“Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste, or any other social markers of difference. Religion, ethnicity, language, social and cultural practices are elements which enrich human civilization, adding to the wealth of our diversity. Why should they be allowed to become a cause of division and violence? We demean our common humanity by allowing that to happen.” Nelson Mandela

OK let’s be honest for once, you might hear and see in movies and western mainstream reported you that we are a bunch of rich people throwing money like candy, or we are uneducated, extremely religious and Homophobic, terrorists and war is everywhere, some people fully believe the first one and others fully believes the second one.  The truth is the majority of us are the product of both worlds, and some in the middle with liberated and open-minded, and educated wanting to live a free life without hating the other and we want to live in peace with each other.

 Why it’s fucked up to be a Middle Eastern?!  We never had peace in the middle east, when I was 2 years old 1990 there was a war, and in the mid-90s after couple of years there was explosions in my country that my dad had to take out of my ballet dancing class because extremist  groups threatened to explode ,  2003 there was another war and bigger than the previous ones and as a 15 years old being taught how to run to the school shelters while hearing the warning sirens, and told that we might stay at the school for a week because of the strikes, the a amount of people with PTSD in the middle east is skyrocketing and we don’t have time to deal with it because we are always to next thing and next war, and let’s talk about political assassinations and activists, 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2015 etc… let’s not forget that we are always anxious about it might be my country next, so we are always living on the edge and if religious group take the power, minorities like “ liberals, people who believe in secularism and girls like me pay a huge price”.

Since I was a little girl all I ever remember is war, war, and war, extremism, and dictatorships using people religious beliefs and ideology to stay in the power, the hate speech against each other, I grew up in a household where everyone was accepted, my mom and dad had friends from every background, race, religions Christians, Jewish, Hindu, etc… And all sexes and sexuality, I grew up loving everyone and only treat them as human beings and if you’re not kind you’re not welcome into my life or you use hateful speech or discriminate others that’s what I’m going t judge you for; until I started going to school and that I realized that 90% of Middle Eastern people are different than my household.

  Let’s be honest for once again, Anti-Semitism is a common thing here,   since we were little kids you heard your teachers and 90% of the society here will tell you that telling you that Jewish and Christians are the enemies, the western world is the enemy, all my teachers my whole life I was hearing this from school, religious homes would use the most famous quote every week’s speech, to burn them and to kill them and to hurt them, in the same time we have religious sects and each sect’s leader tells their people that the other is the enemy so they start killing each other, and most of the political leaders use that for their own interest, so countries here they burn books accusing them of Blasphemy and in the name of fighting atheism. 

We are living in the 21st century the barriers are gone you can’t content This generation “Millennials”  we want freedom, enjoying art, music, creating, living a free life, reading the books that we choose, we want to be part of the bright future where we can tweet, follow famous people, cheering for our favorite teams, falling freely in love, go on a date, walking the streets without the fear of being killed or judged for what you’re wearing, we want peace with other nations regardless of what’s your nationality, history, color, believes and sexuality and just judge each-other based on kindness and good deeds.

In the end, I want to sit at a table and have a conversation and laugh with everyone, whether you are Arabic, European, American, Latino, Russian, Israeli, Palestinian, Asian, Iranian, African, and Australian I want all of us to share happy peaceful conversations about life, living all of us in peace, share music, creativity and create the world that the old generation couldn’t build, let’s stop hating and judging and drive the wedge even further say that as a young generation in the middle east we want to be able to live the full freedom,  I want us to love one another as human beings away from politics, I want us Millennials to be able to sit on one table without the judgment we have that media and politician tried to tell us about our difference and becoming scared of each other. I just want this current generation to sit at one table with all our differences and leave the past behind us, leave hate behind us, leave all the political harmful thoughts that they planted in our mind about the other, the fear of the other and the fear of the unknown nations, and that’s why extremisms been winning from both sides. And Stop celebrating the imaginable victories, and fake peace, leaders in the region need to stop using their political and personal agendas by using historical and religious events to gain or sustain power. Stop living in the past.

We All Deserve to be loved and respected because LOVE IS LOVE

“Today we should all ask ourselves: What have I done to improve the surroundings in which I live?” Nelson Mandela

ShoroK♥♥