Private tragedy and public issues

Private tragedy and public issues
TheStar.com - columnists - Private tragedy and public issues

December 15, 2007
Kathy English

At 16, on the eve of my sister's first communion in the Catholic Church,
I told my parents I no longer believed in the rite of confession.
Further, I refused to attend confession as part of the church's
expectations of our family's preparation for my sister's initiation into
the sacrament of communion.

An angry battle ensued. Eventually, I backed down, more because of my
sister's tears than my father's rage. But, to this day, I remember my
defiant, smart-mouthed adolescent self's sense of empowerment in the
realization that my parents couldn't force me to reveal anything to a
man sitting in a dark, closet-like confessional booth.

I thought about that night this week in fielding numerous complaints
from Muslim readers concerned about media coverage of the murder of Aqsa
Parvez, 16. Her father, Muhammad Parvez, faces a murder charge in her
death. This tragedy has received international attention in light of -
still unsubstantiated - reports from the girl's teenaged friends that
she had battled with her father over her desire to remove her hijab, the
Muslim head scarf.

I wondered, had my teenaged conflict happened now, and had it somehow
escalated to the point of such tragedy, would the media have reported it
as a teen's rejection of Catholic faith, or would it be contained as an
age-old story of conflict between controlling parents and a rebellious
adolescent or covered primarily as an incident of domestic violence?

It must be clearly understood that we don't know what went on in the
Parvez home. We know that the family came to Canada from Pakistan and is
Muslim and clearly there was conflict between Aqsa and her parents.
Police have not confirmed the reports of Aqsa's friends that she
rebelled against the hijab. But if that is found to be so, many readers
question why this has been primarily portrayed as a broad conflict
between Canadian culture and Islam rather than as an issue of domestic
violence.

Indeed, from the outset, media reports in the Star and other newspapers
and broadcasts, were quick to focus on Aqsa's friends' comments, which
immediately framed the story as a cultural clash, in line with the
"clash of civilizations" thesis - the idea that there is inherent
conflict between Western values and Islamic faith.

Reader Abubakar Kasim charged that "the media disregard objectivity and
balanced reporting and forget their ethical and professional
responsibility when the suspect of a crime is thought to be a Muslim.
Eventually all Muslims are forced to defend their faith."

Toronto imam Nazim Mangera told the Star it is "disingenuous" to portray
this tragedy only as a conflict over the hijab. "For a situation to
escalate to such a violent end must mean that there were several
contributing factors. Please do not tarnish a whole religion."

To its credit, the Star published several letters to the editor this
week expressing those views. An editorial also expressed the Star's view
that family violence is not a "Muslim issue" or even an immigrant issue.
News, feature articles and columns also broadened the context to
indicate that intergenerational and cultural conflicts are a factor for
many families throughout Toronto and the GTA. The Star also interviewed
several Muslim leaders who condemned the killing and made it clear that
nothing in Islam sanctions violence, if indeed a daughter did rebel
against the hijab.

In examining the media coverage overall, and speaking to Carleton
University journalism professor Karim H. Karim, author of the book
Islamic Peril: Media and Global Violence, which explores media coverage
of Islam, I don't at all agree with the charges of some Muslim readers
that media coverage of this sad incident reflects an anti-Islamic bias.

But I do agree with some readers and Professor Karim that the media were
too quick to rely on the views of Aqsa's teen chums to portray this
simplistically within the framework of a clash of cultures and religion,
which could perpetuate negative stereotypes of Islam.

Certainly, seeing this as a clash of cultures provides an easy way to
attempt to come to terms with the tragedy of a father accused of
murdering his adolescent daughter. But, as anyone who has ever been part
of a family certainly knows, what goes on in our individual homes is
most always far more complex.