What are you?

Is this a simple question? In this time and age, the answer is not that simple, what are you? Doesn’t imply a straight forward answer, especially that whenever we meet somebody we start to find similarities or differences between each other, the way you dress, comb your hair, grow a beard or use a specific kind of perfume, do you wear a hijab or a niqab or maybe it is the way you talk or even your body language, or it might be as simple as the colour of your skin or eyes or hair.

Sometimes it is our habits that we adopt, eating some kind of food, vegetarian, fish only, all kinds of meat, no pork, halal only, all drinks, no fizzy drinks, no alcoholic drinks, only water, smoking a lot, or smoking when ever the sky is grey.

Or it might be less revealing, your thoughts and ideas, your beliefs and convections, in our time with all the stereotypes and prejudgements it is becoming more and more difficult to express what you are really? These are some of them: Liberal = Corrupt, Secular = Atheist, Islamic = Terrorist, Nationalist = Fascist, Socialist = Communist, Communist = Atheist, Revolutionist = opportunist, Zionist = Killer, Independent = what the heck!

What are you? You must be. You must belong to something, you must adopt a certain idea, but beware from expressing it, it all depends on the place and time and the people around you.

What brought up the same issue I wrote about (in Arabic) last month again, is that a friend of mine was chatting with a work colleague who apparently didn’t like the way my friend read certain books, and during their chat my friend said that he was a Liberal, after that he was ignorantly branded with an Atheist mark on his forehead, which made his relation with his boss and other people around him difficult as they were all religious, as all they knew about the term is what they heard or read from narrow minded religious scholars nothing more.

The culture of exclusion and suppression is making it difficult for lots of people to develop the individualistic independence in thinking and expression, which eventually leads to a society driven by fear and terrorism.

So, what are you?!…