The Country I Was Taught to Hate Became My Home

This article was authored by Enes Freedom

It was right after 9/11.

I was 9 years old, a tall kid growing up in Turkey who knew almost nothing about America, politics or the world. But I was already being exposed to a culture of anti-American hatred.

Not long after the September 11 attacks, I simply wanted to go downstairs and play with my friends.

What I saw shocked me so deeply that I still remember it today.

My friends — children who weren’t even teenagers yet — were burning American flags and breaking crosses.

I looked at them and asked, “What are you guys doing?”

One of them told me, “We should hate America. We should hate Christians. They are evil.”

Then he handed me an American flag and a lighter.

“Burn it.”

I stood there staring at the flag in one hand and the lighter in the other.

I was confused and scared, but I knew I couldn’t let someone else teach my heart whom to hate.

I handed the flag and lighter back to him and ran upstairs to my mother.

“Mom, my friends are telling me to hate America, hate the West and hate Christians. What should I do?”

My mother gave me an answer that would stay with me for the rest of my life.

“I’m not going to tell you what to think,” she said. “But never hate anyone before you meet them.”

Then she turned on the television. The images of September 11 were playing on the screen — the burning towers, the smoke, the fear and the innocent people running for their lives.

She looked me in the eyes and said, “Look at those people. They are someone’s mother, someone’s father, someone’s son or daughter. They woke up this morning expecting to come home to the people they loved. Before you decide to hate an entire country or an entire religion, remember what hate can do to innocent people.”

I was only 9 years old, but I never forgot those words.

That day, I made my mother a promise that would shape the rest of my life: I would never let hatred planted by others take root in my heart.

What happened around me was part of something much bigger.

It wasn’t happening in my school in Turkey, but in parts of the Middle East, there were schools where American flags were placed on the ground in front of classrooms. Children were expected to step on those flags as they walked into class. In some places, refusing to participate could mean you weren’t even allowed to enter.

Think about what that does to a child.

Before that child has ever met an American, America is already the enemy.

Before that child has ever met a Christian, Christianity is something he is told to hate.

Before that child is old enough to understand politics, he is already being taught who his enemies are.

That is how hatred is planted.

And unfortunately, politicians and governments have used that hatred for their own benefit. They attack America and the West in speeches and rallies, and ordinary people — including children — grow up hearing the same message again and again.

The environment around me became more toxic every day.

Finally, my father had enough.

“You’re going to America,” he told me. “You’re going to play basketball, and you’re going to get your education.”

I remember looking at him and asking, “Do you really want me to go to the devil’s nest?”

He didn’t argue with me.

He simply said, “Go and see for yourself.”

So I did.

I will never forget arriving in New York and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time.

I smiled.

Then I started meeting Americans.

I met Christians. I met Jews. I met people of different races, colors, religions and backgrounds. I ate with them. I trained with them. I went to school with them. I played basketball with them. They became my teammates, my coaches, my teachers, my neighbors and my friends.

And slowly, everything I had been told began to fall apart.

These weren’t the monsters I had been warned about. They were people who welcomed me before they even knew me.

They welcomed a tall kid from Turkey into their homes. They shared meals with me. They cheered for me. They helped me when I struggled. They gave me opportunities I could never have imagined as that 9-year-old boy holding an American flag and a lighter.

America didn’t teach me to hate where I came from.

America taught me that I didn’t have to hate anyone.

That is why 9/11 is so deeply personal to me.

Nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered that morning. They were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and colleagues. Firefighters, police officers and ordinary Americans ran toward danger while others were desperately trying to escape it.

Every one of them had a story. Every one of them had someone waiting for them to come home.

For the families who lost someone that day, September 11 is not a chapter in a history book. There is an empty chair. A photograph. A voice they still remember. A goodbye they never got to say.

We owe those families more than a ceremony once a year.

We owe them remembrance.

And we owe them the courage to confront the hatred that made that terrible day possible.

When I think back to those children burning American flags, I don’t just think about what they were doing. I think about who taught them to do it.

Children are not born hating Americans. They are not born hating Christians, Jews, Muslims or people who look or pray differently from them.

Someone teaches them.

That is what frightens me most, even 25 years later.

There are still children growing up surrounded by governments, extremists and propagandists who tell them that America is evil and that people of another faith are their enemies. If that hatred goes unchallenged, another generation can inherit it.

I get emotional talking about this because I once stood among those children.

I could have burned that flag.

I could have believed everything I was being told.

Instead, my mother gave me one simple rule: meet people before you hate them.

Years later, America gave me the chance to do exactly that.

Eventually, I became an American citizen.

Think about that journey.

A 9-year-old boy was handed an American flag and told to burn it.

Twenty years later, that same boy raised his hand and took an oath to become an American.

That is the power of this country.

So what do we do now?

We fight hatred before it reaches a child’s heart.

America should invest not only in military strength, but in people-to-people diplomacy, education, cultural exchanges and programs that allow young people from closed and hostile societies to actually meet Americans. We should support courageous teachers, journalists, dissidents and civil-society leaders who challenge propaganda rather than surrender to it.

And we must stop pretending that propaganda doesn’t matter.

When authoritarian governments spend years teaching their populations to hate America and the West, we should expose those lies. When religious hatred is taught, we should confront it. And when young people have never met the people they have been told to despise, we should find ways to bring them together.

A conversation can defeat a stereotype.

A friendship can destroy a lie.

And sometimes a mother telling her 9-year-old son not to hate people he has never met can change the direction of his entire life.

On this 25th anniversary of September 11, I will remember the nearly 3,000 lives stolen from this country and the families who have carried that pain for a quarter-century.

I will remember the firefighters and police officers who ran toward the flames.

I will remember the Americans who helped strangers.

And I will remember that little boy in Turkey, standing with an American flag in one hand and a lighter in the other.

I am grateful every day that I gave them both back.

Because years later, America became my home.

And the flag I was once told to burn became my flag and became my home.

May we never forget those we lost on September 11, 2001.

And may we honor them by making sure the next generation is taught not whom to hate, but how to see the humanity in one another.