Undercover Atheist

These are the ways I stay out of trouble as an undercover atheist.

1. Never bring up other religions.

The reason why it is not wise to bring up other religions is because everyone (family/community) will assume that you’re converting.

2) Don’t even think about bringing up damning verses in the Qu’ran.

True story. I picked up the Qu’ran one day and pointed out a verse to my mother talking about killing rape victims. I asked her what she thought on this damning piece of evidence. She snatched the book from my hand, hid it behind her back and told me to shut up. She chased me up to my room and accused me of converting to Christianity.

3) Keep a headscarf in your bag at all times.

Since I’m an undercover atheist, I do enjoy going out and doing regular western things such as dancing and going to rock shows. The problem with this is that it’s awkward for me to wear my headscarf, so I stash it at a friends place. Unfortunately, there have been moments where I’ve been stranded without it, and without it I cannot return home. Solution to this is to always have a scarf around my neck.

4) Don’t have a boyfriend.

I’m sure several of you have heard of the father that murdered his daughter over adapting to the western society her family brought her over to in order to escape war. The young lady from Iraq had a boyfriend, stopped wearing her headscarf and embraced the only culture she knew. This is a reality for some young women. My mother is thankfully not as hardcore, but she refuses to talk to me about marrying someone outside of my race.

5) Don’t come home drunk.

I have now mastered not coming home drunk. I never drink when I know I must return home, or I limit my intake. I always have a friends place lined up if I know I’ll be getting trashed. Recently, a Somali neighbor of mine was kicked out of her house for coming home very drunk. It’s one of the most shameful things you can do to your family. Being drunk in the neighborhood where all your mothers’ friends can see you act a fool.

 

There are many more rules to follow, but it’s is almost 5:30 in the morning. Sweet dreams all!

Prayer.

I would always get this horrible feeling in my gut whenever my parents tried to make me pray. My father would carefully watch to make sure I washed up in the exact way the Qu’ran requires you to. Kneeling down and pressing my forehead against the floor made me feel sick. I never felt anything when I did this five times a day.

I stopped eventually in high school. My parents would systematically ask me why I didn’t pray anymore and I would blankly reply each time that I had my period. Women on their menstrual cycle were dismissed from prayer until their ‘filth’ ended. They couldn’t actually disprove that, so they went along with it. This worked up until it had been months of prayer refusal.

My father took me to the Mosque to pray. I sat down with all the women. Already I felt terrible, just dizzy and nauseous. We sat behind all the men. Women are not allowed to lead prayer under any circumstances. We’re not allowed in front of the men or even beside them. We stay strictly behind, or in a separate room. This rule is apparently to keep men from being distracted by the voice and form of a woman leading a prayer. (Despite the fact that women must be fully covered up during it anyway).

When I questioned it, my father told me to shut up and accept it. I wanted to lead prayer. I’m not the leader type and I still wanted to do it. I don’t even believe in the religion, but I wanted to be a role model for the women that happen to believe in Islam. I wanted to show them that if a man couldn’t focus on his prayer because of their voices or form, it was his own damn fault and he could deal with the consequences.

 

So today I came out as an atheist to my family. My mothers first reaction was to put her hands on my neck and attempt strangling me. If I hadn’t fully expected this and had never experienced my mother physically touch me, it may have been an actual shock.

I sat down across from her and clearly explained the texts in the Qu’ran that I did not agree with. I carefully told her that I never felt Allah no matter how hard I tried to connect with him. I did everything ‘right’ up until last year. I could not identify with the other Muslim girls that I spent time with. I told my mother that I didn’t believe in any god anymore. He failed me when I needed him the most.

She simply stared at me. Nothing came out of her mouth. Her tiny body lunged at me and she wrapped her tiny hands around my neck. I pulled her hands off  and asked her, “is this what god told you to do to the disbelievers? Even if the disbeliever is your daughter?”

My mum started shaking and crying while scrambling for the phone to call my uncles. I’ve only seen this once before; when my father passed. Guilt usually consumes me when I upset my mother, but I knew I was right. I didn’t cry like I expected myself to. I waited for her to pull out her phone book to tell her that if she did call my uncles, she would never see me again.

I love my uncles but they are unfortunately very Islamic. I know that I’d be in a world of trouble if she did report me to them. I know I would be lucky to get off with a slight strangling with them.

So now I sit upstairs. I’m not sure what my action plan would be. Thankfully I have lovely friends that I could probably stay with when things inevitably go bad here.

I feel like the worst part about all of this is that my mother and my uncles can’t even rationalize why they’re treating me like this. All they can ever tell me is because “god says so” and that just makes my head hurt.

 

Happy :3

So today I spent my day starting on my blog and figuring out what kind of balance I want to strike with this. I’ll probably end up writing about strange things that make me unbelievably happy and document things that have happened to me. I’ll have them separated into two different sections.

This makes me happy. I love this cover of Eleanor Rigby. It’s one of my all time favorite songs and I didn’t think it could get even more beautiful.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Sensitive

My earliest memories are overflowing with confusion, hurt and unknowing. Unfortunately, my parents were struggling after making the very permanent move to Canada from their torn apart homeland. My father figures were my three teenage uncles who attended high school while dad worked. Sometimes we didn’t see him for weeks, another time he disappeared for a full year. During this time we lived in a tiny two room apartment and my mother quickly became pregnant again. Eventually she had four children with three teenagers all cramped in that tiny living space.

Religion was a major part of our life; our parents were set on us obeying every command. They would tell us about the snakes that would come to our grave and swallow us whole if we didn’t willingly submit our energy towards a god I couldn’t feel. Instead, this instilled a great fear in me. I developed a fear of the bathroom because I was told that invisible jinns (creatures of a parallel universe) watched you.

Angels also terrified me and when I stated so, I would receive a hard slap to the face in order to straighten me out. This of course only reinforced my fears. My father made me memorize several Islamic scriptures but he never told me what I was learning. All he ever said was that Allah would be very happy with me.

My father was a very unhappy man. He was violent and angry all the time so I avoided him at all costs, which was difficult in the tiny hole we resided in. I was so afraid of my father, even as a teenager I had difficulty looking into his eyes. All I ever saw in him was straight anger. The Qu’ran was always in his right hand, no matter what. He had verses blaring in his car when he drove me to school.

In kindergarten I made friends that would last me until this very day. I bonded with the girls and even the boys. At 5 years old I made a terrible mistake. I invited a boy over to my apartment not knowing of the reaction to come. He was my best friend. Yusuf lived in the same building, just a floor above. Our mothers even walked us to school together. Unfortunately, my father was the only one home when Yusuf came down. He yelled at the poor 5 year old boy and slammed the door in his face.

While attending my elementary school I had a difficult time trying to converge my Islamic Somali culture with our new western lifestyle. I realized that I couldn’t play with dogs or have friends over. We didn’t have birthday parties or see our parents celebrate Valentines day. If we tried to do anything western our parents would shoot the thought down instantly. They told us time and time again that these people (the Westerners) were not our friends. We should not adopt their rituals or try to blend in with them. This left me utterly confused, because I knew they were my friends. None of my seven year old friends were out to get me. We just wanted to play four square and push each other into the snow.

After awhile I realized that I was different. That I couldn’t have sleep overs or a birthday party with all my friends. My friends picked up on it, they knew I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere so they stopped asking me to come to their parties. I understood, why invite someone you know wont show up? My Somali culture was intruding in on my social life and I didn’t like it. I was beginning to be left out and this continued all through the rest of my schooling.

I tried to explain to my mother that I was really sensitive when I was a little girl. She said it was weakness.

Introductions!

I’m going to use the name Mirjana to explain what exactly it was like living in a moderate Islamic Somali family. With this blog, I want everyone to understand what many young Muslim women must cope with. I of course don’t want people to misunderstand this as an attack against any culture or religion, but an attack against violence and the ill informed individuals that choose to disregard the good and focus on outdated evil.

I’m a 20 year old Somali woman. I live at home, with my mother and my 5 younger siblings. During the week, I wear a headscarf and keep to myself; upholding many of my family’s expectations.

On the weekends, I step out and take the headscarf off. Friday night and onward I live as what Somali call ‘wareeg badan’. It pretty much means that you go out and do suspicious things.

I want women to identify with me, understand that they’re not the only one rebelling and trying to live the only way we know how.

 

Thank you for taking a few moments to read and learn more about my upbringing.