When I was a little boy, I used to dream of being reborn outside the hardship of the Refugee Camp in Gaza, in some other time and place where there were no soldiers, no military occupation, no concentration camps and no daily grind - where my father fought for our very survival, and my mother toiled to balance out the humiliation of life with her enduring love.
When I grew older, and
revisited my childhood fantasies, I came to quite a different conclusion: if I
had to, I would do it all over again, I would not alter my past, however
trying, in any way. I would embrace every moment, relive every tear, every
loss, and cherish every triumph, however small.
When we are young,
they often fail to tell us that we should not fear pain and dread hardship;
that nothing can be as rewarding to the growth of one’s identity, sense of
purpose in life and the liberation of the human spirit than the struggle
against injustice. True, one should never internalize servitude or wear
victimhood as if a badge; for the mere act of resisting poverty, war and
injustice of any kind is the first and most essential criterion to prepare one
for a more meaningful existence, and a better life.
I say this because I
understand what many of you must be going through. My generation of refugee camp
dwellers experienced this in the most violent manifestation you can ever
imagine. These are difficult and challenging years for most of humanity, but
all the more for you, young Muslims, in particular. Between the racism of
American and European politicians and parties, the anti-Muslim sentiment
sweeping much of the world, propagated by selfish individuals with sinister
agendas, playing on people fears and ignorance, and the violence and
counter-violence meted out by groups that refer to themselves as ‘Muslims’, you
find yourself trapped, confined in a prison of stereotypes, media hate speech
and violence; targeted, labeled and, undeservedly, feared.
Most of you were born
into, or grew up in that social and political confinement and remember no
particular time in your past when life was relatively normal, when you were not
the convenient scapegoat to much of what has gone wrong in the world. In fact,
wittingly or otherwise, your characters were shaped by this prejudiced reality,
where you subsist between bouts of anger at your mistreatment, and desperate
attempts at defending yourself, fending for your family, and standing up for
your community, for your culture and for your religion.
Most importantly, you
continue to struggle, on a daily basis, to develop a sense of belonging,
citizenship in societies where you often find yourself rejected and excluded.
They demand your ‘assimilation’, yet push you away whenever you draw nearer. It
is seemingly an impossible task, I know.
And, it seems that, no
matter what you do, you are yet to make a dent in the unfair misrepresentation
of who you are and the noble values for which your religion stands. Their racism
seems to be growing, and all the arrows of their hatred persistently point at
Islam, despite your passionate attempts to convince them otherwise.
In fact, you hardly
understand why Islam is, indeed, part of this discussion in the first place.
Islam never invited the US to go to war in the Middle East, to tamper with your
civilizations and to torment fellow Muslims in other parts of the globe.
Islam was never
consulted when Guantanamo was erected to serve as a gulag outside the norms of
human rights and international law.
Islam is hardly a
topic of discussion as warring parties, with entirely self-interested political
agendas, are fighting over the future of Syria or Iraq or Libya or Yemen or
Afghanistan, and so on.
Islam was not the
problem when Palestine was overrun by Zionist militias, with the help of the
British and, later, the Americans, turning the Holy Land into a battlefield for
most of the last century. The repercussions of that act has sealed the region’s
fate from relative peace into a repugnant and perpetual war and conflict.
The same logic can be
applied to everything else that went awry, and you have often wondered that
yourself. Islam did not invent colonialism and imperialism, but inspired
Asians, Africans and Arabs to fight this crushing evil. Islam did not usher in
the age of mass slavery, although millions of American and European slaves
were, themselves, Muslim.
You try to tell them
all of this, and you insist that the likes of vicious groups like ISIS are not a
product of Islam but a by-product of violence, greed and foreign interventions. But they
do not listen, countering with selective verses from your Holy Book that were
meant for specific historical contexts and circumstances. You even share such
verses from the Quran with all of your social media followers: “…if any one
killed a person, it would be as if he killed the whole of mankind; and if any
one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole of mankind…”
(Chapter
5; Verse 32), hoping to elicit some understanding of the sanctity of human
life according to your religion, but a fundamental change in attitude is yet to
come.
So you despair, at
least some of you do. Some of those who live in western countries cease to share
with others the fact that they are Muslim, avoiding any discussion that may
result in their being ostracized from increasingly intolerant societies. Some of those who live
in Muslim majority countries, sadly, counter hate with hate of their own.
Either way, they teeter between hate and self-hate, fear and self-pity, imposed
apathy, rage and self-loathing. With time, a sense of belonging has been
impossible to achieve and, like me when I was younger, perhaps you wonder what
it would have been like if you lived in some other time, in some other place.
But, amid all of this,
it is vital that we remember that the burdens of life can offer the best
lessons in personal and collective growth.
You must understand
that there is yet to exist a group of people that was spared the collective
trials of history: that did not suffer persecution, racism, seemingly perpetual
war, ethnic cleansing and all the evils that Muslims are contending with right
now, from Syria to Palestine to Donald Trump’s America. This does not make it
‘okay’ but it is an important reminder that your hardship is not unique among
nations. It just so happens that this could be the time for you to learn some
of life’s most valuable lessons.
To surmount this hardship,
you must first be decidedly clear on who you are; you must take pride in your
values; in your identity; you must never cease to fight hate with love, to
reach out, to educate, to belong. Because if you don’t, then racism wins, and
you lose this unparalleled opportunity at individual and collective growth.
Sometimes I pity those
who are born into privilege: although they have access to money and material
opportunities, they can rarely appreciate the kind of experiences that only
want and suffering can offer. Nothing even comes close to wisdom born out of
pain.
And if you ever
weaken, try to remember: God “does not burden a soul beyond that it can bear.”
(Chapter 2; Verse 286).
Dr Ramzy Baroud has
been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an
internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several
books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching
Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a
Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.
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