A Good Man
 

I know I'll get hammered for this, but Mr. Nasim is on the right track...tolerance, firmly held, is a wonderful thing. May he be a bellweather of things to come.


Rashid Nasim arrives at Abraar Islamic elementary school to pick up his young daughter, and he’s upset, he wants answers.

“I want to speak to the principal, I want to speak to teachers. This is not what I want from this school. We didn’t have our daughter go here for this. I want to know how this could happen.”

Rashid Nasim wants to know why a Muslim pupil at the private school was allowed to get away with a project in which he wrote a stridently anti-Semitic story about Palestinians revengefully killing Jews in the Middle East. He wants to know why two teachers were approving of the completed work. He wants to know why it was put on display in the school as if to be proud of.

Rashid Nasim, 31, owns three of the Curves For Women fitness centres in Ottawa. His wife, Shaista Zareef, is a family physician. Their four-year old daughter Mariya is in junior kindergarten at Abraar. The family is Muslim. Nasim was born in Pakistan and grew up in Montreal where he attended a Catholic high school. “I’m glad I did. Where does it say I can’t learn about other religions? The ignorance about other religions and cultures, that’s what breeds fear and hatred.

“We are practising Muslims and wanted her to go here for the cultural education and strong moral foundation it provides. We spoke to the principal, and were convinced it was the right choice.” The principal is Dr. Aisha Sherazi, who has suspended the two teachers.

“The view of the child who wrote the story is not a view accepted by the overall teachers, the administration, or the other students. It was one individual opinion. It was the culture he was brought up in over there. Any child coming from that environment would have that feeling.

“To be allowed to express it in a school setting that might influence other students at that impressionable age, that’s the issue. But why did the teachers seem to encourage it, why did one of them write the favourable comments on it? I want to know — was it assigned or was it original?

“I don’t want my daughter’s school tarnished by this. This is not what the school stands for. We don’t want the community to feel threatened. I am not anti-Semitic. I have Jewish employees. Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew — all people deserve respect, there is no room for hatred.”

Look up the wrds to a tune from "South Pacific"

You have to be taught how to hate...You have to be carefully taught.....

Sometimes I wonder what God thinks when He sees how His words have been misinterpreted.

But, unlike some here, God does not reveal His innermost thoughts to me.

Fortunity he does to me, he says that you should quit your job and buy a Christmas Tree farm in upstate New York.