Hate
Hello readers, I am writing this guest column after the chairwoman of this League of Dutch Ex-muslims asked me to. To introduce myself, I am a geologist, I am Bosniak muslim. I have arrived in the Netherlands a long time ago when I was a child. I fled from the war, from the atrocities that were commonplace in the early nineties at the time of the Bosnian war. 30 years after the war, it stays in my mind. I gave it much thought and I will continue to give it thought.
After the Second World War, the most atrocious series of events in our history, we all said "never again". Yet it did happen again, friends turned into enemies, the neighbours you loved would turn on you. Fear and hate dominated, hateful propaganda, hateful leaders, hateful military officers. And why? Because someone else has the wrong religion? Because someone else is from the wrong ethnic background? It is terrifying to think that hate dominates the mind souls of people leading them to commit genocide in the worst case and this was the worst case.
"Never again" but we never learn. We divide ourselves by land borders, religious affiliation, sexuality and gender, ethnicity and so much more. We should instead look more at how similar we are, we are all people on this Earth, we all find joy in life, we all love, we feel in the same ways. And yes there are differences, but let's not "other" the other, let's embrace and respect our differences.
To this day we as humanity are still stupid. And it hurts me. I remember when ISIS was a thing, I was taken aback. These people they say they do it for my religion for the Islam. But they hurt so many people. They kill Christians, they kill Kurds, they kill everyone who doesn't obey their will. And that is not me, I have seen what hate does to people and ISIS is nothing but hate. No way is it my religion that they claim to uphold. ISIS is blinded by hate.
When I look at Palestina, it is really hard to watch. I cry when I see children malnourished crawling from out the rubble. I see myself in these children. "Never again" is a lie. It happens over and over again. What is "never again"? A comforting lie we tell ourselves, as the people around us suffer and world around us burns.
I see the hate in our world has not gone away and I feel powerless to stop it. But I refuse to participate in this hate that flows around the societies of the world. I want to see people as people, for who they are as people. Not as the scary other person who is different and that makes him bad or something. And the hate is everywhere and I mean everywhere in the world.
Not to long ago I read a story about a girl fron the United Kingdom. She was killed. Because she was transgender. And again I saw myself. It kept me up at night and I just had to talk about it with someone, that happened to be my colleague who is the same chairwoman of the League of Dutch Ex-muslims who asked me to tell a story about the state of this world. I don't understand it. I understand that hate comes from fear, but I really don't understand the fear. Why would you kill a transgender girl? Because some transgender woman beat you at a sport? Is that why? I ask myself this question a lot, and maybe the hateful people should ask this question to themselves. Is the Serbian soldier so afraid of a little boy? Is a church-goer deathly terrifying to an ISIS terrorist? Are the children of Gaza so-called "children of darkness" because were born in some part of the world? 30 years later and hate still just is not understandable for me, and I don't think I will ever understand.
I think there is some hope. There are likeminded people like me. Who may be hurt and afraid, but they will not translate that into hate. And as a message to ex-muslims of the world I want to say you and me and not so different. Continue your fight for your place and I will support you. And I don't care if anyone says that leaving Islam is forbidden or that I should not support you. Your choice is not hurting me or anyone and as I said we are both just people and our differences should be embraced.
Door: Anoniem
Wil jij dat wij ex-moslims zonder angst door het leven kunnen en dat we geaccepteerd worden? Wij proberen niet alleen apostasie geaccepteerd te krijgen in moslimgemeenschappen maar ook non-cisheteronormativiteit. Gay rights, trans rights, women's rights en apostate rights, overal! Volg het Verbond van Nederlandse Ex-moslims op Twitter en Threads.