Islamophobia or nah?

Lately I’ve been really bothered about some things happening in the world. As someone who’s always been surrounded by non-muslims my entire life, I believed in mutual respect. My non-muslims friends made me believe that people can show respect towards everyone no matter what your gender, religion or colour of your skin is. But I guess I was wrong.

 A couple weeks back I read an article about banning the bourkini in France and to be absolutely honest I couldn’t care less, because I never wear the boerkini apart from the beaches in Turkey. But then, the same discussion started in Belgium and again I wasn’t really bothered. After reading a couple of articles I also read comments of normal people. I was wondering what the normal citizen of Belgium things about this. I was heartbroken and sad. The people I surround myself with, the people whom I thought respected me, respected what I wear weren’t that respectful at all. People were writing about muslims taking over their country and forcing them to cover up, grow a beard or whatever. Is this really what they think? Do they really think we are going to force them to be like us? What kind of mindset is this?

 Having your tits out is okay but covering up is not? These women choose to cover up for God, no one but no one else can force them to do such thing. Opression doesn’t exist in Islam, but it does exist between muslims. Do some men force their wives to cover up, of course they do, but does that mean that every muslim women is being opressed? No it doesn’t.

 The bourkini does the oposite of what the Western world thinks it does. It gives a women more freedom. The freedom to enjoy the sea, because eventually that’s what they want to do. By banning the bourkini you’re literally taking their freedom to enjoy a good day at the beach.

I, a muslim girl living in Belgium don’t feel respected anymore. I was born and raised in Belgium and yet I still hear people telling me to go back to ‘my country’. I guess that we have to accept the fact that we live in a world in which having your bum and tits out is respecting good morals more than covering it up.