(I met this woman in Bendigo—this is a true story) REPOST. BENDIGO STORY: If a mosque opens in Bendigo then I may have to leave…because I have seen it from the other side and I still have scars. My story, I was born in Australia. My dad was Muslim from Europe and my mother a Catholic, also from overseas. The way they resolved my “religion” was to let me decide when I was older. Although we didn’t go to church or mosque, my father remained firmly Islamic in his ways. My mother also saw to it that we didn’t live inside a Muslim community. It was through regular visits to the homes of school friends that I got to see how Australians lived. This was how I first learned that what was happening in our house, was just not right...and I began to rebel. The name my father cast on me translated to “feral” but I secretly wore it as a badge. Whenever my dad’s Muslim friends came to visit I would be commanded to serve them. However, I would insist on serving the women first and very soon my services were no longer required. However, it was during one such visit I learned about the circumstances of a daughter of one of my father’s friends. He had arranged for her marriage to a good Muslim family from his homeland. However his daughter, who considered herself too westernised for such a marriage, refused him again and again. Her body instead was shipped in a coffin to her would-be husband as a sign of goodwill between the families. I was horrified at this conclusion of her disobedience. My mother refused to ever step foot in their house again. No one in that Muslim community said anything and if the police knew, then they too did nothing. That day I learned what it means in Islam that the father gives life to his children and wife, and has the right take it away. When it came time to attend university my father wanted me to go to one where a large Muslim community had a presence in the town, but I wanted the opposite. When I found that Bendigo had no Muslim presence at all, I opted to go there instead. I had often wondered why my mother didn’t divorce my father, whereas I had wanted him out of our lives from an early age. It was only after my father had became literally “beside himself” after he found out that the residence I was living in at the Bendigo university was “mixed”, that she finally decided to leave. She shielded me from his anger and stopped him pulling me out of university. That must have been the last straw for my father because he subsequently put a “hit” out on my mother. (He had also taken out a life insurance contract on my mother’s life as well…without her knowing some time before.) Unfortunately, he hired two undercover policemen to do the deed and then spent the next few years in jail for his crime. His friends disrespected him, not for wanting to kill his wife, but for not doing it himself. They labelled him a “coward” for asking others to do what he should have done. He died not long after he came out of prison. My mother and I both breathed a sigh of relief. You just don’t want this type of thinking in any community. Bendigo—Say no to the Mosque. (Name Withheld)
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 07:08:53 +0000
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