Other girls, and perhaps the very ones the French hoped to attack, have chosen to protest.  One girl even went to the extreme of shaving her head so that she could still attend school but also protest the ban.  Others have rejected the law altogether.  As a result, they have been expelled from school.

This article is not an analysis of the current situation in France or a critique of French domestic policy.  This is, instead, a warning to France.  The government in France has decided to oppress a group of their citizens.  It is a drastic measure that will be met with resistance.  The Qur'an mentions, "oppression is worse than slaughter" and the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) has stated, "Beware the prayer of the oppressed."

We at One Ummah Network firmly believe that those who are oppressed should always seek peaceful means to resist their oppression and that violence is never the answer but rather a side effect.  It is our hope that France will hear the cries of the young Muslim girls that have been stripped of their dignity and will change its laws so that equality and freedom prevail over forced secular ideologies.

Nevertheless, I fear that the very extremists France intends to subdue are actually the ones who will be given center stage in the resistance.  What France and many other western nations have failed to realize is that terrorism does not result from Muslim people hating your "way of life" or "hating freedom" as Mr. Bush of the U.S. has said.  Terrorism is the result of desperation on the part of oppressed people who have been driven mad by their suffering and indignation.  It is not justified for either party to kill innocent people, but those who are vested with the power are the ones who must first make the changes.

France is leading itself down a road of immeasurable hardship.  It is a road that we in the United States know too well.  Muslims died on September 11, along with their other fellow Americans, but it was not the American people who were the target of those attacks.  Terrorism against America was the direct result of American foreign policies in the Middle East.

 
If France does not lend their ears to compassion, I fear that they too will be victimized by such brutality.  As U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

I therefore call out to all French people, Muslim and non-Muslim, to stand up against the injustice of your government through peaceful protest.  It is simply morally wrong, and Allah never sides with those who are unjust.