The Journey of One Hijab
ANGLO AMERICA, 30 Jun 2014
Daniel Horgan and Hibak Hussein – TRANSCEND Media Service
If there is one story that captures all the courage and magic that this world has to offer, it could be this one:
In the early morning hours, on the day of January 1st 1997, a peaceful new years’ darkness hovered over the city of Ceelbuur in Eastern Somalia. It was about 1a.m. when time stood still for a moment in Ceelbuur to honor the birth of a shiny new Muslim girl. Her name was Hibak Hussein.
At this time life in Somalia was anything but normal in many localities due to the war. However, the area Hibak grew-up in was relatively free of violence, and she spent the early years of her life as a normal Sunni Muslim girl growing up in a normal Sunni Muslim family. She attended public school. Family was the main tenet of life. Her dad ran a business in which he sold imported products. Her mom was a clothing designer. She had two sisters, three brothers and a grandfather. Life was pretty good.
Then in 2005 her younger brother contracted meningitis and was rendered virtually paralyzed. Life became a little more difficult. Following medical advice, Hibak’s father, sisters, and two other brothers started to sleep on the other side of their house in order to ensure that they would not contract meningitis. Hibak spent the nights with her mom taking care of her younger brother.
Then in 2006 the war came to the area where Hibak lived. Before long a full scale government crackdown was launched in her neighborhood. One night a bomb hit the family’s house. Her grandfather, who also lived with the family, was killed. In the chaos the family was separated. Hibak and her mother, younger sister, and ill brother, had no idea where their father and other siblings were. Without them they had no choice but to flee the land they called home. With other Somalis they headed towards the neighboring country of Kenya.
From Kenya they went to Uganda. They ended up in one of the oldest and largest refugee camps in Africa. The Nakivalie Refugee Camp is located in Southwestern Uganda. Unfortunately, despite efforts by the family and the United Nations High Commission of Refugees at Nakivalie, there was no luck in discovering any information about what may have happened to the other half of their family. Suddenly almost four years had passed since Hibak had seen her father or her two other brothers and sister. Life continued.
In 2010 her mom took Hibak, along with her younger brother and younger sister to the US. They lived in Lynn, Massachusetts when they first arrived. Then one day in 2011, at the Lynn Community Health Center, something miraculous happened. They met a man from Ethiopia who thought Hibak’s little sister looked like a man he had met back in Ethiopia. That man was Hibak’s father! The family was elated. A virtual reunification never thought possible was achieved. Her brother’s medical condition requires Hibak, her mom, and brother to stay in the US. Paperwork has been filed for Hibak’s father, sister, and two brothers to come to Boston. Recent developments suggest that a physical reunification will hopefully be achieved soon.
Hibak in the meantime has become an extremely successful student in Boston. She recently achieved High Honors at Urban Science Academy, where she attends Secondary School. English is her third language, but it is hard to tell. She writes poetry as a hobby, but with the heart and skill of an occupational poet.
Hibak is grateful for everything she has in the U.S., but as a young Muslim woman who wears a hijab in a Western society, she strives to have her religion, culture, and identity understood and respected. Having endured the extraordinary struggle for all of her basic human rights in life, she writes about the struggle for her identity:
You see, anybody can tell you to be yourself even when they don’t mean it.
And even when by any chance they mean it, there is no way you can ever be yourself in public.
Not when you are different because you are considered weird by others.
Not when you don’t share the same language.
Not when you are silent to a conversation that you really want to be a part of because you might scare them off.
And not when you, a young woman, covered from head to toe by a Jilbab, might be perceived as if Osama bin Laden could be your uncle.
They say that discrimination is over, but I personally see no change:
Racist incidents spreading all over the news where the only story you learn about Arabs is war and violence.
The people screaming harshly in a foreign language.
“I am not like that!”
Just because of our looks we are getting abused.
If we believe in our faiths, we are suddenly bad.
At schools, the same stares looking at me as if I don’t belong.
I face the questions like…
“Umm you take shower with it?”
“Why you wearing it?”
“How you wear it?”
“You get hot with that in the summer?”
“Does your brother wear it?”
WELL GOOGLE IT!!!!
But in the meantime if I tell you that the entire universe wears the hijab…would you understand?
Or would you smile under your breath and send a little thank you note to the All Mighty that you are not me.
That you are NOT oppressed by “it”, the scarf, the head wrap.
Which is actually called the hijab, and I proudly call ‘my freedom’.
Earth is protected by the Ozone layer.
Swords are protected by their sheaths.
Ink dries up without being covered.
Apples without skin get rotten.
Cell phones are protected by colorful cases.
Women are beautiful gems desired by admiring eyes.
I hope you can comprehend this…
Hijab protects me, and my beauty.
In life you either get defeated or defined,
and I proudly choose to be defined by my hijab.
It doesn’t shield me from writing this poem,
or walking for hunger, or even hitting a volleyball over the net.
You get it!?
The hijab…. It isolates you from me if you think it isolates me from your society.
There are 42.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world today. There is one Hibak Hussein.
______________________
Hikab Hussein and Daniel Horgan work together at Urban Science Academy on Geometry, Writing, and Performing Arts. When they met, they talked about Uganda, and a land far away instantly united them as friends.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 30 Jun 2014.
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