Assalamu alaikum, another reason why I decided to set the default security setting on my blog to private is because some of my writing just isn’t for public consumption, and if I want my words to be viewable publicly, then I should put the time and effort required in making my posts worthy of such a thing.
I have not always felt this way. In the past, I’ve had the feeling that I’m not a professional writer, thus if my posts weren’t clear, if words were misspelled, if there were many typos, etc., then who cares, ’cause everyone knows I’m not a professional writer, so it’s no big deal. However, the messiness and lack of clarity in my posts has been bothering me for some munths.
I also wanted to clarify that although I’m withdrawing from certain online communities, for my own emotional and spiritual well-being, it doesn’t mean that I’ve completely lost interest, it doesn’t mean that I care any less. It just means that I’m not sure where my place is, publicly anyway, within these communities.
I am a Muslim, but I don’t fit into the “mainstream” of the Muslim community, my blindness and use of a dog guide pretty much ensures that. And that really used to bother me. Because when I first became a Muslim, I wanted to be part of the community of Muslims, I wanted to get out there, to learn more, do more. But where does a newly-converted, blind, single Muslim sister fit in, when she doesn’t want to give up her dog, because she’s not so sure about the whole “losing rewards thing”, I mean, how can keeping a dog be OK on one hand, but you still lose so much of a reward on the other for doing it? I mean, it’s either OK to have a dog or it isn’t. And I feel like the whole dog thing, well, that sort of a “it’s OK to, but … ” opinion is just a way of talking out of both sides of your mouth, depending on who you’re talking to. And it’s not just the dog thing, it’s terrorism, domestic violence, or any myriad of issues I’ve seen discussed by Muslims. The “it’s OK but”, or the “it’s not right but”, then followed up by some sorta justification for why a woman was beaten (or worse killed) for example, why a blind Muslim shouldn’t be allowed to use the mobility aid of their choice (and I’ve learned that you can’t even discuss the use of a dog guide on “blind Muslim” groups either, and naively, I was quite shocked and disheartened at the treatment I got for defending my choice to use a dog, hence I rarely post on that group anymore), or “terrorism isn’t right, but look what they’re doing to us”. Yeah, like that makes it OK. I mean, either something is wrong or it isn’t. Why do we always have to have caveats? And I’m sure that these thoughts will probably generate the kind of controversy that I’m trying to avoid. And of course, “if we just lived Islam”, etc., everything would be great and wonderful, but ya know what? We are human beings, Muslims, but human beings nonetheless, replete with all of the failings and flaws that come with that. So yes, we have Islam, which is supposed to do away with things like racism, abuse, etc., but unfortunately it doesn’t, because people in many cases only choose to live it when it suits them, and I am certain I’m among this group.
Anyway, I’ve completely digressed. But as I was saying… Where does a blind, single, Muslim sister fit in when she wants to continue to use a dog and she doesn’t want to rush to get married to the first person who walks up and offers. And who doesn’t want to just follow someone just ’cause they say they’re knowledgeable or a scholar? And who is still an American and who’s not trying to be an Arab, African, or South Asian, or whatever “culture” is deemed “Islamic”?
And the answer is, as far as the question of “where I fit in” goes, “nowhere”. And that used to really bother me, and I know I’ve probably spent hours blogging about it, and if not blogging about it, at least worrying about it and pondering over it in my head. And maybe part of the reason why I don’t spend time worrying about these sorts of things anymore is that I have gotten re-married, and I’ve sorta built a kind of sanctuary around myself, with my husband, and friends that I’ve cultivated offline relationships with. But even if I were still single, I’d like to think that I’ve come to a point in my life where I could learn to be content with what Allah has blessed me with and what He’s provided for me.
Regarding the online Gambian community, I really don’t know what to say here, because many of my opinions thus far have come across as bitter, judgmental, racist/prejudiced, or angry, or some other kind of negative emotion. Let me just say that I meant well, when expressing many of my opinions, however, perhaps I was too pushy, too forceful, too something, that didn’t sit well with the majority of the people who bothered to speak up and let their voices be heard. It’s not that I no longer care about Gambian issues, and my Google Reader’s shared items will bare this out, it’s just that I no longer feel comfortable making my opinions public, not even the obvious “Jammeh’s really crazy” kinda opinions.
I used to feel a sense of bitterness and anger at the fact that my opinions were OK when they supported one political opinion/ideology, or no particular opinion/ideology, but when I actually strongly supported “one side” as it were, which happened to be the side that the vocal majority did not agree with, the claws came out, and I still have the awful emails to prove it. However, that wasn’t my point. The bitterness is gone because I’ve had time to reflect on how my own words and actions, my own disposition, could have contributed to the reactions that I got out of people. Simply put, while “they” may have been wrong, I may have been wrong too. And while I used to get upset that other non-Gambians were seemingly getting better treatment, because their opinions fell on the “correct” side of what the majority of the vocal participants agreed with, looking back on that, all I can say is that I can’t answer or speak for or try to correct others, all I can do is concentrate on making myself a better person. And the thing is, even if I wanted to publicly step back into the fray, as it were, I really feel that I’ve burned all of my bridges. I’ve been forceful one too many times, said one too many things that I shouldn’t have said, and I’m just plain not ready for the barbs and criticism that comes with public commentary.
It seems that the best I can do is watch from the sidelines, on all counts, and so far, that has made my life a lot less stressful. And I think this is something that I’ve known for a long time, I was just too, I don’t know, self-righteous, arrogant, wanted the attention, I don’t know, to not only realize all of this but to follow it through, and not coming running back to public comment after a few people massaged my ego and told me how great and wonderful I was, and that I should continue to speak out.
The thing is, I don’t do well around negative people, who only want to criticize and hurt others and tear others down, and I don’t care who you’re talking about, whether it’s certain online communities or groups of people, or the Conservative radio blowhards. I don’t do well around ugly negativity, it is not good for me to be around people who are so quick to label, call names, castigate you, etc., simply because we don’t agree.
And I’ve been in many a discussion, the most recent I can think of being a discussion which stemmed from a comment I made, that sometimes I miss being around blind people, or that sometimes I only want to be around blind people. And somehow this was taken to mean that I couldn’t deal with the sighted world, which was funny to me because I’ve been dealing with the “sighted world” pretty much since I graduated from the Indiana School for the Blind (and now Visually impaired which is a whole other controversy in and of itself, depending on who you talk to). And funny that this sentiment was expressed by people who were so adamant that “most of their lives, they hardly if ever had contact with blind people”, and these were themselves blind people, as if I’m somehow lacking, because I went to a school for the blind, and spent a good chunk of my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood with blind people. It was like I was “less than” they were because I dared to say that I don’t always want to be around sighted people, and that by that statement, I was stereotyping all sighted people as ignorant, etc., and sorry to say this, but many of them are! And I’m sorry if I don’t give them a pass, and say “oh they’re just trying to be nice” or “they’re just trying to help”, every time they do or say something that is lacking in education of what the blind can do and are capable of. I mean, my goodness, my husband is sighted, my family are sighted, I have sighted coworkers, so the fact that I can’t “deal” with the sighted world, just ’cause I mention the desire to hang out around blind people is just laughable on so many levels. And oh yeah, another common response to daring to express the desire to hang out around other blind people is “well, I’ve not hung around a lot of blind people, but I don’t want to ’cause a lot of blind people, especially those who went to “institutional schools” (whatever those are) are weird anyway, and you can just tell that they’re “different”, and they just don’t know how to get on in the rest of the world”. And all I can say is and excuse the “french” but “what the f**k ever”!
I mean really… I’ve never heard so much self-hatred as I heard from the “we’ve never hung around “those blind people” crowd. The “well if blind people would just get off their asses and stop waiting on someone to hand them something”, or the “most blind people just want to sit at home and collect a check”, etc. and this was in response to my actually daring to express my frustration at spending too years looking for a job, and then briefly deciding that if the majority of the sighted world didn’t think that blind people were capable of working, and that if all we were good for was collecting a check and watching Jerry Springer, then collecting a check and watching Jerry Springer would be what I’d do. And the fact that this sentiment lasted about as long as it took for me to get out of my wet and snowy clothes, have a hot shower, and get into some warm and dry things again was lost on these people. Nope! All they saw was a blind-school educated SSI-getting (who’s now working by the way but I guess they forgot about that too), person who just wanted to sit home and collect a check and who really didn’t want to get out and find a job anyway. It’s bad enough to see this in sighted people, I mean I expect this, sadly, but to hear blind people talk like this? I find it shocking every time I hear it. But as heated as some of these discussions have gotten, and I’ve been in more than one of them, if my memory serves me right, eventually we were able to at least try to understand the other’s point of view, or at least if not, to realize when it was time to take a step back from the issue, and just agree to disagree and move on.
And I’ll try to tie my disparate thoughts together by saying this. I am a blind woman, who went to a school for the blind, who learned a lot there, and probably had better training in “blindness skills” than you’d probably ever get in a public school setting, in most cases. I always knew I’d go to college, I always knew I’d find a job and be gainfully employed, I never thought that I’d spend my life collecting any kind of public assistance, though if I did, I could deal with that. Later in life I became a Muslim. I do my best to try to be the best Muslim I can be, but I falter sometimes, and sometimes in very spectacular and public fashion.
And I traveled to The Gambia, in West Africa, which I really feel that Allah allowed for me because if it wasn’t for this trip, I’d never have been guided to Islam in the first place, though Allah alone knows best. It was the actions of The Gambian people, their peaceful nature, how people from disparate tribes and religions were able to live side by side, and do so peacefully, how this among so many other things helped to dispel the negative stereotypes about Islam that I, and I hate to admit this, had previously had. It truly breaks my heart to see what Yahya Jammeh is doing to that country, and it’s even more sickening to me that so-called Muslim leaders there would bestow the title of “shaykh” upon him.
I saw my involvement in the struggle to restore democracy and the rule of law in The Gambia as a way of trying to help the people who, without knowing, had done so much to help me. And while this sounds good as I’m writing this, I also see how this could come across as patronizing and arrogant. It has even been suggested online that my words and my “incorrigible stance” have actually harmed the struggle for a united opposition. I’m not sure I really believe this, however, if even the perception of this is out there, then perhaps it’s best for me to remain on the sidelines.
I just want to avoid drama, avoid controversy, as I said before, and to try harder to think before I speak, and to not come across as such an arrogant know-it-all, as I feel that I tend to do sometimes.
