The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice

I’m convinced that empathy is more powerful than hate and that our lives should be dedicated to making it go viral.

There's a reason that murderous hatred has to be taught- and not just taught, but forcibly implanted. It's not a naturally-occurring phenomenon. It is a lie. It is a lie told over and over again- often to people who have no resources and who are denied alternative views of the world. It's a lie my father believed, and one he hoped to pass on to me.

...turning someone into a bigot is the first step in turning him into a terrorist. You find someone vulnerable - someone who's lost his confidence, his income, his pride, his agency. Someone who feels humiliated by life. And then you isolate him. You fill him with fear and fury, and you see to it that he regards anybody who's different as a faceless target - a silhouette at a shooting range like Calverton - rather than a human being. But even people who`ve been raised on hate since birth, people whose minds have been warped and weaponized, can make a choice about who they want to be. And they can be extraordinary advocates for peace, precisely because they`ve seen the effects of violence, discrimination and disenfranchisement firsthand. People who have been victimized can understand more deeply than anyone how little the world needs more victims.

I'm proud of the path I've chosen. And I think I speak for my brother and sister when I say that rejecting our father's extremism both saved our lives and made our lives worth living. To answer the agent's question, here is what happened to the children of El-Sayyid Nosair: We are not his children anymore.

I put people before gods. I respect believers of all kinds and work to promote interfaith dialogue, but my whole life I've seen religion used as a weapon, and I'm putting all weapons down.

People try nonviolence for a week, and when it ‘doesn’t work,’ they go back to violence, which hasn’t worked for centuries.

A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes. —Gandhi

No one's ever sat me down and taught me what empathy is or why it matters more than power or patriotism or religious faith. But I learn it right there in the hallway: I cannot do what's been done to me.

But even people who've been raised since birth, people whose minds have been warped and weaponized, can make a choice about who they want to be. And they can be extraordinary advocates for peace, precisely because they've seen the effects of violence, discrimination, and disenfranchisement firsthand.

It wasn't until my mid-twenties that I met a woman named Sharon who made me feel like I was worth something- and that my story was, too. It's the story of a boy trained to hate, and a man who chose a different path.

Ahmed is not a murderer like my father, but within the walls of our apartment—among people he claims to love—he is every inch a terrorist.

Everyone has a choice. Even if you’re trained to hate, you can choose tolerance. You can choose empathy.

Turning someone into a bigot is the first step in turning him into a terrorist.