As an Egyptian, all my information about Native Americans
was from western movies. That means all my information was just stereotypes.
When I started to work as an Islamic spiritual guide in a federal prison, one
of my colleagues was a Native American spiritual guide. He was the
first Native American I met in my life. We had a great chance to learn about
each others’ culture from within the culture, not from the stereotypes.
From my conversations with him, I learned a lot of cultural
characteristics of Native Americans, such as all their actions must be in
harmony with nature, they respect and protect the aged who provide wisdom, they
have a strong degree of self-sufficiency and being in harmony with knowledge
they gain from the natural world.
In religious appreciation seminar, each spiritual guide
explained his faith. When his turn came, He held the mic and started taking
the Native American language. Everybody looked at each other. “Anybody
understand anything?” He asked. The crowd said: “No”. He smiled and said: “That
is my mother language and it is a foreign language in my home land!”
I remember he cried when he explained how he is trying to
conserve his heritage that is going extinct. Also, he complained about all
Abrahamic religions (including my religion) consider Native Americans as non
believers. He said: “Yes, I do not believe in God, and the creation story, but
I still have my spiritual faith. So, I am not an unbeliever”. Before he left
his job in the prison, he asked me to record the Islamic call to prayer
"Athan" on a C.D. for him to listen to in his car, because he
liked it. I leaned from him to enjoy other spiritualities, even if I still have
my own faith, because all spiritualities should complete each other, not
conflict with each other. That is how I can direct my perceptions and my
colleagues' perceptions toward a more positive viewpoint.
