mmh Blog

I always thought of Italy as a pretty open-minded society.

Yes, some people would ask my mum if she had adopted me because “my hair were too curly for being Italian”, whatever that means. Yes, every stranger of my life would (purposely) misspell or mispronounce my Egyptian surname. Yes, people would ask if showering or walking under the rain broke the fast during Ramadan. And similarly, many other small questions and many more remarks.

Because I did not fit in a box, in their box, I thought all of this was somehow inevitable.

Then I moved to London. Here I stopped being the “ethnic” kid and found a place of freedom and diversity in which I could finally embrace my multiple belongings. London was a space where I did not have to travel half an hour to reach the only Arab shop available and where mosques and churches both fit into the same landscape. However, as much as I enjoyed that freedom, London too was asking something in return. It took me a while to see it, fascinated as I was by the realm of possibilities the city had displayed in front of me.

London was asking me to choose. From one day to the other, every wall seemed to scream that the exploration could not be eternal. This feeling concretised in the words of my local Muslim group’s convener, when she began asking when would I have taken my Shahada, the Islamic conversion ceremony. The question of choice also came up on a Sunday afternoon, after a lovely Easter mass, when the father asked, in hope, whether I had, at last, resolved my religious crisis. “What are you, my darling?” he asked.

And so the question that followed me all my life was re-emerging once more. It was at that point that a realisation came to my mind: London’s interfaith society exists as long as belonging to one, well rounded and bounded religious identity is established. Nothing else can be outside of these spaces. Once this truth revealed itself, I could not unseen it anymore. I kept encountering the same question everywhere, “so Dalia, tell me, are you a Catholic or a Muslim? Everyone so eager to label me, to know which of these religions had won; and perhaps, perversely, which of my parents did.

But here is the point: for me, for my parents, for my brother, it was never a battle of religions. It was never a competition. For us, there was always enough space for both religions to exist, together. Attending church on Christmas with my mum never diminished my father’s Islamic identity, nor participating in Ramadan once shook my mum’s Catholic faith.

My disbelief reached the peak when I applied for a volunteering position in a renown Interfaith organisation. The question became institutionalised. I had to state, ink on paper, my religiosity as only people with a clear religious (or non-religious) affiliation could volunteer. Should I lie? I wondered. But I could not. The thought of abandoning a part of my religiosity to fit in an easily understandable category of Muslim or Catholic made me uncomfortable.

MyMixedHeritage is a response to this sense of inadequacy. It is also a space for other people with a multiple belonging to inhabit their diverse identities fully. Like rubber bands, I believe that a person’s different religious backgrounds can be entangled, stretched and played with without loosing their form and unicity. Yes, you are not "less" Christian, Hindu or Buddhist if you fast with your Muslim father! or mother! or girlfriend! MyMixedHeritage is a space where multiple belongings can exist, be cherished and thrive.