Today’s conversation.

“Here, read her message,” I passed my phone to a friend. “I hope you understand Malay.” I continued.

Adek ni anak yg derhaka. X takut bt(buat) maksiat n x tahu malu, Ingat Hukum ALLAH teramat pedh. Ibu ini x redha atas akhlk(akhlak/kelakuan) kamu yg jahil(bodoh) INGAT HUKUM ALLAH pd orang yang derhaka..

- Umie my mother, through sms.

When i was younger, i used to study 2 foreign languages; Scandinavian and Deutsch. In my phonebook i used Min Mor for my mother, Min Far for my father, Min Søster and Min Bror for my sisters and brothers.

When i was in university, i wrote everything in foreign languages – the schedule, the lecture notes, the secret notes, all were in either Scandinavian, Deutsch or English. But my mother tongue is still Malay of course.

I studied foreign languages not because i hated my native language, it was because i loved to make contact with the outsiders, to make friends and to share stories. And these languages were elective, i didn’t have to take them at all. I took it at my will. Extra credit.

All these years, all i wanted to do was only one thing; to connect with the people of the world. And to share what i have with them.

But when your mother reads your blog and she thinks you have no morals because you drink wine to complement a good meal, or because you date the people, girls and guys alike, because you care to know what’s on their mind, i think she just feels threatened by this knowledge and thus cursing you and threatening you back.

The paradox of threatening a non believer is that you can’t use your personal belief to attack him/her. It will just not work.

“So she thinks you’re an ungrateful son because you don’t believe in what she does?” asked a friend.

“The thing is, i never provoked her. I just keep quiet since last Sunday. She just had to go through all the archive on my blog and to hurt herself more. And now, she can’t accept it and thinks i’m being ungrateful.” I said.

Until today, i never mentioned about my blog to my mother. I never asked her to read it. She found this blog herself and now she is hurt by the knowledge. To her, knowledge is pain. Her son should believe in what she believes in and that’s that.

“It’s kind of sad for a mother to curse her own son because her son doesn’t believe in her religion. This shows that religion at times surpasses the affection between a mother and a son,” said a friend.

And then we talked at length about the value and the need to establish mutual respect between people over the lunch.

Mother, one day, i hope to make you understand the importance of respecting other people’s beliefs. And no, i will not force you to practice it. You can continue to hate you kafir son for i am going to hell if that still is your belief. You can continue to threaten your kafir son with your belief.

Threaten me mother. Keep on cursing me and to resort to using profanities so you can cheer the victory for i have different perspective and for i don’t have the right to find the meaning of life by sharing the story of my life with the world.