“Not in my name”
To be honest, nobody thought that Ku Klux Klan represented catholicism, and so the crusaders, who brought their ideals of religion in stranger lands using violence and causing death.
His history teacher told them all these stories, and he noticed how his classmates assimilated the concets without thinking how wrong was cristian religion. So why was this thing happening now?
He was sitting on the ground, in his small, dark bedroom, third day of Ramadan.
He just stopped to cry, tears were clotted on his hollow cheeks, while his sister came in.
He looked at him and fastly went to sit in front of him, watching his brother with a worried expression. “Why are you not coming to the living room? Mama and daddy are watching the last television news”. She sighed. “Another terrorist attack from Islamic State… this people are crazy!”, she exclaimed angry, but, immediately asked “hey, what’s the matter?”
Her 12 years old brother shrugged. “Zari, do you think we’re bad people?”
“Why do you say that?”, said Zari, confused.
“Because we’re islamics. And Islamics are slaughtering all this innocence people. Maybe our God isn’t so righteous”.
Zari raised an eyebrow, completely puzzled. “Who told you it? Eh? Your friends? Your teacher?”.
“My classmates”, he admited. “After Charlie Ebdo attack they think all muslims are guilty. They said that Allah is a … uhm. I can’t say that bad word, sorry”.
“These are just vapid prejudices!”, Zari blurted.
“Yes, but our God …”
“Our God taught us to respect and love each other, to honour our family and to live in armony. These kind of people are just exstremists, they do things in name of their God, thinking that Allah has a grand plan for those who die and kill unfaithfuls. But … behind this motive, there are a lot of economic reasons.
Isis doesn’t represent the Islam, darling”.
“Why do jihadists kill people?”.
“Because they’re evil, without moral and values”.
“I’m against everything of it! I swear Zari, I’m not like them!”.
She hugged him, sweetly smiling. “I know it. You’re full of values, you’re a good guy. Nothing to do with them”.
Zari caressed him, and kissed his forehead. “You must be pride of who you are. Because you grown up with the theachings of your God. Keep believing in him, and don’t listen to nobody. Okay?”
“Okay”.
The next day in secondary school he sat at his desk, without speaking with no one.
He felt all eyes on him, a strange feeling. When teacher entered, everybody got up, but Jalil went near the teaching post and watched all his classmates with a determined look, not at all intimidated.
“I want to say a thing”, he started.
“Sure, Jalil. What do you want to talk about?”.
He swallowed.
“Yes, I’m from Iran, I lived in Teheran but moved to Italy when I was just three years old.
My mother, my father and my older sister are muslims. And I’m muslim too.
My dad doesn’t drink alcoholic beverages, and my mother wears a veil that covers her hair.
I read the Koran and celebrate the Ramadan with my family every year.
And I’m with Paris.
I found atrocius what happened because of a mad group of islamic extremists, and I disagree.
Everybody is different from each other. My mother has a friend who’s buddhist. Our neighbor is a wiccan and believes in witches and in the power of nature. She also listens to punk rock music.
My sister’s boyfriend plays football every week, and he’s an atheist. He doesn’t know anything about policy, but his father is communist, and loves Che Guevara.
He’s italian. My sister’s iranian, a lot of her friends are spanish and she also meet a girl from Denmark.
And that’s the point.
Nobody is similar to the other. But you have to recognize when a person is just a person, beyond cultural differences, and that before being muslims, wiccans, buddhists, or atheists, we are human beings, who think with their own mind.
I’m with France right now. So, this stupid war is not in my name”.
Who is knocking at my door? Our Erasmus+ project 