Reflective Essay On Being An Outsider

When you are declared as an outsider and feel like an alien in your country, that is the grimmest moment for you and your personal well-being. Five years ago, I was marginalized from my society, the society where I grew up in based on my faith. People sharing the same religious background as me were ridiculed and treated as if they were any less human. They were openly discriminated in society and because of their weak status, they could not do anything about it; thus, they became subjects of abuse. The experience that affected me the most was when my friend’s mother told him that he should stay away from me and break all ties with me based on my religious background. Since I was attached to him, it was emotionally traumatizing to distance …show more content…
This criticism also planted a seed of doubt in my head and eventually I began to be uncertain about my teachings. I started to think that if everyone is rebuking my faith, then indeed it must be the wrong path to follow. This suspicion of my religious doctrine made me a confused person who over the years became less religious. Inevitably, the encounter with his mother also instilled a rational apprehension preventing me from disclosing my identity to anyone in the fear that they would harm or seclude me. The exclusion of my faith in society led to the feeling of “otherness” in me and because the majority had an irrational fear of us they thought that the only way they could attenuate this fear was by discriminating and dehumanizing us. Discrimination was also seen in the education and job sector and because of the prevalent bias in society, fewer or mediocre jobs were given to those whose religious background was different than the majority even though they were well-qualified for the job. Over time I became a confused person with a damaged self-esteem. I also kept asking myself, what did I do to deserve such injustice because I wasn’t born into this belief system out of my will so, then why do I have to suffer over something I have no control? I soon learned that it was because the way the system was set up in my country. The majority had all the power; they considered themselves to be superior, and they enforced their authority on the minority who they thought were inferior to them. As a country being formed on the basis of religion, it is ironic to see this division because the leaders ignored the fundamental message of all faiths which is equality. This also made me think about the mere nature of humans. When someone or something threatens people, they like to assert