Dear America, from a Muslim Girl: My Story of Activism (part 1)

So much is going on in the world today it makes my head spin. And all of it is so far from how I wish to see the world. Last year, I never could have imagined what kind of hate all these communities in the United States would face. I wish it could have stayed that way, because sometimes ignorance is bliss. Unfortunately, though, we all have to face reality. And sometimes - most of the time, actually - it's not pretty. But we have to stay woke. And this, my friends, begins my open letter to my country.

I should make it clear that I love my country so much. It's the only home I've ever known, and I wish that everyone who lives here can feel that way. My people have so many great values. But sometimes, we stray from these values or treat them as if they are trivial. Maybe last year, during the election season, we forgot about our values. And I guess I'll begin with the story of what happened last year.

Last year, my world turned upside down when I found out that Donald Trump had won the election. It was the last thing I could have expected, especially considering the fact that I had always felt welcome in America. I remember the exact day. I had been pretty excited for the election and the fact that we were getting a new president, and possibly the first female president. I was excited to witness history happen. And I was so happy that we were just coming off having our first black president and continuing the trend of having a female president. I had watched all the debates and dismissed Donald Trump as a pompous demagogue with an inflated ego who, although he was sure of himself, would be disappointed to find out he had lost the election.

So imagine my great surprise when I went to sleep on election night after watching CNN and turning off the TV only when I was sure that Hillary Clinton won. The next morning, I woke up to my brother jumping on my bed and screaming, "Donald Trump won!" I thought it was a joke at first, and it took a while to accept it. When I left the house to go to community college for my anthropology class, I remember that I felt like the world was closing in on me. I can still picture how the sky was gray and the clouds hung heavy overhead as if they were crying for us. I remember thinking how even the sky was upset over what had happened the previous night. I was thinking about where would we all go. We had nowhere but the land of the brave to stay. When I got to college, it seemed as if the entire community was still in a stupor over what had happened. I remember walking to my class in a daze, where I didn't speak a single word for the entire day. My head was spinning and I felt like throwing up. I had no idea what to expect when Donald Trump took office on January 20, 2017. It felt like such a long time away but it also felt like I was counting down my numbered days.

That first day, a Wednesday, was horrible. The next few days were even worse as it began hitting me what the implications of a Donald Trump presidency would mean for my country. On Thursday, I remember thinking of all the Syrian refugees who would be banned from coming in. I remember thinking of all the dying people around the world who would have it even worse now that a bigot was the leader of the free world. I don't remember doing any schoolwork that day. All I remember is staring at the ceiling, close to tears. I didn't want this to happen. This wasn't supposed to happen. How could more than half of the country vote for such a bigot? I felt so alienated. According to the math, more than half the people I passed in the streets secretly hated me, just for being a Muslim. It didn't make sense to me. I had always felt so welcome in this country.

After the tears came the anger. The following week, I began to get angry and hotheaded whenever I thought of what Donald Trump would do to all the different minorities in this country. I had already been invested in politics right from the start. At ten, right as we were moving to the United States, the Arab Spring happened. It was a big deal back then. I followed it with fervor and stood with the countries who were trying to gain their freedom. At eleven, I had sent a letter to President Obama about banning puppy mills. Looking back, it was a trivial cause, but it was so important to me at eleven. After I got back an automated letter, I resolved to make it more important. I made a petition and went around asking people for their signatures. I had to put myself out there and ask people to support my cause. I think I got about 300 signatures before I moved on to other causes. While I think there are bigger problems than puppy mills nowadays, I think trying to change that set me up for later.

At twelve, a coup happened in my home country of Egypt. To put it mildly, I was not happy about it. I was at the front of every protest in DC. I spoke about it at all my classes and tried to make more people aware about the human rights violations that the dictator in Egypt was committing. I was pretty committed to that cause for a while, especially after people in Rabia al-Adawiya Square were murdered in cold blood for protesting peacefully. As a matter of fact, I am still wearing my Rabia sweater right now.

At thirteen, the war between Gaza and Israel happened. At this point, I had a social media presence on Google plus, and I tried using it to educate people about the atrocities that Israel was committing against the people of Gaza. I talked to my friends so much about it that summer. I was angry about it because I loved my people. I didn't want Muslims just like me to die overseas while I passively sat and did nothing about it. I was so invested in boycotting Israel that year. I remember loving KFC but refusing to eat it when my family ordered it because I did not want my food to be eaten on the backs of children dying in Gaza. I even removed all the Coca-Cola bottles from a shelf at Safeway before I realized that there were security cameras in the store. I even remember holding an impromptu Free Palestine protest in a parking lot with a few of my friends while we waited for their mom to finish shopping. The dictatorship in Egypt and the Free Palestine movement remain near and dear to my heart, even today.

At fourteen, I began to realize things about the country I was living in. I heard things here and there being said about Muslims. I heard the words "terrorist" and "extremist" and heard them being applied to Muslims. I remember thinking about the hypocrisy of how when a Muslim did something, it would be all over the media. I remember when three Muslims (may Allah have mercy on them) were shot execution-style at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the media was silent about it. There was no mention of the fact that the main who shot them could be a "terrorist." As a matter of fact, instead of talking about it as a hate crime, the media chose to portray it as a "parking dispute." I remember how mad that made me. I wrote about this hypocrisy for the first college class I ever took, which happened around the time of the Chapel Hill shooting.

The Chapel Hill shooting feels like it was yesterday. But the story continues. In late 2015, Syria exploded all of a sudden. The refugee crisis became a big deal, and the presidential election was just beginning. The Republican front-runner at the time, Donald Trump, would come to play a big part in the hatred that plagued this country. I knew where I stood when it came to the refugee crisis, of course. Let them in. What I experienced as a child and young preteen of living in the United Arab Emirates, a country where free speech was prohibited and then moving to a country where I could find my voice was the best thing that could happen to me.

The story continues, but I think that this is enough for one letter. Stay tuned for part two.

From,

a Muslim girl living in the United States

#journal #stories