This I believe… I should not have to explain myself… anymore
Amna Ali
Carnegie Mellon University – Qatar
Modern Languages - Understanding Cultural Complexities
Growing up Muslim, I was always taught that as soon as I put my hijab on, I automatically become an ambassador for the religion because it becomes a part of my identity. Teenager me was never put in a position where I had to actually act as the ambassador for Islam, then, adult me finally gets accepted into CMUQ and everything changes.
You might think, why does education in CMUQ change anything if I’m in the exact same setting and culture, and the only different thing is what I am being taught? The answer is that in the midst of all the coding and history, I am told to question, analyze, and criticize everything I am being told because simply retaining the information is not enough to make it in the real world. Plus, I was mature enough to be up to date with politics now, and I was exposed to at least some of what is going on in the world. With that, I noticed that Muslims are always required to defend Islam, or sometimes explain the roots and origins of why we do things. At first I did not think much of it, until it started getting repetitive and déjà vu like. A couple of topics that resonate to me are “Muslim women are oppressed because they are forced to wear the Hijab”, and “Muslims need to stop ISIS”.
Whenever the hijab discussion came up in classes, I would not say anything because the people around me did understand that I was not oppressed by wearing the hijab. However, once, the professor said, “I know you guys are not oppressed, but why don’t you just say that to the people who think you are, and everything would be cleared up because you explained it.” I raised my hand and argued why should we explain ourselves? Will they really believe that we are not oppressed if we just said we’re not? They’ll argue that “I am not oppressed,” sounds like something an oppressed person would say.
ISIS is an even bigger issue, because unlike the hijab, it involves all Muslims, when it shouldn’t involve any Muslims at all. We call them Daesh because they should not have the privilege to use the religion’s name in theirs. Whenever a terrorist attack happens and Daesh is to blame, everyone in the world expects Muslims to apologize on their behalf, even though this group also targets Muslims. Muslims are expected to explain how and why this act of terrorism is not advocated for in Islam, in order for people to believe that Daesh and Islam are very different things. However, when a Christian, like the one in Christchurch, New Zealand shot the praying Muslims, no one expected Christians to apologize, and they shouldn’t because one person does not represent a whole community.
What I really believe is that people should do more research before they accuse a religion of being oppressive or violent, and this is where the key word, anymore, comes into my argument. After doing their research, some people genuinely still want to ask questions, and this right should not be taken away from them. This is why it was necessary for Muslims to explain the first few times conflicts occured, but not to the point where we are associated only with these conflicts, because then it becomes stereotypical and racist. We, as Muslims, will happily answer questions from people who did their research, but we will not apologize for something we already explained multiple times before does not represent us.