EXCLUSIVE: I Am Not A Terrorist. I Am A Victim | A True Recall By Zeinab Saleh

I was in my first year at university, sitting in class doodling while the professor went on and on about Grammar.

I sat counting minutes away for class to be over and time to go home.

Then, all of a sudden the windows rattled for a bit, the class went still the only voice was that of our professor.

Not seconds later the building shook, and sound of an explosion filled the air.

The class broke into chaos and we got messages that two suicide bombers bombed themselves in front of Iranian Embassy.

Fear filled my insides, I was sweating and lost completely.

I started to panic, I was on verge of crying because I didn’t want to go home, not alone when the roads were so close to explosion area.

When it came to explosions, I was a wimp. I am afraid of death, then again who isn’t.
Fear
I took a cab and went to my brother’s college, it is 10 minutes away from mine, but my feet were too weak to carry me; I always felt safe around my family.
After I arrived to university, I met with my brother and he took me home even though he had a lecture.
He dropped me off and walked me inside home to make sure I was alright, then he took off back to college.
Little did I know, that this was only the beginning of many bombings.
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Two suicide bombers, targeting the embassy were the cause of deaths of innocent people who had nothing to do with it.
This maybe I get, they have issue with Embassy or whatever. What I don’t get is the bombings that followed, ones that were directed at citizens, places that were crowded with people coming and going.
What did a teenage girl ever do to be killed? A newborn? A child chasing around a ball? Did a small kid sitting in car waiting for his parents threaten you? Is that why you took away his parents?
The latest bombing happened during prayer time, in a very small crowded part in Beirut.
This time there wasn’t only two suicide bombers, but three.
Terrorist
One blew up, second died due to effect of first and the third was caught before he had chance to do anything.
The outcome of this horrible action was loss of many lives and of who? Babies, children, and innocent people who had no fault but were just passing by.
We are not terrorists, we are human beings.

A girl stands on debris next to a damaged building at a besieged area of Homs, August 2, 2012. Picture taken August 2, 2012. REUTERS/Yazen Homsy (SYRIA - Tags: POLITICS CIVIL UNREST)

But when those terrorists couldn’t get around to tough people, they decided to seek fight throughout killing random people who had nothing whatsoever to do.
Why do I have to live in fear in my own country, for actions I had no part in?

BEIRUT, LEBANON - AUGUST 19: on August 19, 2006 in the southern suburb of Haret Hreik in Beirut, Southern Lebanon. Most of the people going around in Southern suburbs of Beirut are Lebanese leaving in other neighborhood who came to see and photograph the destruction and to collect Hezbollah posters. Hezbollah pose banners on top of each destroyed buildings reading: " Made in USA, Trade Mark, The Divine Victory " the local residents are not coming back to leave to those areas due to the destruction, the suburbs are becoming an amusement attraction. (Photo by Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)

Do I have to suffer only because I am Muslim, and the world has labeled me as a terrorist? Which I’m not.
Wherever I go, I am in constant fear that at any moment I will face My Creator and my parents will lose me.
Why? Only because a coward, too afraid to fight evenly, snuck around and targeted us.
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Once, twice, third, fourth times, we found ourselves fighting a battle we had no idea about.
When any regular person would feel free to go out with absolutely no fear at all of maybe not returning to his beloved ones, in my country every departure even if to supermarket next to home, one isn’t sure if he was going to make it out alive or return.
My goal: survive each day on its own, praying to be granted one more day with my family.
Today, I am alive. Tomorrow, I am not sure.

  • Written by: Zeinab Saleh 
  • Edited By : Iman(official editor)
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