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(Sorry for opening this thread again, but I don't want to create a new one since it has to do with islam)

Open letter from an ex-Muslim:

For me today, Mother's Day has hit me a little harder than usual.
I clearly remember my mother's text message a few years ago, with the blunt message : Forget that you have mother, father and siblings, goodbye and thank you.
What led up to that message, I will of course try to describe.
My childhood has been good, all in all. Growing up in Ribe, the oldest town in Denmark, is not all bad.

All my friends were Danish, because at that time there were not so many with immigrant background (as there are now)
My parents let me and my younger siblings watch Christmas calendars, even though we didn't celebrate Christmas. I could stay over at my ham-eating childhood friend Lars' house and we would play Nintendo all night.
I spoke Danish at home without being forced to speak Arabic.
Of course, there were also things in my childhood that I now believe my parents did wrong. But I am a grown man today, and I can forgive, and I know that all parents make mistakes. Often the mistakes are made out of the best intentions.

All in all, my childhood was marked by great freedom, and my mother has always been a security for me, and the one who has always tried to keep the family together.
Even with Koran reading and learning to pray, my parents gave up pretty quickly because I would rather watch cartoons on German RTL, and was probably just as stubborn as I am today. I didn't want to.
But.
I noticed as a child how Islam played a significant role at home, but never outwardly.

When my parents were visited by Muslim friends from other cities, like Odense, Esbjerg and Copenhagen, there was a social control. Of course, I didn't understand it at the time, but when their friends made judgmental comments like "why doesn't he speak Arabic" about me, or when the guests showed a certain contempt for the fact that my friend was a Dane (Lars)
Each time, Islam was the argument brought up for me to speak Arabic and stay away from Danes. You can be friends with Danes, but only to talk about "amazing Islam."
That social control only intensified when we moved from quiet Ribe to the second floor of the ghetto in Kolding Skovparken.
I have thought for many years that my parents chose this because they missed more of "their countrymen peers."

But the reality has been that they were afraid I was becoming too Danish.
In Skovparken, I started as a root, along with the other roots. Neither a good citizen according to society, nor a good Muslim according to the Muslims.
But I went from being a mess, to changing my social circle, and eventually also getting married Islamic to a woman in a headscarf.
Suddenly there was recognition and it was called "mashallah" from strangers I didn't know.
My mother was proud. My father was proud. But I was really lying to myself.

This Islamic environment I was in was so full of hatred for everything Danish.
I was now part of the very segment that pressured my family back then in Ribe.
What the hell was I doing there? ?
I lacked the courage to speak out loud and clear. And at the same time, the pride of my mother and father, was also something that filled. Could I really be "known" to throw all that on the ground now?
Allah meant nothing to me at this point. So the fear of Allah's punishment and the religious prison were long gone from me personally.
So what was I doing here, calling myself a Muslim outwardly and trying to live up to the expectations there are ?
Danish work colleagues could feel a change in me and I was aware of it myself.
I had to do something about that.
I couldn't lie to myself anymore.

But I shout out loud today that I am EX-MUSLIM because I believe the umbilical cord needs to be cut completely. No halfway solutions, or "interpreting Islam my own way"
No matter how much I tried to interpret Islam, it was basically a lie to myself and an attempt to justify it to myself.
And it created increased pressure on my parents when I started shouting out loud.
Angry Muslims contacted my parents when they read a post from me, or a post on Facebook. Hoping to get me corrected.
It didn't work. I continued

People who showed up at the address threatening didn't help either. I continued.
Eventually the pressure was so great that they then chose to slap my hand off.
But even that, I see only as a desperate attempt to get me straightened out.
A manipulative attempt to play on my conscience. (How can you do that to your family etc)
But I continue.
Dear mother, I love you, but it is really you who must come to terms with the people around you and your shared Islam. I don't want to, and I'm not going to pretend that I do.
I write this publicly because I know others are watching. You know, the ones who apparently think you are bad parents because you let me become "too Danish".
I don't think you're bad parents, but you've just let yourselves be guided by their talk of what "true Islam" is.
Forget Islam, and forget those who are now trying to shame you because your son is pulling down the underpants of Islam in public.
I am still the boy you see in this picture. And if you want to let religious social control run the relationship here, go ahead, but it will be without me.
I have my family here, and we're expecting another child. I am an ex-Muslim, and will remain so tomorrow.
Happy Mother's Day.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

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