With interviews and editing underway, the Christian Action Network is pressing forward with an ambitious new documentary that started earlier this week.
The focus is on World Hijab Day, a religious observance that organizers want to conduct in public schools, having students wear Islamic uniforms during the school day.
Michael Mawyer, video editor for the documentary, was excited to get started on the project, but says, “There’s a lot more work to do.”
“The first interview went well, real well,” Michael said, referring to a taping of Pastor David Sage of the Grace Community Church in Altavista, VA.
“Pastor Sage gave us good biblical perspectives when it comes to Christian students being asked to wear the Muslim hijab during classroom hours. The first interview is in the tank, but we’ve got a lot more to do,” Michael said.
CAN President Martin Mawyer said producing a documentary film never goes as predicted.
“We never really know what challenges we will face until we start filming,” he said. “We don’t know what filming, location and interview-contact issues there will be.”
Martin said he is hopeful, and prayerful, the documentary will be completely finished by mid-January, before World Hijab Day is celebrated in schools this coming February.
“Parents need to know what is going on in these public schools that are asking students to dress up as Muslims for they day,” Martin said. “And they definitely need to know that the purpose of World Hijab day – according to their own words – is to show that Muslims rule the world.”
The details are important, and each step needs to be organized properly, said Michael Mawyer.
“To capture the true story and severity of this classroom event — which is being celebrated in a growing number of public schools each year — it’s is going to require dozens of interviews and location shots” Michael said.
“It’s an ambitious project,” he said, “but we’ve done much more challenging documentary films in the past.”
Michael was referring to Christian Action Network’s documentary films Homegrown Jihad and Europe’s Last Stand: America’s Final Warning.
Homegrown Jihad focused on Islamic terrorist camps scattered across the United States while Europe’s Last Stand explored the Islamic encroachment and impending takeover of Western Europe.
“We’ve just got to stay on top of this film. I know my dad is praying hard everyday that financing for the project continues to come in. But that’s nothing new. He’s used to operating on a shoestring budget and he never knowing where the next dollar is going to come from.”
This documentary is an essential part of putting information out there before the world hijab day campaign becomes an entrenched part of our public schools
World Hijab Day has been practiced in numerous schools annually in February since 2013. Each year more and more public schools have been celebrating the event. Florida, California, Illinois, New York, Missouri, Minnesota are just some of the states that have had public schools celebrate World Hijab Day.
“Right now they’re doing it underhandedly, not telling parents – so the parents find out in a newspaper or on TV news about what their kids did that day,” Martin Mawyer said.
“I think school officials are being ignorant or uncaring; it’s just stupid to think that parents will see this and just say oh, how cute, now my child is more diverse because she wore an Islamic hijab at school.”
In addition to the documentary, the Christian Action Network has printed 30,000 newsletters detailing World Hijab Day ties to Islamic religious instruction.
Plans for publishing 100,000 more before the February 2019 scheduled World Hijab Day are set, and the goal is to run half-a-million more pamphlets ready for the following year.
“I always have to anticipate a long struggle to properly expose a problem involving government bureaucracy,” Martin Mawyer said. “But we can nip this thing if we get out in front of it before it goes too far.”
