He spoke of a man, a Muslim man, living in Puerto Rico. Apparently he'd been living here for over 30 years. As most of us know, the Muslim religion has a very distinct praying ritual where they kneel in the direction of Mecca. This is called Salat.
Well, the man, whose name was omitted, partakes in this ritual every day. He's very proud of his culture and his religion. But at the same time, he's both afraid and embarrassed.
Whenever the time for prayer comes nears, this man goes into the nearest men's clothing store carrying his briefcase, or a bag. He chooses anything and walks over to the dressing room, where he locks himself in a cubicle and instead of trying on whichever outfit he picked, he puts down his prayer rug, kneels and quietly prays.
He does this every day. He has to hide his true self from everyone else every day. But why? If he were to do it on the side of the road, how many people would honk and yell at him? People would call the police because there's a "terrorist" doing who-knows- what. Ignorance closes doors, and the fact that there would be so many negative reactions just because a man is praying to a different god than what is considered normal by Puerto Rican standards makes me shake my head.
I tried putting myself in this man's shoes. In a way I know how it feels to be afraid of society because of my beliefs... or lack thereof. I'm an atheist, I was raised in a catholic household, but at the same time I have never really believed in any god. Sometimes I'm terrified of even mentioning this to the people that surround me because I know that some people assume that atheism equals satanism. Just like some people think that every Muslim is a terrorist; when most of the time, they're the ones spreading terror all around.
I like when you stated "Ignorance closes doors". It's the horrible truth in which we are living today, where people feel afraid to be who they are because others wouldn't necessarily understand who they are and what they do. If people were more open, we'd see a whole different community, and a more accepting one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said that "Ignorance closes doors." Sometimes people are very ignorant and cannot accept other peoples differences. We have to learn to be more accepting as a society!
ReplyDelete“ignorance closes doors”. What a wise statement that is. That metaphor summarizes how ignorance results in rejection and labeling of people we do not understand. Being all human beings should be more than enough to empathize with each other and embrace diversity as the road to conquer ignorance.
ReplyDelete