Take your Religion and Give me freedom

"Sometimes people don t want to hear the truth because they don t want their illusions destroyed."
―-;- Friedrich Nietzsche



Now that I m back after two months in Germany, after being exposed to the Europeans daily life, I traveled a lot in my life for a vacation´-or-a short amount of time for work, just a couple of days´-or-two weeks if I m working and then I come back home, this time it was different, life was allowing me to see what it feels to live in a country that freedom of thinking, freedom of speaking, freedom to love and to dress up the way I want, freedom to choose for my own body, equal society, waking up every morning and smelling the scent of freedom that I always looked for, for the first time I felt like I was home I felt like I can begin the rest of my life in Germany, And after those two months, I came back home to the ugly reality of a place where the minute I wake up and to ---sleep--- I hear nothing but prayers, religion, and a parliament talking about modesty laws everything is a sin everything begins and ends with religion, love is forbidden even the air smells like hell on earth and again I came back to be suffocated by all the darkness and middle age social and systemic rules, this encouraged me to write this article.


Since I was a little girl, I always had this confusing idea about religion because I was raised by a secular father, he taught me to think for myself, I was raised from a very young age to think for myself that I am the decision maker, I decide what my life will look like, what I believe in, my father will always tell me and my siblings, that we are free to believe´-or-not to believe in God whatever the faith we chose is our own decision, I grew up seeing my father accepting everyone and welcoming everyone to our house, Jewish friends, christen, atheists, black, white, green, yellow all ideas accepted and I had male friends my whole life since I was a little girl, I wasn t told it s wrong, I read and watch whatever I want and the way I dress is up to me, even with my relationships, you can say that the way I was raised looks nothing like the world I was born in, I grew up with the idea that I am equal to my brothers, I have never been scared to ask any question about God and about everything.

Until I hit one big giant wall called society and extended family, see my dad was the only man in our family who is open-minded, and middle eastern families are large lots of uncles and aunties have strong opinions about each other s families anything happens in one s home they take it personally as to protect the family s honor, any middle eastern girl who grew up around these kinds of traditions knows what I m talking about, but the best thing was my father throwing all these principles into a wall he faced each one of them firmly and fiercely. That giant wall was also teachers at school that was shocking when I was a little girl and coming from my background and going to school was the a cultural shock like I was coming from a different country, the first thing at school a teacher asked me to make my shirt sleeves longer and my uniform longer too, teachers started to teach us about heaven and hell, teaching a young girl about how she will be tortured by god in hell if she listens to music and how if she doesn t wear hijab god will hang her from her hair on judgment day, and about the torture of the grave and how if she doesn t pray all her prayers on time she will be cursed for the rest of her life, etc….., as a young girl at school I was confused and scared of all those things back then I started to have nightmares, the thing that caused my father to take action against those teachers I remember him being so angry, he kept telling me that everything I was hearing is only coming from an ignorant teachers another incident where one teacher was telling us that we showed showoff god s blessings and we must show it to the world and be thankful for it, I raised my hand and asked the teacher if we should showoff god s blessings then why some girls wear hijab and hide their beautiful hair she didn t respond, and after the class, she told me that the reason why half of the women are going to hell is because of girls like me.
However, the influence of people around me was more powerful than the way my parents raised me because 99% of people in my life were conservative and religious and the 1% of liberalism was my father, but it was stronger than I could handle I started praying out of fear every day on time thinking that it will the bullying at school because I was a sinner not because racist kids bullying me for being black, and thinking about it now it s clear to me that I was as a teenager going through what every teenager go through, lost and feeling like no one understands me, I started to go to the mosque, fearful of misfortune if I don t, my father was watching me from far but never lift my side, I was having nightmares because I used to think that god is hate and god is the punisher and the one that if I skip one prayer god will curse me, but there was still inside of me a question why god is acting like my teacher he is the merciful and the kind why would he torture me for just missing one prayer. Years went by I became more and more frustrated with god because here I praying every day on time and acting like the good girl I was supposed to be, but still, yet bad things kept happening to me all the time, yet people who call themselves religious are committing all kind of sins in front of me yet everything was going well in their lives. I had depression and anxiety all the time, and one day I woke up realizing that they sold lies, I went back to reading books about life philosophy, and I took the leap of faith and crossed the forbidden line I started questioning god, people, and my whole existence, I went to my father which I know that he was waiting for that moment because he knew the girl who loves music books and art is not following the right path he wanted me to discover it on my own, my father saved me from darkness to light and offered me books by Friedrich Nietzsche, Leon Tolstoy, The Secret, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Ibn Khaldun, etc…




I was about to lose myself in what s called religion, I was about to be swallowed by this giant machine until I returned to my basic foundation and principles, I went back to the true heaven inside me, and now I know that religion is made to suppress us under a tyrant and to become slaves to the tyrants, as for women religion is designed to make the man stronger and to take all the power the in name of god, as women we are taught that we carry the family s dignity and honor, giving the men in the family the right to physically attack us, it s made acceptable because they are the protectors of the family s honor, especially in the middle east religion is specifically made to place women two levels below men.
Talking about my body is my choice and equality between genders and personal freedoms can be deadly topics in some homes in the middle east, I am thankful that I was able to come back from the dark forest I was lost inside, now I m willing to sell the world for my freedom, no religion no man can take that from me, I am an independent individual, no money, no religion no love, and nothing is worth the freedom that I have, I think for myself I chose for myself, and being the feminist that I am is coming from a long war with religion and religion gatekeepers, this discovery was achieved with the help of my father he taught me about feminism and secularism and how all this open space is all mine too, last but not least Take religion and give me my freedom.

"The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances—of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped."
―-;- Friedrich Nietzsche,

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