Right To Believe

RIGHT TO BELIEVE

By Amal Milaa Filza

8:00 a.m. in the morning I am still a little bit sleepy and my bus is late. I just stare at the bakery right across the street where I see people going in and out. I feel that someone is staring at me. She looks at me with hateful eyes. I tell myself I am just imagining it and I look away. Still her eyes are burning on my skin.. I look at her again, she looks at my scarf and my clothes this time, still with the same hateful look.. If looks could kill.. Just when I want to turn my head again, I change my mind. Instead of ignoring it like I usually do, I stare back at her, I am thinking I can win this game; I used to play it all the time with my brother when we were little. Instead of staring at her with hateful eyes, I look at her with warm eyes and I smile at her.My bus arrives. Those looks cannot break me.

This happens to me almost every day. It is a challenge every single day, not to break down the looks and comments of the people. But I won’t give up, I was not built to break.

I love the country where I was born and raised.The Netherlands is my home, but lately I wonder, does it also love me? My whole life I have been kind to everyone here. I have always showed respect and followed the rules. I know the difference between wrong and right and I have always done what I was told to do. But as soon as the Dutch saw that I loved my deen more than I love them, they turned their back on me. I figured out that the country where I was born and raised was not the country it has always claimed to be. I feel misplaced in this world. Humanity has been poisoned yet they reject the blessed remedy. And I just have to stand there, helpless.. because there is nothing I can do.

I am tired of the people who say negative things about the Islam, without knowing what it really stands for. I can act like I do not care but it hurts to hear. The other day I read in the news paper that a Dutch politician said, “The headscarf is an Islamic symbol of oppression and it hurts when I see a woman wearing a headscarf. She should take it off and feel the wind blowing through her hair. My immediate response was, ´Are you serious?´ Nobody comes and asks us how we feel. Nobody wants to hear our voice. It’s as if we’re animals in the zoo, and they’re the caretakers who know what’s best for us. It’s amazing how they feel this patronizing right to decide what is best for us without even asking how we feel about it. It reeks of tyranny.

They just want to ban the headscarf and make us take off our Hijaab, and by doing that they think they are doing something great for the women in Islam. If someone is oppressing the other, then it is the government who is oppressing us and not Islam! Islam is all about freedom and peace. We say that a million times but they just do not want to listen. Yet I won´t give up. I will stay strong. I have as much right to live here as every other citizen.

I am tired but I fight, I fight for my right to believe in whatever I want. Lakum dienakum wa liya dien. They cannot take from me, the light that I have seen.

Posted in: Islam