VERSION|0.5.1|NAME|Tesh|DATE|1377170305|CONTENT|What a terrifying article on witchcraft.  I taught many Muslim children whose families had come from Bangladesh in the  1970s and early 80s. They all believed in djinns and I had put it down to lack of education – especially for women in Bangladesh: scarcely any of their mothers had any experience of schooling and many of the fathers not much more – but this ....! 
I wish some Muslim leaders would encourage huge peaceful protests of the ’We are all one – Sunni and Shia’ variety to let their fellow believers in other countries know how they feel. The only response I ever hear is “Why should we have to prove ourselves?”  Well, why should you not?  We have to.   I know many people who have marched against  racism and war and on behalf of religious freedom whether or not they have a religion commitment themselves.   
When I was engaged in that teaching we [the teachers] were called racist if we raised concerns about young girls being  taken for long ’holidays’ in Pakistan and never reappearing in school  -  we just ‘did not understand the culture’ etc. Now we are racist if we do not voice such concerns, and of course ‘the government’ must do something.  
And  involve women in all their varieties of dress –  there are gorgeous ways of covering head and shoulders not just the usual black shroud effect - that alone would have a chance of cracking stereotypes and contrast with the usual   horrendous photographs of identikit-shrouded women  in Islamic societies in the middle East.   
Muslims – get up and do something to show your distancing from Islam’s ugly aspects; Imams and other leaders – encourage it instead of whining that we misinterpret and misunderstand.  
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