Schools Should Not Be Divisive: MULVIHILL
What was he thinking?
Aaron Hobbs, principal at Sir Robert Borden High School, chose to honour the fallen at Remembrance Day ceremonies by playing, not once but three times, a Palestinian protest song about peace in Gaza at the school assembly. Never mind that there were students of the Jewish faith attending the ceremonies, Hobbs thought his choice of musical accompaniment was fitting given the strife in the Middle East.
Hobbs initially had the audacity to defend his actions until clearer thinking prevailed.
Hobbs is a principal. He was promoted to the head of the class because part of his job at a multicultural school is to understand the different religious cultures and related tensions. In other words, the call is always de-escalation, not escalation.
Donna Mulvihill is a community activist and former hospital coordinator.
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The most disturbing part of all this, is how an educator can be so out of touch. Don’t educators today stay up to date with current affairs?
One of the more intriguing questions that came to my mind is how the Principal, and anyone else who was involved in the decision, thought that the lyrics for a song sung in Arabic would be understood by the everyone in the audience. By choosing to ‘include’ those who are fluent in Arabic, he/they effectively chose to ‘exclude’ everyone who is not. A theme that is consistent with many decisions by those who are seeking immediate changes to societal ‘norms’.
I appreciate the effort. It is not inappropriate to acknowledge a genocide that your govt is partially funding, but it is politically fraught. Clearly.
Silence in wartime is not necessarily golden. Perhaps the TIKTOK song by Jesse Welles would be more direct, and it’s in English! See “War Isn’t Murder.”
How many of the Jewish students who were supposedly offended by the playing of this song are fluent in Arabic and could therefore understand it? People of Arabic extraction have fought and died as members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of our allies. Can the school not honour them as part of a Remembrance event? Or does that fact also offend the Jewish students?
I am neither Jewish nor Arab and I would prefer to see schools operate in a way that is inclusive of all its students. The error, if there is one, by the principal wasn’t that he included something that was meaningful to his Arab students but that he didn’t include something that was equally meaningful to his Jewish students. Perhaps before next year’s ceremonies, he can find a way to honour all those who have contributed through service to our country or to our allies.