It's really not the same. Here I am on Friday, the last day really of my project. After what happened on Wednesday, I discontinued wearing the hiijab and the traditional clothes, and went back to wearing what I normally wear. I still said my prayers, I still followed the diet rules. I went about the traditions as I had while wearing all of it.
But it wasn't quite the same. It didn't feel right. Dressed as I usually am in jeans, a tshirt, and sneakers, I didn't feel like I was connecting to the religion as solidly as I had while wearing the hiijab. Which, I supposed, might be some of the point. Because it isn't just going through the motions. You have to fully envelope yourself in the belief, the custom, and the tradition of Islam for it to truly mean something.
It's just a shame to me that my experience of such a complex, devout religion had to be hurt by the fear that if I put the hiijab on again, something worse than a bowlful of cottage cheese would come my way. Maybe by the same hands, maybe by others. Because unfortunately, those three boys, who will hopefully be identified by camera come Monday, are not the only ones with this misguided hate inside them. Misguided, yes. Meaningless. Hate in and of itself is bad enough, but a hatred based on lies and one's own insufferable resistance to the very idea of, gee, I don't know, learning a little bit about someone who's different than you are-- that's worse. That kind of hate is an acid. It's an acid that spreads and oozes and creeps and eats away at any logic and cooperation there might be left.
There are plenty of bad people in the world. There are plenty of bad people in America, people who grew up Christian, ate their vegetables, prayed to Jesus and still found it within themselves to commit terrible acts against humanity. Yet how many people wearing crosses or crucifixes around their necks are frisked at the airport? How many of us get nervous when we realize we're on the same flight with a priest? No. The truth of the matter is, yes, the Taliban exists. Yes, there's a pocket of radical Muslims out there screaming Death to America. This fear we Americans have when we're on any type of public transportation and spot a man in a turban, or a woman in a bhurka or hiijab, this is not an innate fear. We have learned to hate and fear these people because the sad fact is, gossip spreads faster than truth, and bad news travels faster than good news. We want someone to fear. 9/11 just gave us another excuse to do that.
Truth be told, I missed the hiijab. I won't say I missed the long skirts, because I have always felt way more comfortable in jeans. But when I left my dorm room Thursday morning without the hiijab, I felt exposed. Three days I'd worn my hiijab from the time I left my room to the time I went to bed at night, and never went outdoors or in the company of other people without it. Then because of one act of bigotry and misguided hatred, I was forced to resume my "Westernized" identity, for fear that something worse would happen to me if I didn't. Ah, did you catch that? Fear. I was afraid. Afraid to express and represent 'my' religion, an identity I'd taken on for a week. And it struck me: as only a 'pretend' Muslim, I could go back and change into jeans and a tshirt and expose my blonde hair, and I could see those same three guys again and they probably would never know I was the same girl. I could hide. I could hide behind my makeup and hairspray and rainbow-Technicolor shoelaces, but a real Muslim, a practicing Muslim woman doesn't have that option. If someone dumps food on her hiijab, she must wash it and dry it and wrap it back around her head and take on another day, keeping her head down and avoiding dark alleys. And that's not fair. The fact that I could dress up as anything, a nun, a hooker, heck, I could probably wear an "I Love Nixon" tshirt and nobody would touch me (haha, bad political humor)-- I would go virtually unharmed dressed as anything else.
But dressed as a Muslim, I was laughed at. I was pointed at. I was stared at. I was hated, and I was blatantly assaulted.
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