Upon surprising her co-workers by stating she played hockey as a child, Shema Khan displays why one should not judge a book by its cover in her excerpt "I Was A Teenage Hijabe Hockey Player." Khan begins to negate these assumptions by using her past experiences growing up as both a Muslim-Canadian and a Montreal Canadiens fan to challenge the stigma surrounding Muslim women and expecting them to show disinterest in sports (Walseth, Kristin, and Åse 490). Khan describes how she exhibited her passion for hockey by participating in street hockey, driveway hockey, and table hockey until joining a recreational league while in high school and moving on to start a women’s intramural hockey team at Harvard. According to Vealey, Robin, and Melissa, she lists players, stats, and facts just like any true hockey fan would (35). Besides, her passion and love for hockey prove otherwise of the stereotypes associated with Muslim women playing sports especially hockey.
Being of Islamic faith is no barrier when it comes to playing hockey. Khan explains that hockey equipment lends itself to maintaining modesty in attire (Jiwani, Yasmin, and Matthew 454). According to Khan, the only discomfort felt by the Muslim women is the nudity in the change rooms as humility serves importance between all genders.
Now a mother of three, Khan expresses how hockey is still part of her life, as well as the lives of her children. Forbes observes that she speaks about her obsession and knowledge for hockey, particularly for Montreal Canadians (64). Khan also states how she plays hockey with her kids but now imagines herself as another player that scores with only seconds left to play. Khan’s excerpt is a prime example of why one should avoid being too quick to judge someone by their appearance, beliefs, and things alike.
Rex Murphy’s “What We Are Fighting For”
In Rex Murphy's "What We Are Fighting For," Murphy discusses the reasons why Canada is involved in occupying Afghanistan, and how Canada wants to remove a government that promotes terrorism (Day 59). With the UN approval, Canada is involved with other countries in assisting Afghanistan citizens to develop a government that is democratic and not corrupt (Campbell 32). In his essay, Murphy discusses that the Canadian troops remain in Afghanistan to ensure the safety of the citizens while the Afghanistan government builds the structures needed to excel in democracy. Warkentin, Merrill, and Mikko state that his essay disseminates around the guess that Canada approved the extinguishing of the system that had nursed and sheltered the terrorist organization which committed massacres of 9/11; was equally right and in its opportunism (121). After almost half a decade, the Taliban are still threatening the stability that a democratic government brings, and threatening those who work towards such a balance.
Canada remains in Afghanistan to keep fighting against the Taliban and other forces to try and keep the peace in the country. From Stephenson point of view Murphy explains how as Canadians, they joined this war to help fight for the values of the freedoms they believe in, to fight for those who are not given those opportunities and had been living in an oppressed society (310). Murphy concludes his essay by discussing how Canadian citizens mainly agree with the reasons for their troops being in Afghanistan; however, Parliament needs to put more effort towards explaining those reasons for more Canadians to agree with the continued deployments (Williams 96). Complete support and appreciation of the war in Afghanistan from the citizens of Canada may take much more which Rex Murphy unarguably outlines in his essay.
Work Cited
Rex Murphy’s “What We Are Fighting For”
Campbell, Tiffany. "The" Winter of Native Discontent": A critical discourse analysis of Canadian opinion journalism on the Idle No More Movement." COMPASS. Vol. 2. No. 1. 2016.
Day, Jeremiah. "Session 5: Presentation of projects. Jeremiah Day-The “ominous silence that answers us whenever we dare to ask, not “What are we fighting against” but “What are we fighting for?”." (2018).
Stephenson, Wen. What we're fighting for now is each other: Dispatches from the front lines of climate justice. Beacon Press, 2015.
Warkentin, Merrill, and Mikko Siponen. "An enhanced fear appeal rhetorical framework: Leveraging threats to the human asset through sanctioning rhetoric." MIS Quarterly
39.1 (2015): 113-134.
Williams, Lucy. Aspirational Exceptionalism: Rhetoric, Politics, and the Pursuit of American Greatness. Diss. UCLA, 2018.
I Was a Teenage Hijabe Hockey Player
Forbes, Alison. Sport, London 2012 " Young British Asians: A sociological study of young British Asian sports participation, consumption, and identity, post-London 2012. Diss. Department of Sociology, 2018.
Jiwani, Yasmin, and Matthew Dessner. "Barbarians in/of the land: Representations of Muslim youth in the Canadian press." Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education 11.1 (2016).
Khan, Sheena. “I Was A Teenage Hijabe Hockey Player.” The Globe and Mail, 2005
Vealey, Robin, and Melissa Chase. Best Practice for Youth Sport: Science and Strategies for Positive Athlete Experiences. Human Kinetics, 2015.
Walseth, Kristin, and Åse Strandbu. "Young Norwegian-Pakistani women and sport: How does culture and religiosity matter?" European physical education review 20.4 (2014): 489-507.
