Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Mangan
I'm a gay man living in Turkey -- a secular state but predominantly Muslim, and never felt happier or safer. At home in England I was thrown out of home at 16 for being gay, homeless for several years, I suffered regular beatings, was stabbed and hung and left to die, my dog killed and mutilated (parts of his body still stuffed in my coat pockets by our attackers when I left the hospital), when I got a home was victimized and my property vandalized. Me and my partner of 25 years have never suffered as much as a bad word since we moved here, 11 years ago -- and the (muslim) community and (muslim) friends are the most genuine and supportive of people I have ever known.
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It keeps coming back to how kindness given and kindness returned are such devastating answers to cruelty and fear. It's the story's end we've longed for, ever since we were kids: that we lived happily ever after, or at least tried our best, and so did our friends, and our friends' friends, and so on and so on, which of necessity includes everyone in the world. "We must love one another or die," Auden wrote.
Ed