Now They Call Me Infidel

by Nonie Darwish

  In Los Angeles, I met many Coptic Egyptian families who immigrated together—including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins—with almost no one left behind in Egypt. These Coptic Christian families had survived years of discrimination in Egypt, where they were trained to take the abuse, keep their mouths shut, and move on. Here, basking in their new freedom, they could be who they were, and they were happy and fun to be around. I enjoyed being included in that circle. The large Coptic Egyptian families gathered together almost every weekend, either in their backyards or at Southern California beaches or parks for barbecues. These Egyptian families worked hard on weekdays to achieve the American dream, but on the weekends they cooked, joked, laughed—thoroughly enjoying their new freedom. Most of them came to the United States penniless but soon succeeded in finding good jobs and owning their own homes. They encouraged their children to quickly learn to speak English and to be proud Americans. Yet even though they were no longer an oppressed minority, they were still afraid to speak about their oppression as Christians in the Middle East. They wanted to put all of that behind them.

  Coptic churches were popping up in many neighborhoods in Southern California. Egyptian Copts do not teach the Old Testament as part of the Bible. I noticed some anti-Semitism among them, which was understandable, since in Egypt they had been bombarded with the indoctrination of hate and fear of Jews. But others among the Copts were aware of how closely their former persecution was related to the experience of Jews in Egypt. Once after hearing news of violence against Christian churches in the Middle East, I heard an Arab Christian say, “First the Jews, second the Christians.”

  Yet I was amazed at how Egyptian Coptic immigrants would speak in quiet tones when they relayed the news of violence against their own people and their churches in the Middle East. If my people—Muslims—suffered violations of rights or injustice in any way, in any place on the globe, our protest was vocal and often violent, accompanied by outrage and calls for apologies. Arab Christians, on the other hand, were so accustomed to suffering quietly, that even here in America, they spoke about the worsening situation for Middle East Christians only in quiet, secretive tones. The reaction was so ingrained that most could not shake the habit of suffering in silence and were consumed by fear of rocking the boat.

  I noticed other “ingrained” cultural habits among the immigrant community. Egyptian newcomers often viewed Americans through the prism of their former culture. For instance, the wife of an Egyptian doctor who lived in a wealthy suburb of Los Angles once complained to me about her “envious” American neighbors who objected to her building a Mediterranean-style home with Roman-style statues and fountains in the front yard. She concluded that her neighbors were extremely jealous of her new home. When I went to visit her I immediately realized why her neighbors objected. The home was grandiose and tasteless, totally out of place in a neighborhood with elegant, low-key, Tudor-style homes. It never occurred to her that their objections were not out of jealousy but out of wanting to preserve the look of the neighborhood. When inevitable construction problems occurred during the building of her little mansion, she attributed it to the evil eye of the neighbors.

  In November 1980 I had to travel back to Egypt to handle some family matters and also to conclude my immigration papers at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. An Egyptian Muslim woman, a former coworker of mine, worked at the embassy. We had a lot in common. Like me, she was the daughter of a shahid. Her father also died fighting Israel. She had been brought up by her father’s family after her mother abandoned her.

  When I gave her my marriage certificate, which was necessary to obtain the visa, she looked at it and said, “I want to talk to you in the reception area.” She spoke in a serious tone, and a certain angry look in her eyes worried me. I left the area behind the counter to join her in a corner in the reception area. She was not being courteous or friendly as one might expect from a former coworker who hadn’t seen you in a long time. I was puzzled. She sat down next to me and asked me point-blank: “Did your Coptic husband convert to Islam?” My heart sank, and for a moment I felt that my life was in her hands. I told her, “Yes, of course, and I have the conversion certificate to prove it at home.” I did not have it with me, but I told her that I could get it for her.

  She asked again, firmly, “Are you sure he converted?”

  I almost began crying. I insisted, “Yes, he did.”

  She asked, “Does he practice Islam?”

  Again, I said yes. Only then did she get me the papers I needed to complete my visa requirements for the green card.

  After returning to my mother’s house, I realized how unethical this woman had been. As an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, she worked for the American government, and she had violated a basic American principle. She had no right to ask me those questions, or appear to threaten to withhold my documents over the issue of my husband’s religion. However, I did not dare report her or expose her actions since I was not in America. I was still in Egypt. I realized anew how fragile my life and my happiness were in the hands of this culture.

  I had planned to stay in Cairo for a few more days to have more time with my family. But after my experience with the woman in the embassy, I wanted to leave immediately. That night I had a dream that I lost my passport and all my papers and could not go back to Los Angeles to join my husband. I woke up and changed my airline ticket reservation, said good-bye to my family, and went one last time to visit my aging grandmother before leaving. She looked frail and a lot older, but she was just as alert and loving as she had always been. We kissed, hugged, and said good-bye. That was the last time I saw my grandmother.

  My grandmother’s words echoed in my mind as I left Egypt yet another time: Rabena ma yehwebni lehad—may God bless me with never needing help from another human being. That expression grew out of a culture that was ruthless against the needy and the powerless. Respect was given only to the powerful and the arrogant. I was eager to get on that plane and once again leave behind this culture of arrogance, pride, and shame. I wanted to be comfortable in being imperfect and be able to express my need for help if I wanted. I was now leaving again, but I knew what I was returning to—a country and culture where I was accepted and where I need never be ashamed to show that I am a human being with weaknesses and needs. I could hardly wait to get back.

  During my first two years in America, my sudden exposure to freedom of religion and social and racial equality made me realize to what degree Muslim society oppressed, shamed, and manipulated its citizens. It was crippling to a healthy life. For the first thirty years of my life, I had lived in oppressive dictatorships, among people who were afraid to speak their mind. Any new immigrant to the United States who has come from repressive regimes will certainly understand what I am talking about. Not many Middle Eastern immigrants talk about this gift that America gave us, about their sudden enjoyment of democracy and freedom, free self-expression, simplicity, honesty, and the American way of life. Moving to America was like being catapulted to another time in history. America for me was not just a place for making money, having a job, a house, and car, it was a place for becoming a human being. Other immigrants who feel this way may not talk about it, but because of the way I am, I cannot stop thinking about it and talking about it.

  Home now was Los Angeles, California, far away from radical Islam and people like the Egyptian woman at the American Embassy. The 1980s was a time of immersion in both work and family. I gave birth to two beautiful children, a boy in 1981 and a girl in 1983. They were the miracle in my life. I worked all through my pregnancies. My mother came for a year to help me take care of my children while I was working. For the next decade, I was like most American women, juggling work and raising a family, with all the joys and challenges that entails.

  My escape from radical Islam to the open arms of America did not last for long. As we moved deeper into the 1980s decade, I began to see gradual change among the Arab Muslims around me. To my surprise, the radical
aspects of Islamic culture from which I had escaped were starting to grow in power right here in America.

  Seven

  The Journey from Hatred to Love

  I prospered in America, with my two beautiful children—a boy and a girl—and a lovely home. But something was missing. I lacked a spiritual life. And I felt a deep hunger.

  In Egypt religious life and one’s relationship with God was not a personal matter. Our religious destiny was assigned to us by birth. Even though I came from a time in Egypt where radical Islam was not yet in control, Islam was our identity. Our knowledge of Islam was based on memorization and compliance, and not on study, debate, or asking questions. We all believed Islam was part of our genes: We were born with it, like our hair or eye color. It was not a matter of choice. You were Muslim, period. Those who did not want to practice—and they were many—simply did not talk about it. Rejecting or changing one’s religion was unthinkable. We were led to believe that those who left Islam were killed, and they deserved it. Even knowledge about other religions was forbidden; those who attempted to learn about other religions were accused of apostasy.

  Everything around us reminded us we were Muslims—our identification cards, licenses, passports, and even college IDs. We felt Islam’s presence everywhere, and this led to a feeling that there was no need to “practice it.” In fact, many Muslims among all classes and educational levels did not practice, but were nevertheless very careful to avoid any behavior that is eib, meaning “improper,” or haram, meaning “sinful,” at least in public. In the days before I left Egypt, most of my fellow students and coworkers were nonpracticing Muslims. Yet we were locked in “Islam’s closet,” following ritualistic behaviors such as saying in Shaallah in every conversation.

  As Middle Eastern women, we never attended mosques or had any ties to religious institutions. I liked listening to the call for prayers from mosques and hearing certain Koran recitations. But, like all Egyptian girls at that time, I never attended a mosque for the purpose of prayer. The only mosques I ever entered in Egypt were three historical sites in Cairo—Muhammad Ali Citadel Mosque, Sayeda Zeinab Mosque, and Sayyedna El-Hussein Mosque—and these visits were as a tourist or for the purpose of giving to the poor.

  Mosques were part of a man’s world, one that women simply did not experience. Women were supposed to practice their religion at home, and since no one was looking, many did not pray regularly. A common joke in Egyptian society was: “Women are lacking in brains and religion.” Women’s knowledge about religion was limited to whatever they could grasp from family and school and was not learned from religious institutions. Islamic society had nothing similar to America’s traditional Bible study or prayer groups. I am not sure why women were prevented from receiving institutionalized religious education beyond what was taught in religion class in elementary school. Perhaps the fear was that if women got out of their homes and met in groups and formed alliances, it would encourage questioning and debate, and eventually that might lead to women, as an organized group, making demands to improve their conditions. I cannot help but think that women’s religious isolation was by design and not by coincidence.

  During my childhood and young adult years in Egypt, middle-and upper-class women did not cover their heads except in rural Egypt and among lower classes with peasant roots. Peasants, both men and women, covered their heads for protection from the blazing Egyptian sun while working in the fields. For them, head covering was a practical matter and was regarded as more traditional than religious.

  At the time I left, Egypt had a 70 percent illiteracy rate; thus most Egyptians could not read the Koran, let alone understand it. Among this huge illiterate population, especially women, there was very little knowledge of the Koran, or even of Islam in general.

  This must be very hard to understand by Western standards. Outsiders assume the Middle East is very religious. It is, after all, known to be the land where radical Islam rules, but many in the Middle East have never even read the Koran or interpreted it. How can someone live in the heart of the Muslim world, where the famous historical Islamic institution Al-Azhar University is located, and know so little about Islam? But that is precisely the point. Most Muslims have little or no education in Islam. Why? Such education would end Muslim leadership’s total control over the minds and behavior of the masses. Their objective is to maintain a Muslim army of followers who fear to ask questions or to engage in debate or dissent. Muslims are safe as long as they are loyal followers and obedient to the national goal of jihad against the non-Muslim infidels, especially the Jews next door.

  In the Muslim world there are no real distinctions between moderate or radical Muslims; all are Muslims. Some practice and some don’t, and the ones who don’t may have views as radical as those who do practice. They also try to do all they can to publicly behave as good Muslims in order to keep the radicals off their backs.

  The Muslim masses have been prevented from any exposure to other ideologies or religions. A good Muslim must never look at other religious books such as a Bible. We were told it was the word of the devil. Non-Muslims together with their book are nagass, meaning “filthy” or “dirty.” Muslims often whispered the word nagass when describing Christian Egyptian Copts, especially after a disagreement with one. So reading or knowing anything from another religion’s holy book was a great sin and a threat to the Muslim establishment, and everyone knew it and abided by it. (We knew that some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, put those who carry Bibles in jail.) As a result of these prohibitions, most Muslims know nothing about other religions or how close Islam is to both Judaism and Christianity. For instance, they never associate the great feast in Islam with the biblical story of Abraham and his son Isaac, but with a Muslim Abraham (Ibrahim) and his son Ishmael. Yet it is the same story, essentially. I remember it was news to my aunt, an upper-middle-class woman, when I told her that Jews also do not eat pork. She said: “Are you serious? They are like us?” She was even more amazed when I told her that their religion preceded ours and that many Muslim religious stories are similar to the Bible stories Judaism and Christianity hold dear. Nor do the masses know that officially Islam recognizes Moses (Mussa) and Jesus (Issa) as prophets, though they are not considered as important as Muhammad, the “final” prophet. We were simply kept in the dark as to the bigger picture. When questions were raised, there was only one answer: Islam is the last religion. It was final and everyone should follow it. The truth is that most Muslims are a part of “political Islam” rather than a religion and a personal relationship with God. Furthermore, the nonpracticing Muslims are often as biased, extreme, and supportive of jihad as the religious extremists.

  The values of Muslim society, as it is constituted at the present, cannot survive in a democracy where individuals would have a right to question, debate, change religions, or choose to have no religion at all. As it is, the Muslim faith is assured—even in so-called moderate Muslim countries—through fear, shame, intimidation, imprisonment, and finally by a death sentence. That requires tyranny.

  But I had left that all behind. Now I lived in a democracy, one in which religion is neither proscribed nor coerced. I could now choose to worship or not worship, be observant, or not be observant. Now that I was in America, I could practice my religion in an environment of inclusion befitting the great democracy that many of us Arab Americans went through hell to arrive at. I presumed I would be meeting enlightened, educated, Westernized Muslims in American mosques. Being in America, these mosques would of course welcome women. I envisioned that now we could be like Christian and Jewish families who gather together one day a week to worship God in a tolerant community that has respect for all other religions. I was looking forward to thoughtful, moderate sermons more reflective of American religious tolerance instead of calls for the destruction of the infidels by clerics who incited anger, revenge, and intolerance. Those days were behind me. I was in America.

  When a close friend of my family from Egypt came
to visit us in Los Angeles, my husband and I decided to dress up our children and all go to a mosque. It would be a new experience for me. I had never worshiped in mosques in Egypt. But in America, we Egyptian women were now given the same respect as men and were free to attend a mosque. In retrospect, perhaps I also wanted to please my Egyptian friend and show him how “enlightened” American Muslims were.

  I brought a scarf with me and put it on my head as I entered the mosque. It felt strange to cover my head, something I had never done before. Men and women were separated, so our guest and my husband went to the main hall of the mosque where men gathered and I took my children to a children’s area (much like a church’s Sunday School) where I met a woman who was in charge of the children. I said hello, and without even responding to my friendly greeting, she said, “You should cover your daughter’s head.” My daughter was only six years old at the time. The woman had an Egyptian accent so I asked her about Egypt. She denied she was from Egypt and claimed she was Kuwaiti. I’m guessing she was an Egyptian who lived in Kuwait for a while and felt more proud of her links to “rich” Kuwait than to Egypt. As I left the room she told my daughter not to come without a head cover again.