Religion is still a big issue amongst many people. People living around me are very protective about their religion. People who are much attached to their religion, even fight for their religion. Some people don’t care about other people's feeling and say things which could hurt other peoples feeling. Sometime I see people saying things to other people if they’re following some rules from their religion. Also, many of the incidents happen to Muslims especially. I’m a Muslim myself and I see people making fun of women if they are wearing a scarf. I use to wear a scarf in high school and students in my class made fun of me.

One of my friends, who also wore scarf, was humiliated very badly by one an American girl. The American girl took my friend’s scarf off and my friend cried a lot. I told the American girl that if you can’t respect someone religion that don’t make fun of it. My friend took the girl to dean's office and the dean suspended the girl for one week. After this incident I learned that to have fun, people can hurt someone feelings by criticizing their religion.

The incident which happened to me was after the attack of 9/11, I saw my neighborhood people staring at me and giving me bad look, because at that time I used to wear scarf. I was scared and I went home and didn’t go to school for two days. Also, my mother didn't send my younger brother to school also. Then his teacher calls and said, “It’s ok to send the children to school." Then next day when I went to school, students in my classes were giving me bad look, and when I was coming home from school, then in the train an American guy was saying stupid things. I was with my friends and we were talking and laughing at something, the guy start cursing us and said, "Because of you Muslim people so many innocent people died." When I went home, and I told my mother what had happen. She told me to forget it and ignore what people say.

Also, one more thing which is still a big problem is that my Muslim friend, find it very difficult to find a job. My friend was asking for a job at a grocery store and the manager gave her weird look and said,” We don’t hire people who are Muslim’s, because this is Jewish people area.” And wherever she goes to find a job the manager’s of the stores don’t hire her, because she wear scarf. Even I went to look for a job and the people were ready to hire me, because I don’t wear scarf now and I know that if I wear scarf, they won’t hire me.

I heard that, there is a law in France now that Muslim girls can't wear scarf. Nobody can't wear any religion sign and I can understand that it is because religion differences. People have to face so many things which are not in there hand to control. When I couldn't do anything about the incident which happened to me and it affect me a lot. I stop wearing scare now and when I think of that time then I say to myself that I should have said something to the guy in the train. But in a way it was good that I didn't say anything, because you never know it might create more problems. I try not to hurt people by saying bad things to their religion and I also, expected people not saying anything to my religion. I have been through it and I don’t want people to go through the same thing which I went through. Religion is a identification to know that a person belong to a certain group of people and I think that nobody has the right to insult someone’s identity.

Posted at Nov 16/2004 02:10 PM:
Admin: You have a strong argument, with a clear position and good supporting stories and examples. You still need to work more on proofreading, because there are too many small errors. B+