The hatred in his eyes

Emotions are part of human nature. They give us information about what we're experiencing and help us know how to react. Emotions get defined in your mind since your childhood, which, in fact, happens when you are still in the womb of your mother (the reason why pregnant ladies are asked to think of happy things) . We start defining and understanding our emotions in many different ways, Infants and young children react to their emotions with facial expressions or with actions like laughing, cuddling, or crying. They feel and show emotions, but they don't yet have the ability to name the emotion or say why they feel that way.

As we grow up, we become more skilled in understanding emotions. Instead of just reacting like little kids do, we can identify what we feel and put it into words. With time and practice, we get better at knowing what we are feeling and why. This skill is called emotional awareness.

Mostly, The very first emotion is the sense of security that the infant feels in the arm of his parents, grandparents or relatives. Safety, unconditional parental love. Therefore ‘Love’ is more or less the very first emotion that gets defined in the brain. Mind is but the invisible extension of the brain. Your thoughts get stored here. When your "sense of security" is threatened – you begin defending it. Your defense mechanism begins and you start forming a personality of your own, which is a set of your personal qualities, like being helpful, friendly, liar, cheater…etc. You tend to Love the positive qualities as it gives you a sense of security and you hate negative qualities that threatens your existence, but when you get used to those negative qualities and grow up with, it became something normal to you and sometimes it turns to personal habits , when you grow up seeing your parents as a criminals or the other people around you cheating, lying, stealing, murdering and hating each other, it's definitely going to affect on your personal behaviors, your way of thinking and your beliefs.

One of the very basic reasons of crimes in the world is hate. Hate defined as the feeling of intense dislike or aversion. hatred has been transformed from a concept perceived to be a by product of personal or collective violence into a discursive field. The 21st century might well be called the age of hatred. In 2018 the southern poverty law center tracked 1,020 hate groups across the United states and 34 in the state of Illinois alone. But the question is why do we have this large number of those hate groups, why do we have this huge number of haters in the world?! and why is that number still increasing instead of decreasing?!

When I read about hate in the world and the tragic crimes, I ask myself , why the hate?! Why do people hate each other that much?! My curiosity made me look up things and search for the roots and origins of hate, and the psychological reason behind it. Mostly we hate because we fear things that are different from us, This phenomenon is known as projection, described as our need to be good, which causes us to project "badness" outward and attack it we repressed the things that we thought were bad and we employ hate and judgment towards others. It's also like having a lack of Self-compassion, which happens when you have a low self esteem, when you feel that you're worthless and when you keep the hate inside your heart, you would hate yourself as well.

My name is William Lee. My story started when I was born in a state called New South Wales, in Australia. As a kid living in Australia, I used to see a lot of different people with different appearances and nationalities, at that time understanding diversity was a bit hard for me, also being raised by a racist parents played an important rule in my life. I was the first and the only child on the family, my dad used to work as security guard, and my mom used to work at a small company as an accountant. The relationship between my mom and dad wasn't good as it should be, they used to spend their free time after work arguing and fighting. They didn't have much time for me, or in another word they preferred to spend the time on their issues instead of paying attention to me. I can say that I grew up on an uncomfortable environment, where all I could hear is screaming instead of laughing. My childhood wasn't as beautiful and peaceful as how it should be.

One day my dad took me to the park, while we were walking around we saw an old Muslim man praying on the grass, I didn't know what he was exactly doing, I saw a disgusted look on my dad's face, I asked him dad what's wrong, he responded: nothing, but I wanted to know what was that man doing, so I asked him, dad what is he doing?! He said: "he's praying ON OUR PARK; why he doesn't go and pray on his country". I kept asking questions about it and he answered very briefly. At that time I didn't understand everything my dad said or meant, but what I understood was that he disliked that man.

I used to go with my mom to the grocery store one time, I saw a women wearing a scarf on her head, I couldn't see her hair like how I see my mom's, I asked my mom why is she covering her head like that?! I saw kind of the same look that my dad looked at the man on the park on my mom's face, them she responded on a sarcastic way saying "she probably doesn't hair hahahaha"

In primary school I had a friend named Mohammad, I used to spend my break time with him, we were good friends. One day his mom came to pick him up from school, she was wearing a scarf on her head, she said hi to me and asked me about my name, and suddenly my mom came and grabbed my hand and pulled me, and walked to the car quickly. I said what's wrong mom, she said: since when do you know this kid? and why you are talking to this lady , I said mom he's my friend and she's his mother, she said you're not friend with him any more, your're not allowed to talk to him from now on, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT! she said. I said why not mom, he's a nice kid. She wouldn't explain her reasons, she ended up the conversation by saying "They're TERRORISTS they're EVILS!"

With a lot of similar situations, I grew up with the idea of hating Muslims, and believing they're extremely bad, and every time I see them I disrespect them deliberately. That hate increased after I heard about the terrorism act of Stockholm attack. All I was thinking about at that time is how to revenge. My heart was full of hate, I spend most of my time on the internet doing researches and looking for people have the same perspective as mine, who can support my hate. I didn't accept the idea of settling, I wanted to do something , so I decided to move to the United states and specifically to the state of Virginia, and join the ACT for America.

One time I saw a Muslim lady walking by the neighborhood, the only thing that came up to my mind is that I want to hurt her by any possible way I can. I covered my face so nobody can recognize me, and I ran toward her and punched her on the face, and I start hitting her until she lost her consciousness and fell down. At that moment I took a step back and I looked at her and I looked at my hands with her blood on them. I start walking on a circles and looking around me, I asked myself WHAT THE HELL DID I DO?!!. Suddenly I found myself running away from her, running away from the crime I just did, I actually realized that I was running away from myself. I kept running until I couldn't take my breath, I felt that my heart stopped beating. I reached a place where there was nobody. I start screaming and crying, I felt so bad and confused, I couldn't even recognize myself or who I am, I felt so guilty, I saw myself as the miserable racist criminal who would murder the innocent people and do anything to hurt them just because the hatred motives inside him. Without even thinking I found myself running back home, I start collecting my stuff and I immediately left the country.

I felt lost, I spend days and months not doing anything but blaming myself. Eventually I realized that regret by itself won't change anything, I decided to change all of my beliefs and judgments on Muslims, I decided to be me not the one who the ACT wanted him to be, I decided to start following my own rules based on truth. I start doing researches about the good side of Muslims, the side that I prevent myself from seeing it before. After a lot of researches on it, and almost watching all of Dr.Zakir Naik's lectures and speeches. My admiration of how great and genius this person is made me want to meet him in person, so I went to one of his lectures and I asked to talk to him and I had the chance to. I asked him all of questions that I needed the answers of. I completely changed my point of viewing Muslims and the religion of Islam. After knowing what the real Islam is, I can't believe how wrong my thoughts were about it, and of how peaceful and amazing this religion is, I understood that all of those acts like murdering, cheating, stealing, cursing..etc, are all prohibited in Islam, and that a small group of people wouldn't necessarily represent the whole community, so a group of terrorists are not represent the whole religion of Islam.

It took me some time to know what I was actually looking and seeking for, it wasn't easy for me to change my whole life and become a completely new person, but now, I proudly say that I became a Muslim, and my only purpose now is that may Allah accept my contrition and forgive me for all of the sins that I've done before.