Global Changemakers

On Mondays, http://www.global-changemakers.net turns into Speakers’ Corner: members of the network and community have their say on their work and the issues that concern them.

Being brought up in a Western country with its unusual values, all I ever heard was “you’re free to do what you wish, this is a free country” Hmmmmm….. The word FREE kept cropping up… and for a certain period of time I believed I was.

 My idea of freedom changed at 3:10pm on the 11^th September 2001, as I walked home from school. How was I to know my life would change forever within the next 24 hours… Staring through a large shop front at Curries (electrical shop), I saw the first plane crash into the twin towers…a few  minutes later, the replay of the second plane crashing into the twin towers. My heart sank, not for the people who had been injured or who were missing, it sank for the dead…I always fear death, even to this day… The rest of the afternoon was fairly intriguing watching different news channels portraying conflicting ideas, Pakistan National TV stating it was an accident, the BBC accusing “Osama Bin Laden”, who was I to believe? I pondered throughout the evening, and decided it had it have been an accident, this was America we were talking about, the most secure country in the world with its powerful FBI agents (I think I watched too many American movies), surely the idea of a terrorist attack was unthinkable?

9/11, the day the so called Jihadi’s celebrated, Muslims around the globe mourned…It was the day, Islamaphobia was born… Islamaphobia challenged our rights to eat freely, dress freely and most importantly speak freely.

The UK seemed to have changed overnight, my so called friends turned on me as enemies.  I was alone in a predominantly white Caucasian region of the UK, alone physically and mentally. I was no longer British according to the remarks; I was simply a Muslim and a terrorist who had an input in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Words cannot express how saddened I felt, I had lost my British Muslim identity, I had lost my freedom, whatever I had to say was no longer applicable, I had lost my Freedom of Speech.

To this day, I still stand by my words “I don’t have the Freedom of Speech”, however it’s not because I am a Muslim or that I am British, it’s because the so called right doesn’t exist, not for me, not for you or anyone in this world. However, I couldn’t be more wrong by saying “Anyone”, individuals with power, authority and wealth can create rights to fit them, giving examples would be too political, which I attempting not to do.

The reason I write this piece, is for many reasons. For those who know me, I have recently moved to Switzerland to work for the British Council. I have met so many different people (non-work), who are very narrow minded and one sided in their thinking; Switzerland seems to be like a cage, where everyone inside that cage is tamed. My flat mate annoyed me the other day, he claimed he had the freedom to say what he wishes when he wishes…I actually could not stop laughing, and had to leave the room, though I was annoyed by his outburst, he had not been through what I had.

Later that same day, he asked me to explain myself, so I began the story from the beginning. His defence came “Salman Rushdie published The Satanic Verses in the name of Freedom, it worked” My smug answer being “where is he now? Hiding right? So he spoke in the name of freedom, then had to go into hiding, I don’t see the freedom in that…” He then mentioned the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in Denmark, again “that was in the name of the Freedom of Speech” I wasn’t getting through to him, and then came my biggest defence yet… “I am in Switzerland, the land of International Law, so hereby quoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 19 (YES, I studied Law), I have the Freedom of Speech right?”… He couldn’t see where I was going with this and agreed… “I therefore deny the Holocaust, advocate Paedophilia, agree with violence against women and believe that Shariah Law should be enforced worldwide…” He went bright red…stuttering “You can’t say that”… and that ladies and Gentlemen is my point entirely we do not have the Right to Freedom of Speech; we simply have different levels of tolerance and acceptance.  What hurts me the most is that, the world has seen Ethnic Cleansing and Crimes Against Humanity;  Chechnya, Rwanda, Kashmir and Armenia, yet they are all critically argued as to whether they actually took place, so why cannot the Holocaust be questioned in the same manner?  I am simply playing Devil’s Advocate, so please don’t take this point harshly. You see, for me the Freedom of Speech doesn’t exist, and thats my opinion.

We are simply living in a material world full of illusion; we think we have something when it has never actually existed…  I am a Global Changemaker, and my biggest aim is for all of us to be equal…socially, politically and economically. Let’s create that voice that I and so many others lost 10 years ago, let’s create letters into words, words into sentence and sentences which will end in FREEDOM… the Freedom of Speech.

 Please share your opinions…