Narrative education...because some need exposure

Posted: Jul 2, 2017

This is fairly long, takes 5 minutes, but it is needed. Immediately after the election... He and Musarrat talked about what to do. He began investigating a job in Dubai. He spoke to his brother in Florida, an investment adviser, who had received a fax after the election that read, “Get the f--- out of my country you Muslim pig,” and was moving to Canada. Musarrat kept thinking about the time after Sept. 11 when a man had chased her with a baseball bat, yelling about her headscarf. So he began to try to heal people, which is what his job is.... But that’s not what we’re talking about,” he said. “Because if you say, ‘That’s Islam,’ then that’s like me saying, ‘Well, Christianity is David Kor­esh,’ ” he said, referring to the cult leader. He began pacing a bit. People were listening. “Do you guys know who the LRA is?” he said, referring to the Lord’s Resistance Army, the cultish Ugandan rebel group blamed for the deaths of more than 100,000 people. “How many of you knew about that? I want you to raise your hands.” Two hands went up. “How come you don’t know about that?” Ayaz said. “How come only Islam has terrorism? The KKK had 5 million members in the 1920s. Lynching of black people was normal. It was routine. Why don’t we look at ourselves, too, as well as others? You have alternative facts? Then go to a different lecture.” No one was getting up to leave. “So, the purpose of today is to know one another,” Ayaz continued, going back to the outline. He quoted Koran verses to explain how there is no compulsion to convert people to Islam, how extremists who believe that “hate me more than they hate you,” and how Islam means peace, and soon, he began to veer. “So Islam is not what you see on TV, okay?” he said. “I know Fox News. It’s not news. It’s the WWF, okay? Don’t use them as my spokesperson. When you say, ‘These people are animals and we have to blow them up,’ don’t say, ‘This is Islam.’ It’s not. And 99.9 percent of us will agree we need to condemn these people and it hurts us even more because they’re saying that God said this? Muhammad said this? Never in a million years.” I hope this man stays...I hope his efforts continue to touch all of you. ;