Lonely World

As I walked through the beautiful streets of Marrakech enjoyed the restaurants, took in local atmosphere a slightly un-nerving feeling tainted the scenery. Something wasn’t quite right, I was been starred at, ignored in a sense, left alone in a city where everyone seems to make friends. For what reason I thought to myself, surely I was imagining it.

Funny looks, looks of suspicion from my fellow British countrymen, somehow making me feel like I shouldn’t be there, I don’t fit the bill. Undeserving of my Birmingham accent and also making me feel like it is unbefitting for me to be walking around in my jeans and t-shirt I should be wearing my ‘own clothes’.

During my journey I saw so many travelers chatting making new friends in Marrakech. British people meeting British people having one thing in common, they all come from the same island. Yet many of them heard me speak in my English accent, most of them looked at me, and glanced with a troubling look. I don’t ‘look’ British, no white skin, no clean shave and no ‘posh’ accent. If you’re a Muslim traveler in the 21st Century, it’s a lonely world.

After my stay I headed to the airport, my favourite place. One can watch people and the, manner in which they look at you and attempt to figure out what they are thinking, what’s going through their mind. I make my way to the departure desk, there sits a Moroccan man, who looks more French than Arab, with his blue military uniform. He takes a look at my passport, there is a bit of a fold on the page with my picture on it, he strains his eyes, looks at the passport long and hard. He speaks with a French accent “Ali?”, “yeah” I reply casually, “what is your origin”, what does he mean and why? They never ask anybody else that question, I used to try and resist and say British and they would look at me like I was thick and say “no, your origin”, of course they mean ethnic origin. “Pakistani”, his eyes open wide, he gets up walks out his little cell like cubicle to talk to somebody else, the people behind me in the queue, all of them are concentrating on me, or the back of me. The officer consults his superior both of the men now stare at me. I'm thinking what the hell is their problem? They look through my passport several times, so I continued to wait, trying not to get annoyed. I know what they are thinking. I want to shout at them “you bloody idiots!, I am British, I speak English, I think in English and terrorists don’t go to airports and try and board planes with big beards on their faces”. What is the intellect of these people? In the departures hall a woman constantly looks over at me even starring at times. I sit behind her on the departure coach, I see her passport, it’s Australian, how dare she! How dare she look at me like that, don’t they still have our queen?

As I take up my window seat, I watch the rest of the passengers walk down the aisle, their eyes catching a look at me then their boarding card, ‘Oh God I hope I’m not sitting next to him’. Even Asians, British Asians look at me, I can tell as soon as they look at me they wish to distance themselves from me, ‘I’m Asian, but not like him’ or ‘not the same as him’. I can hear the BNP drum beating, even succeeding to divide the minorities. The only people that smile at me are the air hostesses and they get paid to smile, even if it’s a strained smile, its welcomed amongst a sea of unwelcome faces full of suspicion.

The man next to me, well one seat away, talks about me in French, his wife on the other aisle leans back to take a look at me. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt, he’s probably talking about how dashingly handsome I look in my beard. Forget the benefit of the doubt, he looks scared he sees me making notes in my pad, probably thinking I am taking notes on the running of an aircraft so I can take it over next time.

The world is changing as the war on terror continues, the media is infecting peoples minds with the propaganda of so called terrorism. Muslims are the new victims, targeted, viewed with suspicion if they step out the social norms of appearance. This war has even effected Muslims like myself into being paranoid about peoples opinions and thoughts about us, turning an innocent look into prejudice and racism. All this is causing an atmosphere of unease between what would normally be fellow citizens, travelers or just plain human beings.

By A Muslim Traveler