At the moment I am proctoring a written test. There are 13 students, 4 boys, 9 girls. From the 9 girls, there is one girl wearing senior high school uniform, short sleeves and no headdress (read => jilbab). I took a glance at the badge of her uniform: one well-known state high school.
And just like that I missed the old days when I was teaching at a school where there was no one wearing headdress; no students no employees (teachers as well as administration staff). Well, there was a certain academic year when there were a group of international students -- from Libya -- who came to Semarang to study there. The girls were wearing jilbab. But they didn't stay long. Their fathers moved to another city, so the children followed to move out of town.
Very rarely have I had female students who come to the English course where I teach does not wear jilbab recently, either they are still high school students or college students or employees. Especially high school students, because I have often heard that there is somewhat repression from the environment for Muslim female students who choose not to wear jilbab when going to school.
When Angie went to school, there was no such repression (yet). Angie and many other Muslim female students who studied English in my workplace didn't wear jilbab. She graduated from high school in 2009. In that year, there was still strong debate about RUU APP. After graduating from college, and Angie had somewhat 'reunion' with her old schoolmates, she in fact became the only Muslim mate who chose not to wear jilbab. Did she get any repression from her old mates? She once told me, "X said that she saw me no longer a Muslim." Another said, "Are you sure Ngie, you will stay not wearing jilbab?" Nevertheless, she didn't take it to her heart. She took it easy.
*****
Some weeks ago a biking buddy and I had a conversation. He mentioned some old biking buddies of ours who used to wear no jilbab but now they are wearing one. He said something cynical about it. So I told him, "Let us respect what they choose to wear. It is because I want them to respect others' choice not to wear jilbab too. Respecting each other is what we had better do, let's embrace differences, and no need to be nosy.
MS48 17.49 19.09.2023
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