| Pictures Essay, Research Paper
Pictures
The main conflict in the text is about having different religions. It’s about
how a little girl is having problems about understanding why she can’t paint
religious persons with dark skin. At school the teacher says that Amina can take
the picture to show her mom. Amina doesn’t understand why it can’t hang on the
wall together with the other childrens’. But the teacher gives another excuse
and Amina “surrenders”, and takes the picture home. But as her mother sees the
picture she tears it apart, and tells Amina to never say anything to Amina’s
father and she tells Amina explicitly not to draw anymore pictures of the
Prophet of Nazareth. It is obvious that Amina’s mother is scared of how the
father will react if he sees that her daughter has painted people from the Bible.
Amina and her family are muslims, that’s why her mother can’t accept the drawing
Amina brings home. The reason why she doesn’t want the father to know is that
he’s the dominant one in the family. Maybe the mother is scared that he will
punish Amina, or maybe even the mother, for not bringing up her daughter
properly. Then Amina’s mother teaches her to draw patterns from the Koran. Amina
likes to draw the patterns and she is no more confused. Next day at school,
they’re all going to draw nice Christmas cards. Amina draws the patterns that
her mother has just taught her. The teacher tells her to draw people instead,
and she throws away the Christmas card with patterns on it. Amina refuses to
draw people, and reminds the teacher of what she’d told Amina the other day. The
teacher tries to behave nice and convinces Amina that she will put Amina’s
picture next to the others’. During the two discussions the teacher and Amina
are having, the teacher is having a hard time justifying what she is actually
doing. She gives no particular reason for telling Amina to take home the picture.
Just as well as she gives no explanation for, why Amina can’t draw patterns from
the Koran. Instead she tries to flatter Amina by telling her that she is good at
painting. Even more confused, Amina draws people instead. At school she’s told
to draw people from the Christian Bible and at home she’s told that’s wrong. At
home her mom tells her to draw patterns from the Muslim Koran, but when she
comes to school she is told to draw people, – no wonder she is confused! The
ending is from the parents’ point of view very contradictive ( I assume that the
father has the same opinion as the mother). They’re in the shop selling things
for Christmas although they’re Muslims. At the same time they forbid their
daughter to paint things or people that have anything to do with Christmas.
Meanwhile Amina’s sitting in her room, trying to figure out why she had to throw
the fine drawing of the Holy Family away.
The other day, my daughter brought home a drawing she had made. It was a picture
of Jesus. Now, everybody in this town know that I am definetely not a Christian.
Nor is my daughter. That’s why I don’t understand that she has to draw these
drawings at school. The local schools ought to have a little more respect for
foreign culture and religion. I intend to bring up my daughter like girls are
brought up in our culture. We don’t have to bring her up like English children
just because we live in England. It is about time that schools took care that
all the children were treated so that it wouldn’t interfere with their culture
and belief. The children become confused and don’t know what to believe. The
things they’re taught in school or the things they’re taught at home. Since the
number of foreign children are increasing I suggest that religion-classes are
divided into two or three, – depending on the number of different religions. In
that way the child would be much less confused.
Yours Mr. Iqbal
Translation
More than 3000 schools all over the country have been invited to join a
competition with the Earthworms for the Rainforest. The classes are going to
try to get earthworms to convert the most garbage to compost, and the winner of
The Golden Earthworm is rewarded with a trip up the Amazonas with a visit to the
original inhabitants of the rainforest. A few days after this note was written
in the paper, one could read the following object from an expert. It is the
micro-organisms of the earth which produces compost, not the earthworms, and one
cannot make the earth fertile by just adding earthworms. They simply die if
there’s not enough food for them.
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