Muslims, too, love AmericaA familiar evil has reached our beloved sanctuary of freedomHAYDAR BADAWI SADIG, Ph.D.
From the Charlotte Observer (Sept.15, 2001)
The time was 8:30 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 11. A few minutes earlier my wife, Asmaa, left for work and my 7-year-old son, Haddif, left for school. After helping my 4-year-old daughter, Samah, board her pre-K bus, I turned the TV on and went to prepare a bottle for my 9-month-old daughter, Amna. We both were extremely happy. She joyfully followed my moves, as she usually does, while I sang for her and headed toward the kitchen.
Then CNN brought home news that changed the whole mood.
My dear friend and neighbor Omer called to share his agonies with me. He told me that all his colleagues in the company he works for are in a state of shock and dismay as a result of the attack on America, so they were practically dismissed. He had hurriedly come home.
As we were talking, the first tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. Shocked, stunned, enraged, terrified, I couldn't control my tears. "Omer, will you come over, please?" I said.
I was wiping my tears as he entered the house.
Twenty years ago Omer and I were roommates at the University of Khartoum in Sudan. We both belong to the Republican Movement, an Islamic reform organization. We both came to this country on Fulbright scholarships. We both received graduate degrees from Ohio University.
We both moved to Charlotte and bought houses in this beautiful city to raise our children in the same neighborhood. My wife and his wife got jobs at First Union, in the same department.
The Republican Movement to which Omer and I belong calls for the abrogation of Islamic Sahr'ia laws and the institution of Sunnah, Prophet Mohammed's example and code of conduct. Furthermore, it calls for equality between men and women, based on the original precepts of Islam on individual responsibility before God and before the law. It calls for the equality of men and women of all races, creeds and religions, in all walks of life. This conception of Islam runs contrary to Islamic fundamentalism.
Omer and I have worked hard but peacefully to combat the fanaticism that breeds in the minds of Muslim fundamentalists in the Sudan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
On Jan. 18, 1985, the Sudanese government executed Ustadh Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, founder of the Republican Movement. All the Republicans, consequently, endured tremendous torture, humiliation and pain. Trade unions and some political organizations rallied the country into a huge rage against Islamic fundamentalism, which resulted in a full-fledged uprising that resulted in the overthrow of the dictatorship on April 6, 1985. A transitional military government took over to arrange for elections. One year later, there was an elected civilian government ruling the country.
I jubilantly left university teaching to join the diplomatic corps of Sudan, and Omer took a prominent position with Save the Children, an American organization that worked in Khartoum. We had a sense that our days with misery were over. But not for long.
In less than four years, fanaticism returned. A military coup again, this time with an extra dose of fanaticism and rage. More than 2 million Sudanese perished as a result of war, torture and inhumane detention. And it was under this government, which still rules the country, that the lord of terror, Osama bin Laden, found refuge and sanctuary before leaving for Afghanistan.
After finishing our graduate degrees, Omer and I decided to seek political asylum in the United States. I could not conceive going back to my post as a diplomat to represent such a terrible government.
Islamic fundamentalists have wreaked havoc on our native land, Sudan, and other areas in the Middle East and North Africa since then. And now they attack us in our new home, our beloved America.
All my children are American-born. They belong to this beautiful sanctuary of freedom. About a month ago my wife and I interviewed for American citizenship, culminating our hard struggle from terror to freedom. Or so we thought. We even thought we might forever be beyond the reach of evil. How little we knew!
As I hugged, kissed, fed and sang with my beautiful 9-month-old American, there were other American fathers and mothers being killed by the same forces of hate that drove me and Omer out of our native land to America. Our quest and struggle for freedom continues, as America, with all its might, comes under siege.
I have always loved this country, long before I came to it. But I never knew the depth of this love until Tuesday morning, until I cried for the pain this country is enduring, until I grieved for our human losses and the loss of freedom. But we won't let go. I, for one, will, as in the past, work to hit fanaticism of every kind, of every creed, head on, but through peaceful and thoughtful means. God bless America, and with America, by America, bless the world.
(عدل بواسطة Haydar Badawi Sadig on 01-18-2009, 09:20 PM)
(عدل بواسطة Haydar Badawi Sadig on 01-18-2009, 09:21 PM)
Haydar Badawi Sadig
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