MuslimInshallah
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Dear daveyats,
I do understand that you might feel “riled up”. But have you considered that your own comments might be hurtful to others?
Let me tell you a story, perhaps it will help you understand how your comments might wound...
Some 25 years ago or so, my husband and I were waiting for a bus. It was a sunny, but cold winter day (and in Canada, as you may have heard, we have genuine honest-to-goodness good winters!). So we were waiting inside the bus shelter, to take some of the chill of the wind off of us. Some other (white Canadian) people came, cheerful with the Christmas spirit, and started smoking. My husband politely asked them if they could smoke outside. They took one look at his Middle-Eastern face and said: “If you don't like it here, why don't you just go back to your own country!”
Do you know, daveyats, how many times I have heard variations of this phrase?
I mentioned in an earlier post, that we'd had some political struggles recently in my home province, that I had fought. Let me tell you a little more about that: The governing party wanted to convince the people of my province to vote for independence. But most people here are not all that interested in independence. So the government decided to pick on everyone's favourite minority: Muslims. They introduced some pretty sweeping legislation (with a little extra decoration, so as not to be accused of racism), that would have required me, if I wanted to exercise my profession, to remove my headscarf.
I was not willing to do this. And so were quite a few other Muslim women.
And guess what? One of the things which we were told was... you guessed it: if you don't like this legislation, why don't you leave?
I remember discussing this with some of my Muslim friends. I myself am Canadian by immigration from Europe. But I have friends whose families have their roots back 300 years. And I have a Native-Canadian friend whose roots far predate those of the white nationalists who were trying to tell us to leave. Why should any of us leave? Not even the worst criminals in society (and I'm talking murdering pedophiles here), are asked to leave. We accept that these people are one of us. Not nice people. Not people we'd want running loose in our communities. But still, they are our problem.
Even people who are distasteful, are part of us. This is my first point.
Secondly, when you tell people to leave, where on earth would you have them go?
Do you think that any Muslim can just turn up in another country and just start living there? That only wealthy first-world countries have border controls? That people have money to pay for leaving and setting up elsewhere? That they can just get a job and support their children in some foreign land where they don't know the language or culture, and are not used to the local conditions and diseases? Where perhaps they have no friends or relations or connections?
Muslims are human beings, daveyats. We have children. We have our friends and communities. We have our dreams. Our loves. Our lives. Perhaps it is not consciously realized, but when someone tells someone else to leave, they are treating them like some sort of inconvenient first-world garbage, that they want to conveniently dispose of into the seas of humanity... to wash up on some distant shore, perhaps, to decompose in someone else's backyard.
When someone tells me to leave, daveyats, it hurts me.
Please consider my words. I do not think you are a bad person. I suspect that you are on this Forum to try to convince people here that their beliefs are wrong, so that you can bring them towards what you believe will be good for them. This is not an evil intention. But if you are to engage in a fruitful discussion, I would suggest that you actually think about what people say. And respect that other people may disagree (everyone is doing this, you know. We all have points upon which we disagree).
I'm sorry if I hurt you, both with this text, and my with previous question to you.
May God Bless and Guide us all.
I do understand that you might feel “riled up”. But have you considered that your own comments might be hurtful to others?
Let me tell you a story, perhaps it will help you understand how your comments might wound...
Some 25 years ago or so, my husband and I were waiting for a bus. It was a sunny, but cold winter day (and in Canada, as you may have heard, we have genuine honest-to-goodness good winters!). So we were waiting inside the bus shelter, to take some of the chill of the wind off of us. Some other (white Canadian) people came, cheerful with the Christmas spirit, and started smoking. My husband politely asked them if they could smoke outside. They took one look at his Middle-Eastern face and said: “If you don't like it here, why don't you just go back to your own country!”
Do you know, daveyats, how many times I have heard variations of this phrase?
I mentioned in an earlier post, that we'd had some political struggles recently in my home province, that I had fought. Let me tell you a little more about that: The governing party wanted to convince the people of my province to vote for independence. But most people here are not all that interested in independence. So the government decided to pick on everyone's favourite minority: Muslims. They introduced some pretty sweeping legislation (with a little extra decoration, so as not to be accused of racism), that would have required me, if I wanted to exercise my profession, to remove my headscarf.
I was not willing to do this. And so were quite a few other Muslim women.
And guess what? One of the things which we were told was... you guessed it: if you don't like this legislation, why don't you leave?
I remember discussing this with some of my Muslim friends. I myself am Canadian by immigration from Europe. But I have friends whose families have their roots back 300 years. And I have a Native-Canadian friend whose roots far predate those of the white nationalists who were trying to tell us to leave. Why should any of us leave? Not even the worst criminals in society (and I'm talking murdering pedophiles here), are asked to leave. We accept that these people are one of us. Not nice people. Not people we'd want running loose in our communities. But still, they are our problem.
Even people who are distasteful, are part of us. This is my first point.
Secondly, when you tell people to leave, where on earth would you have them go?
Do you think that any Muslim can just turn up in another country and just start living there? That only wealthy first-world countries have border controls? That people have money to pay for leaving and setting up elsewhere? That they can just get a job and support their children in some foreign land where they don't know the language or culture, and are not used to the local conditions and diseases? Where perhaps they have no friends or relations or connections?
Muslims are human beings, daveyats. We have children. We have our friends and communities. We have our dreams. Our loves. Our lives. Perhaps it is not consciously realized, but when someone tells someone else to leave, they are treating them like some sort of inconvenient first-world garbage, that they want to conveniently dispose of into the seas of humanity... to wash up on some distant shore, perhaps, to decompose in someone else's backyard.
When someone tells me to leave, daveyats, it hurts me.
Please consider my words. I do not think you are a bad person. I suspect that you are on this Forum to try to convince people here that their beliefs are wrong, so that you can bring them towards what you believe will be good for them. This is not an evil intention. But if you are to engage in a fruitful discussion, I would suggest that you actually think about what people say. And respect that other people may disagree (everyone is doing this, you know. We all have points upon which we disagree).
I'm sorry if I hurt you, both with this text, and my with previous question to you.
May God Bless and Guide us all.
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