Then Why Am I Still Alive? - A Response to the Vitriol Against Syrian Refugees

Some of the more vitriolic rhetoric about the danger of Syrian Refugees has got me thinking:

'Why am I alive?'

I've been thinking of this as a rhetorical question recently in light of the paranoid flurry of social media activity regarding Syrian refugees and the Paris Attacks.

(Never mind that none of the shooters appear to be refugees and seem to be Muslim citizens of Belgium and France.)

I ask this because if certain voices on the right are correct concerning the nature of Muslims, I shouldn't be alive today.

You see I was an American who spent two and half years living in a Muslim majority country. Egypt to be precise.

I did not live in a walled off compound surrounded by guards. I lived in an apartment building near downtown Cairo. My neighbors and practically everyone in the building were Muslim.

Every workday I would grab a taxi (usually driven by a Muslim) to my company where I would work with Muslims and Christians making advertisements. I would eat with Muslim colleagues and would sometimes have discussions with conservative colleagues about US involvement in the region.

After work I would often go to a coffee shop (run by Muslims) and drink coffee having a conversation with the Muslim owner.

I would then walk home past Muslim owned shops and restaurants to my apartment occasionally saying hi to a Muslim neighbor I might see in the hall.

Sometimes I would go out at night with Muslim friends. I would sometimes accompany them into mosques (or restaurants or movie theatres depending on what we wanted to do). Occasionally, I would even have a beer or to with one of them.

 I would celebrate the end of day fast with Muslim friends during Ramadan (I actually fasted the full month one year).

I went to Muslim engagement parties and weddings.

And at times my Muslim friends and I would also have lively discussions and disagreements with each other.

Now, here’s what confuses me about my time there in light of some of the rhetoric about Syrian refugees:

Why was I never threatened with conversion or death once during my two and a half years there?

Why was I never made to feel unwelcome as a Westerner?

Why is it that people treated me the same after learning I was American?

Why could I walk down the streets of Cairo with a cross around my neck and not end of decapitated?

Why is it that I was never kidnapped or held hostage as I walked through the streets after work when I was known in the area as an American?

Why is it that even after having religious disagreements with Muslim colleagues at work they still talked to me and were friendly the next morning?

Why is it that even though I lived in Egypt through the Arab Spring and the election of the Muslim Brotherhood I wasn’t immediately dragged out of my apartment and shot?

All these ‘whys?’ can be summed up with one question.

‘If all 1.6 billion Muslims are so inherently dangerous, intolerant, violent and hellbent on destroying Western civilization- Why am I still alive???’

Why is it that in the two and a half years (and in the midst of political discord and upheaval no less) my Muslim neighbors, colleagues and friends didn’t show their ‘true faces’ and murder me?

The answer is this- The friendly, hospitable, generous and tolerant faces they showed me were their true faces.

A friend and I (I have the long hair.)

It makes me sad that I have to write that.

I do not deny that Islamic Extremism is a problem in the Middle East and many Muslim communities. I don’t deny the tragedy of the victims of terror attacks in the West and in the Muslim world. And there are many different social and cultural practices in Egypt that I don't think are right.

But those who would eagerly judge four million Syrian refugees by the actions of seven men who shared their faith but not their nationality are slandering.

If all the hundreds of Muslims I knew and interacted with daily truly were the knife and Kalashnikov wielding fanatics of ISIS I wouldn’t be writing this.

If that doesn’t somehow show how blind fear is driving the hateful anti-refugee rhetoric coming out of some Western circles, I don’t know what will.  

Paris Bleeds and I Write- But What is the Point?

At the beginning of this year I wrote a post about the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. I wrote about Ahmed Merabet, the Muslim police officer who died on the streets of the French capital after confronting the terrorist attackers. I wrote about the need not to blame all Muslims for the actions of a few. I wrote about my own experiences in Muslim majority countries and the friends I care for who live there.

This wasn't the first time I've written a plea to stop rash, hostile judgements against a large group of people after a terrible terrorist attack.

Yet as I sit here in my bedroom in Kansas, I wonder if what I write here (and what I've written in all the posts advocating for people not to hurt others unjustly) really matter.

Those who believe that Islam and all Muslims are somehow culpable for terrorist attacks like this, will probably not be swayed by these words. People who have actually known Muslim people or understand that 1.5 billion should not be damned for a few who share their religious identity, will agree with me.

So why do I type these words and send them out into an indecipherable maelstrom of tri-color tweets, sympathetic status updates and Paris hashtags? Why do I bother to keep writing?

I would be lying if I said a large part of it wasn't for my own catharsis and a desire to gain attention and feedback for my own internal struggle.

However, there is also this:

When I read about a Congressman tweeting in the aftermath of the attacks that Syrian refugees desperately fleeing war shouldn't be allowed into the US- I see the people I met in that country drowning in the sea before a wall in the ocean.

When I read comments on news pieces about the tragedy in Paris calling for attacks on mosques and deporting those who had nothing to do with these atrocities- I see my Muslim American coworker, a mother of three, leaving the only country she's ever known out of the fear of others.

When I see hashtags saying Killallmuslims - I wonder have we shown the Syrian flag enough in our profile pictures over the past four years as hundreds of thousands died sandwiched between a horrid government and an extremist rebellion?

This is ultimately why I have to write. I can't unsee what I have seen. I can't forget my genuine joyful experiences with Muslims in a Muslim country. I can't stand by while a few disturbed and broken individuals shatter lives and try to erase from my mind all of the friendships and relationships I built in the region.

If I do not write, again and again, when attacks occur then perhaps a person I know will only ever hear about the Muslims who kill.

If I don't remind others and myself that I lived in a Muslim majority country for two and a half years and was treated with nothing but warm hospitality and friendship, then extremism wins.

Terror is not a force whose main goal is to conquer land or cities. It is meant to conquer our hearts. It's meant to scare us into becoming the monsters that groups like ISIS need us to be so that they can sustain themselves. They win, not when they kill unarmed civilians in a theater but when that action prompts us to put signs on our shops that say 'No Muslims'.

They triumph when we play their game and arrest a boy named Mohamed in Texas because he brought a clock to school. We lose when our fear leads us to discriminate as they discriminate, marginalize as they marginalize, detain and torture as they detain and torture, judge and destroy others based only on surface appearance and guilt by association.

To sum it up, we lose they win when we let them turn us into them.

Being silent, knowing what I know, seeing what I've seen, is not an option.

Perhaps my voice will never be heard outside of a few but it will be there and that it is there is what truly matters.

Remember Charlie and Don't Forget Ahmed- Thoughts on Charlie Hebdo

Writing about the Charlie Hebdo attack and the violence that took place in its aftermath is difficult for me. Last night, after I finished eating with my parents, all I could do in my small apartment was think about what happened in France. I spent several hours in my apartment alternating between scanning social media for reactions and watching Al Jazeera's coverage of the standoff with the shooters. 

Yet as mulled over whether to discuss the nature of Islam or the marginalization of European Muslims there was one face and name that kept popping up in my mind. 

The man in this photo is Ahmed Merabet. He was one of two police officers killed by the Kouachi brothers in their attack on Charlie Hebdo's main office which also resulted in the deaths of ten other innocent people. According to the Guardian  and a number of other media outlets, Ahmed was assigned to the area where the building was located. On foot, he went to the scene of the shooting and confronted the attackers in the street as they were fleeing the scene. He was shot during the ensuing engagement and was then executed with a bullet to the head as he lay wounded on the pavement. The scene was captured on amateur video. 

Still shot from the video.

I think there are a few reasons why Ahmed's story in relation to the tragedy of the Hebdo attack has stuck with me. First, he shared much in common with the men who killed him. Like them he was Muslim, like them he was of North African descent, like them he was raised in France and was a member of that country's often marginalized minority community of immigrants and immigrant descendants. Yet on that day when the masked militants and the uniformed officer met each other in the streets of Paris, their ensuing battle represented how despite sharing such similar backgrounds their lives had followed radically different paths. 

With so much media coverage of the attack focusing on free-speech, the nature of Islam as a religion of violence or peace, and the struggle to find an appropriate response to extremism, I think it's important that Ahmed's life and the lives of the many, many Muslims like him are not muffled by calls of outrage, finger pointing and name calling. 

I don't deny that Islam as a faith as a number of issues and problems. I've studied them academically. As someone who has read the Qur'an and the Sunnah, studied Islamic law and the works of Muslim scholars, I know firsthand about the verses, commentaries, fatwas that drive extremist elements in Muslim communities. Extremism is real, repressive practices inspired by religious teachings are real. 

However, in this post this is not what I would like to focus on, even though these are incredibly important topics.

What I would like to focus on is this. There are many Muslims like Ahmed Merabet who follow paths in their own communities that are different from violent Salafis and Jihadis. There are many Muslim voices denouncing religious violence in their communities (Malala Yousafzai for one). There are Muslim organizations who donate generously to charities that benefit many people. And then there are many, many others who simply want to live lives in peace and dignity and who won't decapitate you with a scimitar for sharing a different opinion, or a different faith.

I firmly believe this not just because of what I have read or watched but also because of what I have lived through.

I've spent a lot of time in countries with large Muslim populations. I studied in Egypt for four months in 2009 and traveled for a month through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. 

Between 2010 and 2012 (two and half years) I lived in Cairo. I worked in an Egyptian graphic design company alongside Egyptian Muslims and Christians. I witnessed the Arab Spring, the first open elections in that country's history, and the rise of Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood. 

In my time in the Middle East, I got to know Muslims. I ate with Muslims, drank coffee with Muslims, smoked shisha with Muslims (too many times), fasted with Muslims during Ramadan and occasionally had a beer or two with them. 

Sure, it wasn't all sunshine and exotic joyful dances to Bedouin music in the desert. I saw widespread poverty.  Through female friends I learned of the pain caused by widespread sexual harassment of women. I saw the negative and all consuming power that firebrand imams (preachers) can have over an uneducated and illiterate congregation. I heard tearful stories of persecuted Christians who felt that their grievances were easily dismissed by their Muslim colleagues and peers.  Too many times, Muslim friends I knew and loved would share dark and sinister opinions about Jews and Atheists that would make me cringe. 

And yet, and yet for me to say that these negative aspects are what solely defined the people I know there would be slander. 

Yes they share the same God as ISIL, read the same Qur'an Osama Bin Laden did, read some of the same Hadiths that the Kouachi Brothers read, and no doubt listen to a few very similar sermons delivered at Friday noon prayers in their local mosques or prayer halls. But they are not Bin Laden or the Kouachi Brothers. 

They are Tamer, the aspiring screen writer, Scorsese fan and aspiring author who I shared fantasy and sci-fi story ideas with. 

They are Mohamed, the graphic designer at my company, who despite belonging to the ultraconservative Salafi movement, had no qualms about putting women in bikinis on the covers of our magazines and joking with me (a kafr) over shisha. 

They are Ingy, the aspiring English translator and kindergarten teaching assistant who fell in love with the game Dutch Blitz. 

They are Fatimah, the college student who introduced me to Arab literary giants like Naguib Mahfouz and Alaa al Aswany. 

They are Nada, the sweet veiled woman designer at my company who became one of my closest friends.

They are Bassem, the cycling scrawny artist who loved discussing the merits of his country's Revolution with me. 

They are Ismail, one of the most generous people I've ever met in my entire life. A man from a small and highly conservative oasis in the desert who opened the doors of his house to many of his Western friends allowing me to visit his beautiful hometown.  

They are Ghalis,  The company courier and Islamist who sometimes argued with me over politics but told me that I was 'the best American' he had ever encountered.

They are Mo, a dear but troubled friend who would discuss life and love with me over a few beers at my apartment despite believing that alcohol should be illegal.  

They are the woman in a black face veil who, when my parents were visiting me, warned me about a potentially volatile protest on a day when they were supposed to leave. 

They are doormen at the hotel my mother and father stayed at during the Revolution who courageously guarded them throughout the night of looting. 

They are the cab driver, who on a particularly rough night generously comforted me like an uncle when I inextricably broke into tears over a personal issue. 

I could list many more but twelve his enough. Twelve individuals to match the number of victims killed at Charlie Hebdo, including Ahmed Merabet.

I don't ask that you take these names as atonement for the attack. I don't ask you not to analyze or criticize the teachings of Islam. I don't ask you to believe that all 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet are perfect people. All I ask is that when you think of Charlie Hebdo you don't forget Ahmed or any of the other millions of Muslims across the world like the ones I've listed who live their lives, and are not above helping, befriending and loving one of the non-believers that a pair of brothers would have shot dead. 
  

Some friends.