BERLIN (AP) — Ali Darwich, a gay Muslim influencer in Berlin, picks up a date from his plate, takes a sip of water, and addresses the 15 friends sitting around the table and breaking the Ramadan fast with him.
The 33-year-old German with Palestinian and Lebanese roots — who goes by @alifragt or “Ali asks” on Instagram — has a quickly growing following on Instagram, where he draws attention to the difficulties of living as a young, queer Muslim and calls for more tolerance and inclusiveness.
“Tonight we want to send a message that no matter where a person comes from, no matter who that person loves, no matter how queer that person is, they cannot be too queer … because they are exactly as they should be,” Darwich says, smiling at the diverse group of Muslims and Christians, Germans and immigrants, gay and straight people sharing this meal with him as the sun sets over Berlin.
Its guys like these that I would like to see put in charge of reforming Islam into something more civilized.
An example to be immitated on mass.
I am pretty hopeful Tunisia will be spearheading those type of reforms.
They been big on feminism since their independence and any essay written in Arabic can spread through a lot of Muslim countries.
I also have hope that Europe with its significant immigrant population will transfer more moderate ideas back to their countries of origin.
The more cultures mix the less chance there is for extreme views to take hold. Its easy to convince someone to attack someone who is different, if you have never met them.
You mean into something more civilized like our white christian western civilization? Besides the fact that defining civilized as exactly that (which is a highly concerning, colonial, way of defining it, it’s also not true that “in the civilized” west guys like him are the majority. That dude probably gets thousands of hate messages from andrew_tate_88.
I mean one that supports equal human rights, protection of women and children, social justice, outlawing discrimination based on leaving a religion and removes religion from government at all levels.
So exactly not the christo nationalism, Zionist and Islamic systems that cause so many problems in the world.
They make as if each is so special, but they are all just different flavours of the problematic system of control by the elite.
Sadly, they’re more likely to be murdered by a religious zealot than listened to.