Thoughts

Courtesy of ReligionFacts

I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY. THE THINGS IN ITALICS ARE OPINIONS OR MY THOUGHTS ON THIS. ANYTHING ELSE I TRIED TO MAKE IT AS UNOPINIONATED AS POSSIBLE.

Hey, it’s me. I have stuff to say. Let’s do it.

I am going to try and not say anything on here to furthermore boost the flames and the tension that has arrived here. I’m trying, I promise.

I don’t want to bash anyone here, nor do I want to denounce everything that has happened. So let’s get this clear. Donald Trump is our president, not going to argue against it. The Electoral College is the system we use (I don’t necessarily agree with it) but nonetheless it is what we got and it chose him as our president elect for the next four years.

Okay, cool? I’m glad we got that settled.

Now, here comes the unpopular opinion or the one that is going to “rock the boat” if you will. I am a Muslim. This should be fairly obvious to everyone but if you aren’t aware well, yeah that’s me. A hijabi – at times – that lives here. Okay no one is shocked here. This hasn’t tipped anyone over into anger, I’m just stating facts here.

Next thing would be much more provocative but still it’s a fact. On December 7 2015 Donald Trump read a statement from his campaign that he wanted 
a “total and complete shutdown on Muslims” entering the United States. He then said “We have no choice. We have no choice.” Now when I hear this statement, I honestly cannot see any metaphors that he could have meant or anything of the fact. And I would like to make it very and supremely clear that I have family, specifically Muslim family members that live OUTSIDE the United States.

Does he mean to think that because there are Muslim terrorists that exist we shouldn’t have any Muslims enter the country?

Statistically speaking, there are roughly 106,000 jihadist militants that exist according to this CNN article. And according to the Pew Study, 23% of the world’s populations are Muslim, 1.6 billion people to be exact. And taking into account Trump doesn’t mind the Muslims living in the U.S. (3.3 million of them), that means he didn’t want a total of 1,596,700,000 Muslims to enter the country of the United States until representatives figured out what is wrong because .006625% of the Muslim populace are jihadi militants aka terrorists.

I’m sorry, but as a Muslim, that seems incredibly islamophobic. And as a whole islamophobia is not nearly as brought up as it should be in the media because it is and continues to be a huge problem. That’s not reassuring to me as a Muslim. But, it continues.

He continued to state that we have to look at mosques because there is “anger”.

 Alright now this one doesn’t seem to be islamophobic but disrespectful. I think that I can speak for the majority of Muslims and say that we don’t have anything to hide in our mosques. Especially in the mosques that I’ve been a part of, we are fairly open to people who are either interested in the religion, curious as to what exactly Muslims do, etc. So it’s just hurtful that people think that we could or would have something to hide in our mosques? I’m sorry, but I don’t even think Donald Trump has been to a mosque.

I promise you, our mosques are always open. I have NEVER been to a mosque where the door were locked during the daytime. There is no special phrase, password, greeting, gesture, nothing. You can just enter and pray and leave. So the rhetoric that we have to be watched NOW is painful. I spent much of my formative years in a mosque. I am currently a volunteer at a mosque and I taught Islamic studies. A mosque to me, has always been a safe place that is open for me if I ever needed it. It’s just sad to think that my safe place is considered a place to be full of “anger.”

Anyways, that occurred less than a year ago. And it was debated for a short while, maybe a month or so and it was over. And Trump made some revisions in his statement and he took a more “moderate” approach with it.

My thing is, after the election, I was hurt and upset and said that if you voted/were for Trump to unfollow me, unfriend me, and I don’t deal with you. Did I mean it? Probably not because I don’t have the ability to hold grudges and stay mad. I’m actually fairly bad at it. The thing is, regardless of everything else Trump has ever said ever, it just disturbs me that people who know Muslims are still okay with what he wanted to do. It spoke to me that “look I know that you are a Muslim, but I am still going to vote for him.” If I leave the country, and I come back like I did this summer, would I have not been allowed to come back? Is that something you would have been okay with?

To me that just seems like you didn’t care. And I felt devastated.

And yeah, I understand that the Muslim ban is more than likely not going to happen. It completely and utterly goes against the 1^st amendment and I know there is a checks and balance system in place. I am aware.

I am just disappointed that people were okay with voting for a man with this policy that completely violates the 1^st amendment and is discriminatory towards 23% of the global population.

So if I unfriend, unfollow, block, whatever it is I may have done, I promise you it was not because I was weak. No, that’s not the case at all. I am a strong person living in a country that has never respected me with a leader who seems like he doesn’t respect people like me from outside the country. Once I feel better, I will reach out. But I’m hurt. And I need time to recuperate and get on with my life.

 All in all, I hope he does an amazing job as president and I desperately hope he proves me wrong. That’s all I have to say.

Sincerely,

A sad, discouraged, yet hopeful

Jante

Am I Swahili Enough?

Hey!

Okay, I've been absent for awhile and mostly because I haven't been making this a priority. Long story short, I am going to make an effort to put more effort into this, like when I first started. No excuses, I'm going to do it.

Another thing, worth discussing is my association with Swahili culture and as you can tell from the title what actually makes me Swahili.

To start from the beginning, I was born in Dallas, Texas to my mom and father. My mom is termed as the OG regular Swahili gal straight from the coast of Mombasa with some of the family originally from Oman and apparently even from Iraq according to the last name "Shirazy". My father on the other hand is Tanzanian and his mother is part Indian. What exactly does that make me? Well, that's even a more complicated answer.

According to family and a little bit of the Internet, there is the Swahili language which is a mixture of Bantu and Arabic and then, there are the Swahili people who live on the Eastern coastal part of Africa and cover many areas like Tanzania, Mombasa, Zanzibar, and Madagascar. With hundreds of years of trading between the Arabs and the Africans of the area, many goods were exchanged alongside religion and language and intermarriages occurred. Many Arabs lived to settle on the Eastern coast of Africa and marry the locals which eventually created an entire group of people called Swahili people. 

Now, I condensed this information a lot and it is actually way more intricate and complicated but for now, this shall do. 

Back to me. 

I was more displaced than anything and I definitely think that I wouldn't have been who I am today if I wasn't born in America and raised here as an American. Growing up I didn't learn Swahili therefore, I didn't speak Swahili. My parents spoke Swahili to each other but I never learned the language. I am trying now but obviously, it is harder to try to learn a language when you are already an adult. Nonetheless, I am trying.

Being born in the States and going to public school and ALSO being in the Army I didn't visit a lot of Swahili people growing up and I could count on one hand that amount of times I went to a wedding of some sort. I was two when I went back to Kenya but than seventeen years had passed before I went back again.

This means I spent a lot of my formative years here in the states and I think of myself as an American. If I were to be technical I would actually be first generation African-American. I guess the next question before I reached my answer is: Can I be American and Swahili? I identify myself as American. I was raised as an American. But can I add this new identity to myself? 

I think so. I mean I want to. I have always believed in the ability to be dualistic and have multiple layers to a person sooooooo I think I can. Albeit, when I do know Swahili fluently I will never sound like a local and I will not know the nuances that only a Swahili person can know from growing up in the area. My behaviors and actions will always be typical American to them. But this culture is a part of me. My parents never forgot to tell me where I came from and how they were raised. I was aware of this part of my origin and I have always been proud of where I come from.

So my final answer is: Yes. I am Swahili. But I'm also so many other identities that coexist and I identify with just as strongly. And in the end, that's what makes me, me. Not only the Swahili part of me but all of my other identities. 

Sincerely,

Jante

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