Hackettstown teen: 'I'm not a foreigner. I've been raised here.'

17-year-old sees education as weapon against terrorism

BY LORRAINE ASH
DAILY RECORD

Sabra Bhat is a tall, slender 17-year-old with clear skin and bright dark eyes. On Sundays, the Hackettstown High School senior is doing what few of her classmates are -- attending Arabic classes at Mount Olive High School.
DAWN BENKO / DAILY RECORD
Sabra Bhat, 17, of Hackettstown is passionate about learning Arabic. She believes it is a way to get in touch with her Muslim spirituality. "Once you understand the language and you can interpret it on your own, you don't have any other outside influences."

Born in Kashmir, India, and raised in the United States from the age of 4, Bhat, a Muslim, has a lot of incentive to learn the complex language. Between classes last Sunday morning she walked the halls and explained in perfect English, her eyes lighting up, why she is so passionate about learning Arabic.

"This is for me to get in touch with my spiritual side," she said. "Once you understand the language and you can interpret it on your own, you don't have any other outside influences. That is important because this is the language of our holy book, the Quran.

"When you have other people interpreting for you, you get misconceptions and you don't want that."

In the past, misconceptions have put her in some awkward spots. Just before 9/11 she started wearing the traditional hijab, or head scarf, of Muslim women. She was an eighth-grader then and her friends asked lots of questions: Does she wear it in the shower? Does she wear it to bed? Does it mean she is oppressed?

"There is a huge misconception about women's rights in Islam," Bhat said. "They think Muslim women are oppressed, that they stay at home and that their only duty in this life is to bear children, which is not true."

Wearing the scarf is a sign of respect for Allah and of modesty. It also is meant to minimize physical attraction and temptation between the sexes, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Transcultural Educational Center. In the Islamic world women are encouraged and supported in becoming well educated and successful in business. They are professionals who own and manage their own properties and wealth.

Called racist names

But few students in Bhat's school had any idea of that. After 9/11, some tried to tear off her hijab and called her racist names, she said.

"Rowdy kids, especially after they've been impacted by this huge national attack," Bhat said. "Some of their parents were in the World Trade Center, and they're thinking, 'Who is this person who comes by like this? Who is this foreigner?'

"I'm really not a foreigner. I've been raised here."

Her response was to run for class office and open up to the student body, explaining the reality of being a Muslim woman.

Her lasting response was to learn Arabic, the better to advance her understanding of her religion and the Arab world. Knowing Arabic helps equip her in responding to prejudice.

Nazish Aghal is a 32-year-old corporate lawyer from Livingston who has done pro bono work on civil rights issues. Also born in India and raised in the U.S., Aghal said it is time for Americans to identify the real source of terror in the world as well as the real weapon against terror.

The real source, she said, is not individual Muslims here or abroad. Neither is it Islam. The enemy is intolerance that is systematically taught.

"It's important to realize there are certain actions and ideologies that are wrong," Aghal said. "What has to be stopped is the indoctrination of wrong ideologies. As long as they go on, it doesn't matter how many bad guys you kill. There are always more growing up."

The real weapon in the war on terror, in her view, is education. If the Bush Administration invested the billions it has spent on the military in funding women's rights groups in Arab countries, and helping writers and the arts, the efforts probably would provide much more fruitful results.

"The same group of people who are anti-U.S. also happen to be anti-minorities, anti-Shia, anti-women's rights," Aghal said. "You can win your cause indirectly. When you help minorities assert their rights, you're going to be undermining the main source of your problem -- festering intolerant bigotry."

In the meantime, individuals like Bhat bear the brunt of that education, dispelling myths by personal example, learning as much about the religious roots of Islam as they do about modern fears and struggles.