After attacks by the Islamic State across the world, the hate sentiment against Muslims has grown. People from the community around the globe have voiced discrimination on social media and how they are subjected to online hate just because they’re Muslims.
Similarly, Tumblr user Farha also faced her share but this time, instead of ignoring it as was usual, she decided to respond and in a way that won the Internet.
A Tumblr user messaged her, “Why Can’t Muslims Tell Other Muslims To Stop Killing?” Initially, she let it go but then it hit her that “that people actually might think like that.” Acting on her instinct, she wrote a blog for every person who shares the same thought process.
still the best thing i've ever written in my entire life probably pic.twitter.com/rrgxL8kEEU
— farha (@shutyourhell) January 31, 2017
Here’s what she wrote.
It’s a breezy summer day and the rustling from the leaves outside sound like whispers from my small apartment. I’m sitting in front of my laptop, silently studying the 1.6 billion faces speaking simultaneously in front of me. It’s Monday, the day of the weekly conference call between all Muslims. We have been required to attend this Skype meeting from the the tender age of fetus, but I had never spoken in one of them before.
That changes today.
“Hey guys, what if…” I start to say.
Nobody hears me, but I refuse to be silent. How could I show my face again on Tumblr if I couldn’t even save my mayonnaise friends from death? How could I expect to earn their respect? Anon was right; why hadn’t I done this before? Thousands of lives had paid the price for my ignorance, but not anymore.
“What if you guys….. stopped killing people.“
Suddenly, silence.
1,643,398,023 pairs of eyes are on me. My heart is in my throat as the ISIS leader gives me a blank expression.
A single tear rolls down my cheek. “Please.” I say with a broken voice.
He is moved.
“Aight”.
In case you didn’t get it, it’s an imaginary sarcastic conversation with an ISIS leader which obviously didn’t happen but custom made for those who believe any and every person from the community can speak to those who carry out the attacks like they know them on a first name basis. However, it didn’t stop and someone told her, “If you educate and TEACH Muslim to not be violent and change their ideology, then crimes would go down.” Responding to it, Farah came up with another imaginary satirical conversation.
My fingers are almost shaking as I carefully type in the ten digit phone number I have had memorized my entire life. The buttons on my home phone seem to glow a bit more dull, and even the ringing of the phone from the other end seems to be agonized, almost as if the world is telling me to hang up. But I refuse to give up; I can’t let my lily-white friends down. Not again.
The phone rings once. Twice. Three times. Still no answer. Just as I am about to hang up, there is a click.
All I can hear is heavy breathing.
“Hello….” I say quietly, my voice shaking. “Is….. Is this Muslim?”
There was a long silence before I heard a voice answer “ya lol.”
“I was thinking………..” I begin cautiously. “Maybe murder is…………bad.”
“Habibi, I…..I don’t understand. What are you trying to say….?” The voice seems shaken.
“What if…….world peace is good and killing people is…………not good”
He lets out an audible gasp. “Are you saying ISIS is…….bad?”
“Maybe death is…….not good.” I continue. My heart is racing. I remind myself that I am saving thousands of lives, and inhale.
The silence from the other end of the line is almost deafening. He seemed to be thinking, as if he had never considered this idea before in his life. Truly I had opened his heart and his mind. This…. This could end terrorism.
“Muslim….Please.” I whisper.
I hear a tear roll down his cheek, with my Muslim Communication Hearing™, and hold my breath as he finally breathes out his next words. “Kk.”
On February 1, Farha posted this conversation on Twitter which subsequently went viral.
“The reason I shared them again now is because of everything that’s happened recently, with the Trump rhetoric and Quebec mosque shooting, it’s getting more and more socially acceptable to hate Muslims.
From the day I started to wear my hijab I’ve had thick skin. Even this morning at the train station when I saw a man just standing by the door doing the nazi salute I was unphased, and when a man in the train started telling me to ‘stop blowing things up and go back to your country’ I just got off the train and took the next one. I’ve gotten that same ‘tell terrorists to stop’ message over and over again,” she told Buzzfeed.
