The main conflict in the text is about having different religions. It’s abouthow a little girl is having problems about understanding why she can’t paintreligious persons with dark skin. At school the teacher says that Amina can takethe picture to show her mom. Amina doesn’t understand why it can’t hang on thewall together with the other childrens’. But the teacher gives another excuseand Amina “surrenders”, and takes the picture home.
But as her mother sees thepicture she tears it apart, and tells Amina to never say anything to Amina’sfather and she tells Amina explicitly not to draw anymore pictures of theProphet of Nazareth. It is obvious that Amina’s mother is scared of how thefather will react if he sees that her daughter has painted people from the Bible. Amina and her family are muslims, that’s why her mother can’t accept the drawingAmina brings home. The reason why she doesn’t want the father to know is thathe’s the dominant one in the family.
Maybe the mother is scared that he willpunish Amina, or maybe even the mother, for not bringing up her daughterproperly. Then Amina’s mother teaches her to draw patterns from the Koran. Aminalikes to draw the patterns and she is no more confused. Next day at school,they’re all going to draw nice Christmas cards. Amina draws the patterns thather mother has just taught her. The teacher tells her to draw people instead,and she throws away the Christmas card with patterns on it.
Amina refuses todraw people, and reminds the teacher of what she’d told Amina the other day. Theteacher tries to behave nice and convinces Amina that she will put Amina’spicture next to the others’. During the two discussions the teacher and Aminaare having, the teacher is having a hard time justifying what she is actuallydoing. She gives no particular reason for telling Amina to take home the picture. Just as well as she gives no explanation for, why Amina can’t draw patterns fromthe Koran.
Instead she tries to flatter Amina by telling her that she is good atpainting. Even more confused, Amina draws people instead. At school she’s toldto draw people from the Christian Bible and at home she’s told that’s wrong. Athome her mom tells her to draw patterns from the Muslim Koran, but when shecomes to school she is told to draw people, – no wonder she is confused! Theending is from the parents’ point of view very contradictive ( I assume that thefather has the same opinion as the mother). They’re in the shop selling thingsfor Christmas although they’re Muslims. At the same time they forbid theirdaughter to paint things or people that have anything to do with Christmas.
Meanwhile Amina’s sitting in her room, trying to figure out why she had to throwthe fine drawing of the Holy Family away. The other day, my daughter brought home a drawing she had made. It was a pictureof Jesus. Now, everybody in this town know that I am definetely not a Christian. Nor is my daughter.
That’s why I don’t understand that she has to draw thesedrawings at school. The local schools ought to have a little more respect forforeign culture and religion. I intend to bring up my daughter like girls arebrought up in our culture. We don’t have to bring her up like English childrenjust because we live in England. It is about time that schools took care thatall the children were treated so that it wouldn’t interfere with their cultureand belief. The children become confused and don’t know what to believe.
Thethings they’re taught in school or the things they’re taught at home. Since thenumber of foreign children are increasing I suggest that religion-classes aredivided into two or three, – depending on the number of different religions. Inthat way the child would be much less confused. Yours Mr.
IqbalTranslationMore than 3000 schools all over the country have been invited to join acompetition with the Earthworms for the Rainforest. The classes are going totry to get earthworms to convert the most garbage to compost, and the winner ofThe Golden Earthworm is rewarded with a trip up the Amazonas with a visit to theoriginal inhabitants of the rainforest. A few days after this note was writtenin the paper, one could read the following object from an expert. It is themicro-organisms of the earth which produces compost, not the earthworms, and onecannot make the earth fertile by just adding earthworms.
They simply die ifthere’s not enough food for them.Category: Religion
