Once, a relative of mine yelled at me on twitter.
Out of the blue, she said that I was shaming our tribe with my avatar picture displaying my uncovered hair. And she didn't stop there, she mentioned my brother and told him the same thing. That I was putting our family in shame.
I took my time before replying. Two things weighed on my mind. One, This was family. Whichever way I was going to respond, I was going to have to live with it for the rest of my life. Two, I know for fact that responding in anger silences the voices in my head with unforgiving disapproval. It might feel glorious riding the high horse and calling her names, but as soon as the moment passes, I will feel like a used condom: dirty and disgusted and flat. (Because wrath is a sin, see?)
When I finally responded, I wrote from the Indonesian account in Arabic.
I said, "Transparency and credibility are respectful offerings to those who read my writings. What we show in public follows us around forever, effecting both our lives online and in the real world. I can't, for instance, degrade strangers on random, then steal their tweets and use it as my bio. [Something that she, along her timeline, did.] By the way, do you know how Hamza Kashgari was sent to prison? Screen grabs. Thank you for you kind attention, have a nice day."
She deleted her account.
