The story of 10-year-old schoolgirl, Mariam Wael, suggests not only the “Ikhwanization of Education” (Ikhwan means Muslim Brotherhood), but also a social conflict of the crisis of education, as an oppressive tool that takes advantage of the existing environment of Islamization of society, which often happens at the expense of woman’s body.

The story of 10-year-old schoolgirl, Mariam Wael, suggests not only the “Ikhwanization of Education” (Ikhwan means Muslim Brotherhood), but also a social conflict of the crisis of education, as an oppressive tool that takes advantage of the existing environment of Islamization of society, which often happens at the expense of woman’s body.

Soon after the arrival of Mariam’s conservative family from the United States to settle in their motherland in Egypt, they faced no difficulty in finding an English school that taught religious subjects besides the English curriculum. Mariam’s mother, Amina Khudr, is an interior designer, and her father, Wael Hassan, is a professor at the American University. Having enrolled Mariam in an Islamic school in the U.S. where Mariam studied the Koran in order to maintain her relationship to her motherland’s culture, they were satisfied with Mariam’s new school in Egypt, located near their new residence in the city of 6 October.

Identity and punishment

Mariam’s mother said they chose the private Huda Islamic School. Two years passed without problems, apart from certain observations made by Mariam about fundamentalism, which her parents attributed to Mariam’s difficulties with adapting to the new society.

“One day, Mariam was late for her noon prayers meeting because she was held up at the drawing room, along with other classmates. They were at first reproached by the prayer supervisor, and later faced gradual disciplinary action. They started with ordering them to perform ablution (self washing) in the boys’ washroom.

They refused that and cried, and then decided to pray without ablution, as they were always instructed to be isolated from the boys. How could a punishment be imposed, when it violates the school’s code of conduct? The punishment was further escalated to force latecomers to pray on the floor without a prayer rug.

Another school coordinator tried to act more leniently to prevent a practice that basically spoiled proper prayer, and put a clean piece of cloth on the prostration place. She, however, was reproached by the senior supervisor who pulled away the cloth as a confirmation of the inflicted punishment,” said Mariam’s mother.

Surprised parents

Mariam returned home crying, according to her mother. The following day, her mother accompanied her to school, and faced the principal, Huda Matar, with some questions, to which the principal gave strange answers, she said.

First, she said the boys’ washroom was nearby and shrugged off the other questions with unusual indifference. She said she would not even call the senior supervisor’s attention since the parent’s were complaining about an unworthy incident.

The shocked mother withdrew her daughter’s registration papers in the middle of the school year, despite the undesirable impacts that might lead to her daughter failing the year. She took up the case with the media, given that these types of schools were usually not subject to close supervision by the Ministry of Education. When she was approached by telephone during the ON TV ‘Manchette’ program, the principal did not apologize. Instead, she criticized the behavior of young girls who were less than ten years of age. The shocked program presenter had to finish the call following that non-educational argument, which aimed at discrediting the girls’ reputation.

The mother’s crisis was further aggravated after children’s parents refused to help her escalate the case against the school. “Parents tend to be masterful, avoiding friction with the authority and believing that the school punishment is genuine refinement,” she said.

Sweets and beards

This attitude by parents is not unique. The parents of a school owned by Khadija Khairat El-Shater, the daughter of the Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Supreme Guide, had no problem when their children recited the Brotherhood anthem instead of the national anthem at the morning assembly. Brotherhood’s infiltration into the field of education has been part of their empowerment strategies, through which they have groomed many children’s conservative parents who themselves studied and were brought up at these schools 20 years ago.

Parents’ attitudes however are not identical. The parents of Hiba Mohammed, a young student at Asma’ Bint Abu Bakr School in Alexandria, whose name was dropped from the list of honored girls because she did not wear a veil, defended their daughter.

Another parent, Ahmad Abdurrahman, whose daughter is a student at a Cairo school, said a delegation from the Freedom and Justice Party came to the school to launch a propaganda campaign for President Morsi. Having offered the children gifts and sweets, they tried to persuade them in the presence of their teachers that those who fell in the confrontations were not martyrs or victims. Abdurrahman said that was tantamount to brainwashing.

Back to the States where identity is respected

The Brotherhood Minister of Education has downplayed the deletion of the image of a leading woman, Doria Shafik, from the Ministry’s version of the reading book because she was not veiled, while the new reading book for first graders has the picture and the first letter of the word ‘beard’, in addition to another picture and the first letter of the word ‘veil’ in Arabic. Besides, ‘Egypt’ in the songs textbooks has been replaced with ‘Brotherhood’.

“When the salafi sheikh, Muhammad Hussein Yacoub, said to Egypt’s Copts they should immigrate to Canada if they did not like the rule of Islam in Egypt, I, as an Egyptian Muslim, did not know that that message would concern me as well, and that I would seriously consider going to the U.S. Embassy to seek the U.S. nationality for my daughter. At least there I am free to teach my daughter whatever I want,” explained Amina after Huda School’s principal refused to comment on the incident.