#prayformunich

**Story Time**

Two days ago an 18-year-old boy conducted a horrible crime by murdering innocent people in my home country Germany. Before his motives weren’t even public, people were eager to put up all kinds of assumptions claiming it was an evil act of Islamic extremism. It is interesting how quiet some people became after it got public that the German boy of Iranian decent had no ties with Islam, in fact was not even a Muslim, but a young man who was inspired by right-winged extremism. Eight out of the nine victims of this young men were Muslims. In a video footage you can hear him say ‘ I am German’ when someone insults him as a ‘Kanacke’ (insult for foreigners). And now I am really wondering where all this outrage of yesterday has gone?

‘You see what happens if we let in refugees?’

Some news sources claim that the offender seemed to have a fascination for right-winged and islamophobic organisations. It is claimed that he has been bullied all his life for not being a ‘real German’ and therefore started to identify himself with racist offenders such as Breivik. Yesterday I already posted that this societal exclusion is still a current problem in Germany. While I am not trying to justify his horrible act, I hope I can give you a little bit of perspective.

‘If your father would not live here he would beat you. Also, you would have been forced into an early marriage and you would have gotten a genital mutilation’

This sentence was thrown at me, in front of the whole class when I was 12 years old by my ‘ethics and religious studies’ teacher. It was a reaction to my comment when I tried to correct her that ‘beating and especially genital mutilation’ is not an aspect of Islam.

‘Daliah, I am afraid I have to put you into the afternoon class for special German lessons with the other foreign kids’

Actually I was one of the best students in ‘German class’. In fact, I had straight A’s. This was my favorite class. I was seven or eight years old and forced to take afternoon lessons with children who did not speak proper German yet, because she believed it would ‘benefit my integration’. The fact that I was born and raised in Germany and that it was my first language did not interest her (of course until my parents gave her a taste of hell).

‘I am sorry I am not allowed to play with you, because my mother says that I am not allowed to play with foreigners’

This was one of the first rejections I have faced. I was four. Anne was my Kingergarten friend, but her mother (in cooperation with other mothers) decided that it would be ‘confusing’ for her child to play with a child who has a multicultural background. If you think that isn’t already crazy enough, then you should know that they also arranged a ‘conference’ including my very racist Kingergarten teachers to discuss the issue of the threat of ‘otherness’ on their children. (I would like to add that I met Anne again when we were teens and she told me very proudly how she much she loves shagging Turkish boys. In this sense, big shout out to her Mama.)

I could bring a million examples of my own life. And another million of my friends, cousins and brother who all have their own stories. These stories formed us. They created our weaknesses, fears, complexes and insecurities. But they also empowered us, taught us kindness, acceptance and tolerance, things we were longing for as kids and in our development. Yesterday I wrote that is hard to remain sane if all you know is social exclusion. Of course none of us turned into a racist, a murderer or terrorist, but the possibility to slip into paths like these is not impossible.

What this guy did is horrific and unacceptable. But what society does to others is too.