World of Hate 4

The morning after 9/11, on the tube going to work, I saw for the first time people looking at me in fear. I thanked God that once again I was safe, because I worked in an Arab company I wouldn’t have to deal with this at work. In the days that followed people went crazy, attacking anyone who looked even remotely Arab or Muslim on the streets of London, even the Indians that wore turbans, it was sick.

A year later I moved to Egypt. By then I had stopped watching the news, because it just made me feel useless, and worthless.

Since then, I have lived in a bubble, broken only by last night’s escapade into the forum of hate.
When I think about taking my child back to London, all I see is a country where child abuse, kidnappings, rape and murder, even kids killing each other with guns and knives, is an everyday occurrence.

I lived in the US for a while, it was more of the same, except on a bigger scale. There is where for the first and only time I saw a real gun, where a drug fuelled acquaintance offered to take me on a drive-by shooting, like it was something to do for fun, where news of a dead body found in the alleyway behind my uncle’s business wasn’t so shocking, where swimming in my uncles pool with my young cousins I could hear guns shooting, and he lived in a nice area!

Now in Egypt, where most of the population is walking around with an amputated humanity, I face different problems, problems of ignorance, indifference and defeat. So where do we go from here? What will I tell my son when he starts to ask me questions about the world, about life, about religion?