The poor girl

I feel very sorry for St Marys Head Prefect Aysser Aljanabi who has made the news both nationally and internationally. It must be excruciatingly embarrassing to have to endure such stuff especially when you haven’t done anything at all except presumably be a popular and well behaved student who got made Head Prefect.

I think the Dom Post has some culpability here, even though their motives may have been good in terms of wanting to highlight a positive story about a Muslim immigrant. But quite simply the controversy seems to be manufactured. Not a single person has actually said they personally are unhappy about it – the media justify covering this as some sort of controversy when all they can point to is “it is believed one member of St Mary’s old girl’s association was so angry she emailed the school”. Oh my God is this the threshold we adopt here. Someone who will not be named sent an e-mail off!!!

Considering non Catholics have been eligible to attend and take up leadership positions at St Mary’s for many years, then whether the Head Girl is Muslim or Agnostic is not newsworthy. It would be different if the student and the school wanted to highlight this, but they have made it clear for over three months they did not want publicity.

The good thing from this ‘issue’ is that the school has been flooded with support for their stand. The sad thing is this has been at the expense of a young girl’s privacy who never wanted to be seen as an issue people take a stand on. She probably no more wants to be defined purely by her religion as MP Chris Finlayson wants to be defined purely by his sexuality.

The other sad thing is that some of the international reports talk of there being an “uproar” at the appointment. Oh what crap. There has been no uproar. Not a single person has complained publicly and I daresay 90%+ of the population support the school.