h e l l o, b r o t h e r (christchurch)

Chapter 1: Friday

Yasmin's POV:

Today's Friday, March 15th, in Jersey City, New Jersey. For you, Friday is all about parties, watching funny movies on Netflix and relaxing. That's for me, but it is also a holy day for Muslims like me. On Friday, Muslims pray for Allah's holiness, for habibi, for salaam. My parents, from Kashmir, have escaped from persecution from the Indian Hindus who believed they were a threat to society— terrorists, as they say. But they weren't. Then came my sister Nora, who's in college right now, and doesn't give a care about what's going on around the world right now. She's dating this cute guy from Yemen, who she wants to marry, but I will forever love Jungkook from BTS. Other girls say "It's not realistic" but for me, he is the boyfriend of my dreams. But I'm a middle-class Muslim girl who's parents believe that she can't have a boyfriend, who has to follow every single rule of the Quran and wear an extremely uncomfortable headscarf over her head. Yeah, you get that. I honestly don't like wearing a hijab, I wanna be free. I support anything girl power, independent women, women's rights, all of that. There's girls in many Middle Eastern countries fighting for their rights and this is how I'm treated, in the freest country in the world. So today my Mom picked me up from school early so we can get ready to go to our local mosque, Masjid al-Noor, where I saw Nafisa Ahmed, my best friend since first-grade. She was at my history class, where she made a presentation on the Civil War— and I was her partner! Ms. Barnes, our old-fashioned U.S history teacher, gave us a high grade, and we came out excitedly for the weekend to begin. I asked Mom if Nafisa could come to al-Noor with us, and she and Nafisa's mom said yes, and we came into the mosque sitting next to each other, talking about that new "Captain Marvel" movie we watched last week, Women's History Month, the Youth Climate Strike that we sadly couldn't go to (the school didn't let us until we finished all of our work, which is pretty unfair), and Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign. Unlike Nafisa, I was really into politics, and issues such as social justice, women's rights and cultural identity. I remember a friend of mine, Kaliyah, who's cousin was shot by a gang member in 2017, her freshman year, and I felt really bad for her. She stopped coming to school, and went to a gun control protest the week after his death. But I wonder, could this happen to me? Or Nafisa? We were waiting for Imam Mahmoud (I mean, he takes like forever to come all the time), as I read Love, Hate And Other Filters by Samira Ahmed. It's a pretty good book about this Muslim girl who wants to rebel against her parents' religious beliefs and the hate that she gets all the time, and that kind of relates to me because I want to rebel against my strict parents, but at the same time, I really love them and I keep getting bullied because one of the few Muslims at the school. Nafisa was on her phone, looking at this TikTok video with Oprah, Trump and Obama at a plane together and it was pretty weird but she was laughing like really loud and it was pretty disrupting so her mom told her to turn it off or else she'll take it away from her. Then finally, after a thousand years later (Spongebob joke here), Imam Mahmoud came and wanted us to pray for all of the persecuted Muslims around the world. In Palestine, Kashmir, Myanmar and China, and I didn't even know that they started praying. "Pray, Yasmin!"  Nafisa said, I began as I started to hear like something very loud, like gunshots. I continued praying, but then it got louder, I told everybody to stop, but they didn't listen. "Yasmin! That's nothing!" Mom said, as somebody suspicious began knocking on the door. A man in front of me got up and opened the door and nicely said "Hello, brother" in a sweet voice, and then,

Bang. He's dead.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Gunfire exploded everywhere. People starting running.

"Yasmin! Yasmin! Run! Run!"

I quickly ran away as then,

He caught me. I began crying for help.

He pointed his assault rifle at me, I began praying.

He had already killed 45 of my people.

"What are you-"

"Praying. That's all. You don't understand Islam."

"Of course I do! It's practitioners are terrorists, thugs and invaders-"

"Enough! You don't know who I am!" I cried.

"OK! 3-2-"

"Yasmin!"

"Nafisa!"

"It's me! Now let's get out of here!"

"But where's-"

"Not now! Let's go go go!"

We ran out as he began chasing us. We've had gotten tired, but we continued running. And running. And running. Running until we couldn't see any sight of him.

As we ran, we saw police cars all over. They were looking for him. An officer came up to us and said "Do you see Brendon Thompson?"

"Brendon what-"

"Brendon Thompson, the man who shot up your mosque?"

"Yes, I, I think, I think-"

"Yasmin, don't cry!"

"Where is he?!"

"He's, he's, he's, he's near the altar!"

"We must find him! Go! Go! Go! You girls, run as quickly as possible."

"Yes, officer."

We ran to my house, where we tried not to think about what happened. My parents, still at al-Noor, we're fighting for their lives, and Brendon, was still firing. When the cops came, he finally surrendered, but the damage has been already done. My parents came to our homes late, and we hugged them for their unlikely survival. But 51 Muslim worshippers, were shot and killed, and it was just done in a few minutes. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. Nafisa meanwhile, she tried to control it, but couldn't. The next day, as you enjoyed your Saturday watching Netflix and listening to dance music loud, I cried, and prayed for the end of all of it.

We don't need thoughts.

We don't need prayers.

We need is policy and change.

And the young people will win.