What 9/11 means to me

As a Muslim, I get worn-out from people thinking that I am responsible for 9/11 because of my faith. I came to this country when I was 7, because my parents wanted to study. When they were blacklisted by Gaddafi and never allowed to return, they had to learn to adjust to their new home. My mom decided to wear the hijab to become closer to her faith and both my parents became US citizens. When I first moved to Oklahoma, I was called a cameljock and told to go home. But I didn't have a home to return to. If we were to set foot in Libya again, my parents would have been picked up at the airport and shot.

I was just as heartbroken and shocked as the rest of my neighbors when 9/11 happened. I was in the kitchen of my folk’s home in DC, having a quite moment in the kitchen with my mom when my brother burst into the house and told us to turn on the TV. All three of us watched in a daze as what was happening and in my fog, all I can hear is my mom in the background praying under her breath. She was praying for the people in the towers and for the safety of all the lives affected. At the end, she also started praying that Islam was not involved.

A little while later, my father walked in the door, shaking like a leaf and white as a ghost. We immediately formed a group hug as he told us the story of his commute that morning. He was on his commute to work, when a plane flew into the Pentagon. He felt the ground shake and his absolute helplessness watching the ball of fire raise into the sky. A piece of the plane landed only a few feet from his car.

For weeks afterwards, my mom and my aunt (who also wears the hijab and was on a medical trip from Libya) would not leave the house for fear. Reports from CAIR were coming of Muslims or anyone that looked Arab being attacked, even killed. They were prisoners in their own home, made to feel guilty for representing a religion that had zero connection with what happened on that fateful day.

9/11 was not about Islam, it was not about Arabs or Afghanis or a single ethnic group. 9/11 was carried out by a group of mad men who decided that they hated life and the freedom that America represented. Just as Timothy McVeigh, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Lee Loughner and Anders Behring Breivik, all mad men, who decided to take God's work into their own hands and decide on the fate of others.

We all need to move forward and stop hating Islam and realize that the 1.5 billion people who call themselves Muslims are not responsible for what happened on this day 10 years ago. Just like all white, Asian or Norwegian men are not responsible for what happened in Oklahoma City, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Tucson or Utøya. The quote should not have been “you are with us or against us” it should have been “we will not be ruled by terrorist, no matter their race or agenda.”

Looking past this anniversary, and into our future, 9/11 should represent peace, and how as a nation we need to heal. We can’t afford to let those mad men tear us apart. Because this is our home and we need to learn to get along.