While researching 'The Submission,' I went to a protest against the Ground Zero mosque in New York when I was about to give birth to twins. It was about 100 degrees. People thought I was very dedicated.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was involved in some peaceful protests.
I converted Dec. 31, 1999. It was a Friday. That was my second time going to the mosque. The woman who is my wife now... was basically raised Muslim - and she was at that point where she was deciding or trying to come to terms with her own relationship with Islam and how to embrace that for herself.
I had a mind inquiring enough to question world events, as well as the passion fostered by my background to care, but I lacked the emotional maturity to process these things. That made me ripe for Islamist recruitment. Into this ferment came my recruiter, himself straight out of a London medical college.
I've participated in many demonstrations since I was a child. When I was at medical college, I was fighting King Farouk, then British colonization, against Nasser, against Sadat who pushed me into prison, Mubarak who pushed me into exile. I never stopped.
I was at Ground Zero, and it was, to me, such a graphic illustration of what terrorism has done to our world.
Just previous to the birth of my little son, my mind gave way and my child was born in the asylum for the insane at Stockton, Cal. My boy was buried there.
The real story of the Ground Zero mosque is that the project only became feasible because of the appalling and astonishing fecklessness of the officials who were charged with the reconstruction of the site and the neighborhood all the way back in 2001.
The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion.
My giving birth was nothing when I think about all the people in Sri Lanka that have to give birth in a concentration camp.
I was raised in the church.
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