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Rebellion is normal. This result is not JUDITH TIMSON >From Thursday's Globe and Mail December 13, 2007 at 9:28 AM EST Aqsa Parvez was not the first 16-year-old girl to leave the house in one outfit and change into another bolder, more revealing set of clothes on her way to school: Teenaged girls have done it for years, defying their dismayed parents to make a statement about their burgeoning sexuality and independence. They disappear around the corner and hike their skirts up, apply full-tilt lipstick while they're still on the bus, and lose the turtleneck in favour of the revealing tank top in an effort to be cool, to be noticed, and above all to morph into the object of desire they so desperately want to be. You could see that poignantly in Ms. Parvez's pictures on Facebook, where she was in full pouty throttle. But this relatively normal phase of teenage rebellion may well have cost the Mississauga, Ont., teenager her life. Sixteen-year-old Aqsa Parvez died Tuesday after she returned to her family home in Mississauga on Monday to collect her belongings. Related Articles Recent a.. A teenage Muslim girl: Why was she killed? b.. Aqsa's slaying and the clash between religion and culture c.. Teen tried to leave strict family d.. Father denied bail in daughter's death e.. Teen death highlights cultural tensions f.. Police arrest father after daughter critically hurt On Monday, Ms. Parvez was rushed to hospital after a man phoned police to say he had killed his daughter. A few hours later, she was taken off life support, and yesterday her father, Muhammad, a 57-year-old taxi driver, appeared in court charged with second-degree murder. His 26-year-old son, Waqas, has been charged with obstructing police. If reports from her distraught school chums are true, Ms. Parvez, the daughter of a devout Muslim family, had chosen the hijab - the traditional Muslim headscarf for women - as her area of rebellion. Friends say that in an effort to be who she truly was - that familiar battle cry of adolescence - Ms. Parvez constantly removed her hijab, and then nervously walked around without it, half-expecting her older brother or her father to find her out. Friends also said she had come to school before with bruises, evidence of a family life in deep disarray. Despite the sketchy details, it seemed relatively easy for us to know what to make of this wrenching story - it is about, as one television announcer said, "a girl caught in a culture clash." While some in the Canadian Muslim community plead for restraint, there is growing outrage everywhere (including within some Muslim communities) about what is seen to be the slaying of a young girl for not embracing the modesty of the hijab. Aqsa Parvez's death once again stokes our fear of the kind of intolerance and abuse toward women that in some countries means a family's honour can be more important than a woman's life. But isn't this story also about adolescence itself? The controversial Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, one of the more conservative Muslim leaders, definitely wants us to think so: "I don't want the public to think that this is really an Islamic issue or an immigrant issue," he said. "It is a teenager issue." Yes, it is about the crucible of adolescence, but in a very specific context. Teen-parent clashes are exhausting in any household - most of us spend several years foaming at the mouth as our kids challenge us on every level. But the teen years, replete with rebellion, lies and questionable social choices, can be doubly torturous in strict religious households, where parents are desperate to hold onto their moral authority, and used to being the ultimate arbiter of their children's lives. Ms. Parvez's tragic story appears to be about being a teenager in an ethnic community that often doesn't seek the help it needs in dealing with teen issues, according to Shahina Siddiqui, the Winnipeg-based president of the Islamic Social Services Assocation. Ms. Siddiqui thinks we've "all run away with this hijab thing" when we don't know all the facts. Ironically, Ms. Siddiqui says, the "hijab thing" can cut both ways - her mother did not wear a hijab, so when Ms. Siddiqui decided to put on a headscarf, "my mother was most upset." Ms. Siddiqui says she has talked to young women who want to wear the hijab but whose parents are resisting letting them. (One way or another, kids are going to assert their "otherness" from their parents.) But this is also about one family's pathology. And one girl's adolescence. We will only really come to know what led to the devastation when the case comes to trial. We need to know as much as we can about the Parvez family and why one teenaged girl did not survive it. "If we don't learn from this case," says Ms. Siddiqui, "how are we going to help anyone else?" In the meantime, we might remember the words of Tolstoy: Happy families are all alike, he wrote. But "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! 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