34 000 fines for making a young woman wear the burqa, in addition to allowing police to give on-the-spot-fines to any person 'unlawfully' wearing a face covering in public. Even her own party leader has distanced himself from her comments.
To outline my position on the burqa clearly: I do not care if a woman wants to wear a hijab, a niqab or a burqa. It's their choice. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation provided an image to help distinguish between the type of coverings:
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| Courtesy of abc.net.au |
Not for one moment should Muslim women be prohibited their right to express their religiosity through wearing a face covering in public life. (I would like to add that for security reasons in passport processing, etc. these women should have to show their face, but that they should only have to do so in front of female staff - is that a fair proposition?).
I am a university student whose Arts major is Studies in Religion and I have taken multiple classes on Islam. I do not propose to be an expert, but I think I know some stuff about Islam. Perhaps more than the average Caucasian Australian.
Anyway, Lambie has been quoted to have said:
"If you're talking about wearing the burqa it's not a religious item. If you read the Koran, it's not in the Koran".
Well I'll tell you what, the Qur'an is not the only source of authority in Islam.
There is also the Sunnah, which is comprised of the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad. Most of the Sunnah is within the Hadiths. There is also ijma, which is the consensus of Muslim jurists - essentially the opinion of Muslim scholars.
THIS got me thinking about ignorance. My understanding of ignorance is that it breeds misunderstanding and often hate. Everybody is ignorant about something. I am only 20 and I acknowledge that my age has a lot to do with what I am ignorant about. But ignorance comes from more than youth - it comes from close-mindedness, lack of education, lack of empathy, lack of experience... you could probably think of many more factors that influence ignorance.
And so I sat here in front of my laptop thinking about my own experience with ignorance. I have just completed three years of university and three years of living out of my parental home. And these things have definitely affected what I know now. When you begin to learn things, you realise how little you actually do know. And I hope to learn things for the rest of my life, expanding my knowledge and understanding... but even then I will likely die ignorant in some regards. So then I searched quotes about ignorance and education. And I found the quote by Durant that I titled this blog post with.
What a great quote!
When I was in my last two years of secondary school, completing the HSC course (essentially to lead up to the exams to finish high school completely), my classmates and I were made to take Studies of Religion. One of the religions we learned about was Islam. I grew up in a regional area, so learning about Islam was exciting and new. I also thought it was important to learn about other religions than the stock-standard-country-Australia-Christianity because of how many people in Australia are not Christian!
(I am not Christian... or religious in any way).
Now that I have been out of school for 3 years and have met more people and learned more about what the average Australian thinks about Islam and other religions...
I am extremely passionate about the fact that I think all school children in Australia should be taught about all religions - primarily Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism since they are the top 5 world religions, but maybe also minority religions...
Education topples ignorance!
Let children learn about the diversity of people in this world and perhaps hatred will lessen. Australia is sullied by the rampant misunderstanding and hatred surrounding groups of people like Muslims.
This may have been a heavy topic to start my blog with, but it was definitely on my mind. It's nice to have an outlet for these thoughts...
And I do respect that other people have other opinions about these issues. If you disagree with my opinion, that's okay I don't mind. We can agree to disagree :)
I'm not entirely sure what my next blog post might be about, but it will be some little piece of my rambling thoughts I'm sure....
