Hi everyone
OP - February 09, 2015, 06:57 AM
Hi everyone.
Call me Pan. Taken from Peter Pan (the quote, "To die will be an awfully big adventure," was the first to force me to think thoroughly of Islam's idea of post-death adventures - it must be awfully nice at 6 years old to think of having your face dragged along Jahannam), pansexual (I think of myself as one), frying pan (I am only now sure that you're supposed to cook with them, and that they're not for hitting little kids' bottoms), Pan the Greek god (I liked that he had the hind legs of a deer when I was 8 - I didn't know what "rape" meant at the time), and Pantalaimon (the main daèmon from Philip Pullman's "The Northern Lights", a "shubhat" book in my house, and therefore, being rebellious, a must-read). But you can call me whatever you fancy, really. I've been called pretty much every name known to men from Indonesia's slums so I'm not about to go berserk over any new ones.
So, I'm 17, and teetering on the edges of being an ex-Muslim in Indonesia. Never been out the country and always homeschooled, so I was never formally taught English (that's why I'm always happy if you would be so kind as to correct my grammar). Parents weren't the highest educated, but by Allah's will, my house was bang right in front of a small library stocking foreign-language books. Allah must have been a little nuts (or working in mysterious ways - wallahu a'lam) if he thought that giving me the keys to all sorts of knowledge would have placed me on the highroad to Jannah because here I am, in all my jinn-infiltrated, forcibly-ruqyah-ed glory.
I was a "good" Muslim in the early years, waggling my little bottom in the air muttering fervent prayers, making sure my breath was as horrid as possible during Ramadhan so that Allah could smell the musk on my pink prayer mat, diverting my eyes from the males on the streets, making my mum and dad the strong-smelling, gag-inducing Indonesian-specialty drink Bajigur in the name of birrul walidayn, and just generally shutting down my tiny, wildly inquisitive head.
As I grew and got to grips with both Islamic literature scattered around the house and other literature in the library, I gradually lost my shaking belief in the Qur'an and hadith. I found other written work that outshone the Qur'an. I found books that were far more eloquent. I found books that told of better heroes, better love stories, better human drama. "I don't need this shit," I told myself. But I was wrong. Because when you're a young girl living in a Muslim-majority country, you'll need that shit. You will so need it.
It is expected for you here to know "wrong from right". Wear a flowing hijab. Don't go out alone. Hell, don't go out at all. Don't speak unless you're told to. No makeup: do you seriously want to look like a slut? Pray for a good husband. These and other restrictions were placed on me. If I broke one, knowingly or unknowingly, oh we'll get the pan. You'll be subservient in the end, once we're done.
I came to realize that my mother and father weren't just "bad eggs", single-handedly "misinterpreting" Qur'anic verses and hadith, but that submission, suppression, aggression and dehumanisation were ingrained in the faith. And that my parents were just the result of a lifetime of drilled-in horrible totalitarian ideology.
I was already on my way out of Islam a year back when I was hit by a succession of depressive episodes where I yearned for moral guidance. OK, time to whip out the Qur'an and see if I missed something. Nope. Nothing. I figured those who could find moral guidance were either really loosey goosey in their interpretations of it, or they were like me. Afraid of not finding anything to adopt as spiritual fodder and faking that the good values already inside ourselves were distilled from the Qur'an.
Then I saved and got a phone. Besides being exposed to porn, cute cat pictures, and chain Facebook messages of how Muslim women are wrapped sweets, I was also exposed to more books. Oh my goodness, more books than I could ever imagine.
Now, I'm ashamed to say this and I know it's wrong, but I found a way to get paid Kindle ebooks for free. And I used that way. I mean, whose mouth doesn't water when you think of reading Hitchens, Dawkins, Ibn Warraq, Harris, Hume, Grayling, Baggini, Darwin and others for practically nothing. I'm very ashamed of it now, but seriously, Indonesia doesn't stock these kinds of books and reading their work was like having a friend reach out to me through all the confusion.
So I arrived at the crossroads. Ooh, choosing time! Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Good Muslim or good person?
I got stuck between the two. And haven't moved on from then. Choosing both has proved to be the worst decision of my life. And I've made tonnes of bad decisions. Granted, if I had been open about my apostasy I would have been kicked out, but what's worse: hiding in the space between my parents natural love for me and the suspicion that they have a murtad as their daughter or living on the streets and roughing it up? I'll dare to say that the latter is the least worst decision.
I'm pretending to love a loathesome god. I'm pretending to scour for self-worth from a book which does give me some, but then takes it all away. I'm pretending to believe I'm a slave, always under his watchful eye and never getting to experience true interaction with others. I'm pretending I'm not myself. "That just sucks," is what my usual teenage self would say.
I'm here hoping to get unstuck and choose just one path.
And I like it here. All of you are cool and I like seeing how much I have in common with other ex-Muslims.
Since I'm probably going to die in the same city I was born in, I am never going to indulge my "hedonistic" side. You know, the side that really wants someone I'm attracted to to hold my hand, to mingle freely with other humans, to let my hair blow in the wind, to be stronger for having gone through Islam. Oh, and also to go to the pubs that some of you talk of and getting tipsy. I'd like that.
So I like hearing how some of you are moving on and leading lives full of new hope and vigour. I feel happy knowing that maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to have a happy life of my own, without Islam.
Oh and do any of you happen to know of any other Indonesians on this forum? Would be nice if there were any.
Anyway, thanks so much for having me!
Topic: Hi everyone