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Saturday, September 08, 2007
Just before Mustafa Abousaleh jumped into his school team's dragon boat to paddle in a race on False Creek, the teenage Muslim prostrated himself on the grass in prayer.
Passersby stared.
But his multi-ethnic dragon boat teammates took it in stride.
"When strangers look at me praying, it doesn't matter; my teammates respect what I do," says the young Surrey Muslim.
Abousaleh doesn't even mind when people take photos as he supplicates himself outdoors during his five-times daily prayers, known as salah. That's what happened when he and his family once performed the prayers, which are required of Muslims, at White Rock beach.
B.C. teenagers who are devoted members of their Muslim faith are on the front lines of unpredictable change in multicultural Canada, blending their families' 1,400-year-old religion with West Coast popular culture, with secular lifestyle possibilities they often find fun, but sometimes trivial and distasteful.
At a time of mounting global conflict, this is the story of four diverse teenagers in B.C.'s 70,000-member Muslim community; profiled as the holy month of Ramadan is set to begin on Thursday and on the eve of Tuesday's sixth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which made many in the West suspicious of Muslims.
Abousaleh -- a 19-year-old who moved with his engineer dad and doctor mother to Canada six years ago from Syria -- recently gathered with three other Metro Vancouver Muslim teens to talk about what it's like to be young and Muslim in this pluralistic, multi-faith metropolis.
Calling each other "brothers" and "sisters," the Muslim university and high school students discussed how their values interact with mass culture in this corner of the 1.2 billion-member Muslim world, far removed from most of the world's Muslims, who are concentrated between north Africa and Indonesia.
The four Sunni Muslim teens talked about Canadian sports, MuchMusic, TV shows such as Fox Television's 24, Bollywood movies, national politics, their mosques, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, "Muslim terrorists," arranged marriages, sex, dating, drinking and prayer.
We met at Simon Fraser University's new Interfaith Centre, which contains special tiled washrooms so male and female Muslim students can wash their hands and feet in separated stalls before engaging in prayer in the multifaith, symbol-free sanctuary.
Along with Abousaleh, a confident University of B.C. engineering student, the Muslim teenagers included quiet-but-firm Hanan Dumas, a 15-year-old Richmond girl who is attending Richmond secondary's Grade 11 international baccalaureate program this year.
There was also forthright Sana Siddiqui, a 19-year-old criminology student at SFU, born and raised in Vancouver after her dad moved to Canada from Pakistan. Rounding out the group was cheery Aamir Mushin, a 17-year-old science student from Dubai who is entering Grade 12 at Burnaby Central Secondary.
Sports a cultural meeting ground
Even though the conversation eventually turned to sensitive issues such as sex, drinking alcohol, Canadian politics and the wars that were triggered by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the young Muslims enjoyed starting out by talking about how sports have offered them a great cultural meeting ground.
Just as Abousaleh's diverse dragon boat team is captained by a Muslim "sister," Siddiqui proudly wears her head scarf over her long hair while playing for SFU's mixed field-hockey team. She did the same while playing rugby as one of only a couple of dozen Muslims attending Killarney Secondary in east Vancouver.
On her ethnically mixed field-hockey and rugby teams, Siddiqui said her teammates and almost everyone else completely supports her choice to wear a head scarf. And she's never had any referee tell her it's unsafe, as one (Muslim) referee in Quebec did last year to a female Muslim soccer player, leading to international controversy.
"I think the safety issue is ridiculous. I think it's a covert way of being discriminatory. I'm an example [that] Muslim women can do anything," said Siddiqui, who is president of SFU's 70-member Muslim Student Association, and not shy about standing up for minority rights.
"I have experienced looks of intolerance when I wear the head scarf playing sports. Not in Greater Vancouver, but in smaller communities, like Agassiz. My (SFU) teammates have been told certain things, such as, 'It's not necessary to wear the head scarf. You're living here. You should be more Canadianized.'"
Mushin said "tons" of devout Muslim boys love playing basketball and especially soccer in Metro Vancouver, including on mixed teams. They also watch European soccer on TV, as well as following the Canucks hockey team.
When it's hockey season, "I'm glued to Sportsnet and CBC," Mushin said. "Nothing should stop you from watching or going to these games. They're just entertainment."
Mushin brings the same relaxed attitude to the outdoor paint-ball games that his 15-member all-male youth group takes part in through the new Tri-Cities Mosque in Port Coquitlam.
For her part, Dumas, who doesn't wear a head scarf because she's "too young," is not really into team or spectator sports. Instead, she is taking swimming lessons to become a lifeguard.
In the name of Islamic modesty, Dumas avoids wearing a bikini or two-piece bathing suit. Instead, she swims in long shorts and a T-shirt.
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