Lusaka has been great to me. People are friendly and nice and extremely hospitable and humble. Pollution has to be at a minimum being although I'm living in a capital city. The weather is awesome, I love it! There are nice places to visit too although I've been only been to a few due to the unbelievable cost! =C
Over the weekend, my colleague invited me for a poetry slam here in Lusaka called Bittersweet. I've been to a few open mics/poetry slams in Malaysia and I am all up for any artsy event, so I was quick to say yes! We arrived at the Mulungushi Conference Center (I've been here once before for a friend's friend's wedding) only to discover like a whole bunch of people who seemed to be regulars with "Bittersweet" and "Please Don't Snap" T-Shirts. It was a nice cozy room with really good acoustics. We didn't wait long for the event to start. When it finally did, I was BLOWN AWAY with the talent that was there , on stage that night. The precision in what they said, their expressions, the poetry and the passion! There were also amazing singers, so young and just the most amazing voices accompanied with no music...I enjoyed that more than anything else that night.
It's been almost a year I've been in Lusaka, so by now I was used to the Jesus/Christian themed everything wherever I went. I told myself I'll concentrate on the deliverance of it all and that was what I did for the first 5 people that spoke about Jesus, being reborn, being saved, being loved.
People gave them standing ovations! Everyone stood from their chairs and oh no one clapped, too mainstream I think?...everyone snapped (their fingers)!
I'm no poet. I'm not a writer either. The most passionate I've been writing are on my blog and on Facebook. As I sat there watching these amazing young people recite their poems, what got me thinking was the passion that oozed from every single one of them , from their poems. They felt this deep connection with their religion/Jesus, sooo deep , something which of course I can't possibly fathom. Before taking the plunge to a full non-faith life, I never was very religious to begin with. But hey, I was cool with this. In a country with such a high unemployment and poverty rate, where people come from backgrounds of having no hope, of in fact a worst culture of voodoo and "black magic"...it's comforting that they have found hope, many have denounced such habits and feel loved and loved themselves. I was also happy to hear almost all of them condemn the churches for their greed in getting "donations" from the poor (If you want to open a church and make money, come to Africa. New churches sprout like mushrooms here). Almost all of them spoke about loving themselves too, which was awesome!
It was great till it neared the ending and a few people came up on stage and by now the atmosphere was getting more tense. People were fired up. The next act started off with condemnation of politicians, and I thought to myself, YES! I am going to love this. Then it slowly changed, they started condemning the women liberation movement. They called them "ungrateful". They questioned women who seek equality because they claim we were not made to be equal and that we should "shut up" and not be "stupid". The level of snaps around the room grew louder! Then they moved on to homophobia (of course this only seemed logical, Lusaka is way more homophobic than KL I think) calling homosexuals "fags" and asking why God would have made a man's seed full of life if it were to be wasted. MORE SNAPS! Then the final slash to my already beaten down consciousness, evolution. Scientists were filling our heads with lies they said, that there is no way we could have "come from monkeys" while still having monkeys around and that science had no explanation of how everything began. This was the final bit, everyone rose from their seats and snapped their fingers so hard and loud and were screaming in support!
Here we are again: from love and hope, to ending with hate. This was it. I wanted to go home. It was the end, thankfully for me. But at that moment, I felt completely alone. I looked around me and everyone was hugging each other patting each other on the back for the good job they've done. My colleague left with more hatred, more conviction for his hatred of the "gay kind" and the "believers of evolution"... I guess that included me.
I woke up the next morning to yet another whatsapp message he sent me on all the famous people who spoke openly about their atheism or made some joke about Jesus and then all died painful deaths. This has become almost routine for me, messages saying I'll be going to hell for sure. I take no offence to someone having so much faith in a God, I do however take offence when your faith promotes hatred towards others and you finding the need to condemn me and other people every chance you get. I might now need to search for the holiest people who all died horrible deaths too , I'll probably include a message like "How you die has nothing to do with how religious/unreligous you are. Now let's spend some time and think about how we have trivialised and used people's horrible deaths (which must have left plenty of people around them sad and devastated) to prove a ridiculous point. "
My closest friends here are my colleagues. I spend the most time with them and share the most with them. Obviously I did not tell anyone I was an atheist when they asked me, but this grew harder and harder to conceal. While it was easy to say I'm Hindu when people asked me (which they always do within 5 minutes of meeting me; What are you?) It was impossible to support someone, or be in agreement with someone who openly condemned homosexuals or supported the very common act here of spying into houses with more than one male resident so they could report them to the police if they were up to "no good". It was also impossible to stand by and listen as people spoke about women and their duties in societies and in families that must be given priority before education or any other choice a woman makes. Also, the crazy support of tearing "skimpy" clothes off of women to teach them a lesson.
So some time back, my colleague and I had the talk...of religion, women and gay-ism. I was honest about my opinions and he seemed respectful of it. He ended it by saying "The greatest gift I can offer a friend, someone I love is the gift of Christ, so here *he handed me a glass of water* take this if you want to be saved because it's inevitable that you won't go to heaven if you don't believe in Christ." I was disappointed that he chose to say this even after knowing me and the goodness within and although I was pretty thirsty, I chuckled and said "No Thanks!" but since then, his quest of showing me the light has not ceased. I am constantly invited to go to church although I've said I have no interest in going to one (unless they had an authentic African choir singing) and the "righteous" whatsapp messages and then the constant comments of something chauvinistic and absurd every now and then just to see me react.
In the past year, I've learnt to conceal my true self. Well, re-learnt. It feels like being back in school: when saying you supported women's rights and were an atheist was taboo. I spent a few years breaking out of that and finally found great people (regardless of gender/religion) to surround myself with and I got to be who I was.
Being in Lusaka has taken me back to THAT time, so many years ago. It must be hard for the non-religious people who live here, more so if you're alone. I never thought I'd say this but I especially miss being the atheist/feminist person I was/am in Malaysia, also not being hounded/provoked every other day just for a reaction.
Over the weekend, my colleague invited me for a poetry slam here in Lusaka called Bittersweet. I've been to a few open mics/poetry slams in Malaysia and I am all up for any artsy event, so I was quick to say yes! We arrived at the Mulungushi Conference Center (I've been here once before for a friend's friend's wedding) only to discover like a whole bunch of people who seemed to be regulars with "Bittersweet" and "Please Don't Snap" T-Shirts. It was a nice cozy room with really good acoustics. We didn't wait long for the event to start. When it finally did, I was BLOWN AWAY with the talent that was there , on stage that night. The precision in what they said, their expressions, the poetry and the passion! There were also amazing singers, so young and just the most amazing voices accompanied with no music...I enjoyed that more than anything else that night.
It's been almost a year I've been in Lusaka, so by now I was used to the Jesus/Christian themed everything wherever I went. I told myself I'll concentrate on the deliverance of it all and that was what I did for the first 5 people that spoke about Jesus, being reborn, being saved, being loved.
People gave them standing ovations! Everyone stood from their chairs and oh no one clapped, too mainstream I think?...everyone snapped (their fingers)!
I'm no poet. I'm not a writer either. The most passionate I've been writing are on my blog and on Facebook. As I sat there watching these amazing young people recite their poems, what got me thinking was the passion that oozed from every single one of them , from their poems. They felt this deep connection with their religion/Jesus, sooo deep , something which of course I can't possibly fathom. Before taking the plunge to a full non-faith life, I never was very religious to begin with. But hey, I was cool with this. In a country with such a high unemployment and poverty rate, where people come from backgrounds of having no hope, of in fact a worst culture of voodoo and "black magic"...it's comforting that they have found hope, many have denounced such habits and feel loved and loved themselves. I was also happy to hear almost all of them condemn the churches for their greed in getting "donations" from the poor (If you want to open a church and make money, come to Africa. New churches sprout like mushrooms here). Almost all of them spoke about loving themselves too, which was awesome!
It was great till it neared the ending and a few people came up on stage and by now the atmosphere was getting more tense. People were fired up. The next act started off with condemnation of politicians, and I thought to myself, YES! I am going to love this. Then it slowly changed, they started condemning the women liberation movement. They called them "ungrateful". They questioned women who seek equality because they claim we were not made to be equal and that we should "shut up" and not be "stupid". The level of snaps around the room grew louder! Then they moved on to homophobia (of course this only seemed logical, Lusaka is way more homophobic than KL I think) calling homosexuals "fags" and asking why God would have made a man's seed full of life if it were to be wasted. MORE SNAPS! Then the final slash to my already beaten down consciousness, evolution. Scientists were filling our heads with lies they said, that there is no way we could have "come from monkeys" while still having monkeys around and that science had no explanation of how everything began. This was the final bit, everyone rose from their seats and snapped their fingers so hard and loud and were screaming in support!
Here we are again: from love and hope, to ending with hate. This was it. I wanted to go home. It was the end, thankfully for me. But at that moment, I felt completely alone. I looked around me and everyone was hugging each other patting each other on the back for the good job they've done. My colleague left with more hatred, more conviction for his hatred of the "gay kind" and the "believers of evolution"... I guess that included me.
I woke up the next morning to yet another whatsapp message he sent me on all the famous people who spoke openly about their atheism or made some joke about Jesus and then all died painful deaths. This has become almost routine for me, messages saying I'll be going to hell for sure. I take no offence to someone having so much faith in a God, I do however take offence when your faith promotes hatred towards others and you finding the need to condemn me and other people every chance you get. I might now need to search for the holiest people who all died horrible deaths too , I'll probably include a message like "How you die has nothing to do with how religious/unreligous you are. Now let's spend some time and think about how we have trivialised and used people's horrible deaths (which must have left plenty of people around them sad and devastated) to prove a ridiculous point. "
My closest friends here are my colleagues. I spend the most time with them and share the most with them. Obviously I did not tell anyone I was an atheist when they asked me, but this grew harder and harder to conceal. While it was easy to say I'm Hindu when people asked me (which they always do within 5 minutes of meeting me; What are you?) It was impossible to support someone, or be in agreement with someone who openly condemned homosexuals or supported the very common act here of spying into houses with more than one male resident so they could report them to the police if they were up to "no good". It was also impossible to stand by and listen as people spoke about women and their duties in societies and in families that must be given priority before education or any other choice a woman makes. Also, the crazy support of tearing "skimpy" clothes off of women to teach them a lesson.
So some time back, my colleague and I had the talk...of religion, women and gay-ism. I was honest about my opinions and he seemed respectful of it. He ended it by saying "The greatest gift I can offer a friend, someone I love is the gift of Christ, so here *he handed me a glass of water* take this if you want to be saved because it's inevitable that you won't go to heaven if you don't believe in Christ." I was disappointed that he chose to say this even after knowing me and the goodness within and although I was pretty thirsty, I chuckled and said "No Thanks!" but since then, his quest of showing me the light has not ceased. I am constantly invited to go to church although I've said I have no interest in going to one (unless they had an authentic African choir singing) and the "righteous" whatsapp messages and then the constant comments of something chauvinistic and absurd every now and then just to see me react.
In the past year, I've learnt to conceal my true self. Well, re-learnt. It feels like being back in school: when saying you supported women's rights and were an atheist was taboo. I spent a few years breaking out of that and finally found great people (regardless of gender/religion) to surround myself with and I got to be who I was.
Being in Lusaka has taken me back to THAT time, so many years ago. It must be hard for the non-religious people who live here, more so if you're alone. I never thought I'd say this but I especially miss being the atheist/feminist person I was/am in Malaysia, also not being hounded/provoked every other day just for a reaction.
