Why Juli Jalaluddin of Malaysia Left Islam 15 Years Ago

and we're live welcome everyone to another episode of the friendly x muslim podcast this is episode 105 105. so if you want to listen to any of the previous episodes that are all available on youtube and as well they're also available on your favorite itunes stitcher google podcast whatever podcast platform you like so if you want to listen to this long form interviews on a different platform where you can actually just walk or go for the walk or drive around they're also available for your convenience on those platforms so today i have a special guest and there's a lot of people looking forward to this conversation someone that i've known for many years but never spoken to on my channel and that is the the one and only emily the strange right or julie hello hi so today i'm joined by julie and maxie that's maxie right there so i think it's going to be a great conversation and uh julie how are you doing i'm good i'm good i'm good awesome awesome so yeah you haven't been you haven't done anything like this in a very long time it's been it's been years right yeah it's been years and uh things have been what how have things been recently quiet for you yeah yeah i used to be more outspoken on social media a few years ago and now i'm kind of quieting down a little bit so yeah nice so we're gonna we're gonna get back into it we're gonna go back yeah yeah the the history and everything you have you have an amazing story a very interesting story and you've been around a lot longer than me and almost everybody else i know in the ex-muslim movement people in malaysia in particular know you um for your activism so can you tell me about like just go back to the beginning like how did this get started and like what's your story however much detail you want to put um you mean like um how i so so so let's let's talk about like like when you were muslim what happened like how did you go from being muslim yeah having doubts like where did it start that's a good place to start so anyway i remember that since i was small like a you know teenager or even even earlier than that um i've always been kind of like questioning you know ask like asking questions about all these things like in religion like why these why that and that is what happened was it wasn't like a tragic incident i was actually abused at such a young age so that experience made me kind of um i felt like i'm an outsider looking in so like not really fitting in so always questioning like uh like why why do women have to wear hijab for example or or why do we have to like the different roles between men or women for example so but because [Music] as most religions are they tell you like okay you know god knows everything you don't know everything or maybe that if you wanna as somebody you have to ask the right people you cannot you cannot talk about it because if you just talk among yourselves you might risk being a murderer or you know like your faith might be tainted because if you're questioning too much so but how old were you how old were you at this time um teenager late teens uh you know but i was still i was still a believer i was still a muslim very much a muslim um and then i went to uh i was 18 19 and i went to study in the u.s in colorado actually um and then you know like i came from a small town it's a it's a very religious state in malaysia so going from that environment and then you know to the west and they started to see uh you know how everybody else lived and then being you know like you always were taught that you know like oh be wary of infidels or the jewish people you know like they're you know whatever i'm sure you're familiar with that people can relate to this and um and then like you know you see the way how other people live people of other religion you know like they're so different oh it's not the how we you know how we were taught and um one day i met like a a jewish person in my class and i'm like wait a second he's nice you know like so you know all these things little by little you know got me questioning even more and more you know but at the time this was back in um 80s 90s you know internet was just starting so you know you don't really and then you know yeah you have the library but if you if you don't know where to go look for information then you don't know what to look for um so anyway so i have all these questions i keep in the back of my head you know and i remember one time um in college i was invited to um to um a religious gathering for baha'i so i do and i i think it was like a baha'i is like a sector they they think of themselves muslim or like yeah i'm not sure it's weird right it's yeah it's kind of it's a new religion that came that has islam in it or something yeah about it yeah but anyway you know i i talked to somebody from that faith and i was like oh this is nice you know but i don't know i was still a muslim so anyway so and then uh later on we have internet and by this time i was it was like early 2000 and then i started getting on youtube and started listening to dawkins haitians and uh amazing atheists and who all whatever you know whatever i could consume you know and and then i i met like a guy who's uh well like uh culturally muslim uh but no he didn't really and he made me question even more and more and then eventually in 2005 you know that's it so muslim made you doubt islam no i mean like in malaysia you cannot live islam so uh so in name like if i go back to my country technically i'm still muslim so but whatever you believe or don't believe how you live your life that's something else okay um yeah so so this guy made me question a lot of things you know like one day he said oh i don't think sex is a sin i said oh you're not like got me thinking and here i was you know like like okay i wasn't really a good girl or anything you know but every time i was doing it you know i always have this guilt you know but you still did it anyway but you have this guilt you know but he made me question like okay you know like you know sex everybody have that you know you have the desire for it so why god give us a desire and then make it a sin you know like um it's uh you know you're thinking like oh i think like sex is being used by religion to control people you know like when you can control people you control their minds you can get resources you get your money time whatever so you know things like that so um i guess my my journey into living islam is not it's not something that just click one day and then you just leave no it was like gradual thinking um um like when i was in school you know like it's always um this fear you know like um uh one time i was i went to a boarding school uh as a teenager so one time they said some people at night like coming back from a mosque or something and they saw something in the sky like scenes of the uh in the hell you're not like women being pulled by the hand by their breasts you know like the those stories you know like and then the next day we stayed up and tried to look if there's uh more of it you know like but it got me you know like a make you fear you know like and then you started thinking like is god nice or cruel you cannot be both you know and um um so but so you know these things make question and then as i go into my 20s you know like i decided okay no i decided god is nice god is not cool you know like yeah people make mistakes but you know it's like children you make mistakes but you know you learn from it and you try to better yourself from it and uh okay so i decided okay god is not crude so i just left left the cruel part and then like god is nice and then got into thinking oh you know like if you like the quranis people so they take the good part they kind of like left out all the nasty part from the hadith you know and so whatever so the quran quran tell a few things baha'is tell a lot more things and like in quran there's no such thing about women having to wear hijab you know it just says lower your curtain to cover your bosom or something like that but nothing about cover your hair so specific like in the hadith yeah so at one point i wasn't really a quranis but kind of like okay maybe this is better you know and then uh i got onto the internet um i started reading um uh about other religions all kinds of religions and cults that i could i could find uh even like sex of christianity sex of islam like why are they broken up you know like there are uh i mean like what 40 000 50 000 of different religious dominant dominations denominations in the world everybody think they are the right one you know like how is that be possible you know yeah so but i read about a lot of things buddhism hinduism is like i couldn't really understand the thing but you know mostly christianity and islam because they're so similar yeah and uh you know i never really like some people they live in islam and they they you know they got into something that less cruel like christianity because christianity have been reformed and today they are nicer than before than you know back then um yeah but back then they were really really bad um but anyway i never really got into anything it was just like a lot of reading and then one day i just decided [ __ ] you know so feel free to stop me from talking too much i don't know this is good this is good no i don't have any questions so far uh so you so so far you've gone up to your 20s you've yeah you've been trying to so so just to kind of reiterate what i've been hearing what i've been hearing is you're you're young you were a young lady you're still a young lady but you were a young lady that was looking and trying to um reconcile what you were feeling with what you were taught and what you were seeing which was contradicting also what you were taught and also you know um you were starting to have issues with this idea of god being cruel god punishing you know why is god so nasty and and you decided that you wouldn't focus on that part of the religion rather you would focus on the part where god is merciful god is loving and you know exactly some people do this like especially sufis they'll focus more on god is love um i remember that i used to go to this one conference and we used to have a joke there's this guy mokta magrui i don't even know if he's still doing speeches or whatever like you could count the number of times he said the word hope it became like a joke we were like he would he would keep saying like this would love like at least once every couple of sentences you know the love of allah and love we must love the messenger it's all love love love love so they obviously they focus a lot on this but right and you like that quranism is um you know much easier to reinterpret whatever you want there was this fun funniest thing happened there was a guy that called into the show that i fought um one of my friends uh podcast uh the myth vision podcast and this guy was sort of a quranist but he had the most like absurd views of like i've never heard anyone say this he said muslims are christians and christians and because the problem is when you don't have hadith the quran you can make it mean anything yeah yeah it's just like what do you what does this mean like it either you you decide right yeah context complete book you know like i don't think it's so complete you know we used to like uh growing up you know we used to laugh at other people you know oh look at those chinese people they pray to a statue what's this tattoo you know like it's not god you know like and then suddenly one day i realized you know like oh i believe in prophet you know like splitting the moon in two and then you know riding uh winning a horse to having some back you know like my religion is just as absurd as amy you know anyway yeah yeah right that it's we always um it's funny when you see certain like two different religions i mean as an atheist it's especially obvious that none of them are from god and everyone believes but everyone's like once i saw a muslim and a christian arguing i mean it happens all the time about god and it's just funny because you know they're both wrong but but but when you're in it you only think the other ones wrong yeah oh no only day long i'm right like you said there's so many um different denominations or whatever um not not that i'm making a comment about whether god exists but in particular the religious the different religious teachings they just don't make sense to me any of them yeah so yeah so one day you know like but one one uh one major um uh thing that happened was uh in 2005 well years before that you know like in my family i mean i don't want to be so cliche and say i'm the black sheep of the family but i was always like kind of like a bit rebellious in a way that you know like because in my home state in if you live in the capital city in malaysia it's very modern liberal you know you can get by you can get away with anything but in my hometown you know like the peop the women that wear hijab and like uh in in the big city for example they have separate casual for men and women or like you yeah i don't know what state is this or the city it's been under under the rule of uh uh it's the islamic political party like the rest of malaysia malaysia is more uh governed by more liberal party but in in this state it's been under past for i don't know 20 30 years for as long as i could remember i mean they said that back in the 70s they were more liberal but in the 80s 90s similar to the rest of the muslim world is becoming more and more religious so yeah and so every time i went back so my family they're nice people you know they're educated people my siblings but they were still because we live in that community so we were affected by it you know like my mom would be like what the people say you know like what would the neighbor say so every time i went back you know we would visit our fam relatives or whatever and then she would like here put this on you know like okay that that shirt is too tight here take my dress or whatever you know like and she's like pulling my shirt you know like oh that shirt is too short i can see your butt you know things like that yeah so every time i went back to my family i felt this sense of guilt and um and my mom she of course she wants the best for for us kids you know she notices me you know behaving like that she has her suspicions you know but i never really say it out loud you know even though i didn't really believe as much anymore you know she would like in the morning as would mothers do you know knock on your door like five six o'clock in the morning like wake up yeah yeah and now we're like okay wake up you know pretend make some noise pretend and then go back to sleep anyway but she has she had suspicions and um so every time i went back she would like be you know like give me the you know the thing that women wear to pray she would give me that okay and then you know um she would give me like bottles of water that's been blessed by somebody you know they did read the su the surah sin and oh no i'm not familiar with this okay canada i haven't seen this it's kind of like um it's and it missed you know but yeah but yeah they they they would uh take it to like a religious person like imam um or something and then the um you know they would read the surah sin and they bless the water and then like if you drink it maybe your heart will be a bit more pure you know so you give me that you know like yeah and you know like okay it didn't work it didn't work you know it's funny that now um just to kind of to distract for a second from the conversation with kovid we're seeing that all of these holy waters do nothing at all whatsoever even the holy water is making people sick now and like they had to stop doing some of these rituals with water because you know for risk of splitting disease or whatever right so yeah so anyway she would do little things like that you know bless her heart you know just yeah yeah and um so um and then one day because she after my father died you know she she turned to religion you know like well i made her happy you know whatever and she would go to the she would go to my car like every couple two three years she would go you know um and then one day she said oh you know like she wants every everybody to to go with her you know all siblings you know like okay you know like so we started saving money to go whatever and then when the time came in 2005 um my brother lost his job and my sister just got a baby or something like that so the only person who could go was me my sister-in-law and my mom i had no excuse not to go you know but before you went at this time you were how would you define yourself were you still muslim did you question china mostly more agnostic than muslim but i wasn't rid of the fear completely i was still scared that you know something would happen you know like they say oh yeah you don't have pure heart you're gonna go there and the moment you step out of the plane a lightning will come and because you don't believe properly you're still there you know yeah but then uh my my boyfriend at the time told me you know like oh just go you know just just think in your heart you know if there's a god or god even though god knows your intention is not pure but just go that you want to go with be with your mom and help your mom because she had like bad knees okay okay you know like i felt better after that so i went and you know nothing happened no but i'm i'm glad that i went no lightning no lightning not even rain it never lands over there yeah yeah so anyway but but um i was glad that i went there have you have you gone i went for omraa once yeah yeah i went for umra yeah because um well first of all i like visiting historical places so even though i don't believe in religion i still enjoy learning history and you know how it happened back then but and i also saw like the way the people there behave and medina and mecca you know like um you know it kind of like transported you to uh when was that 1400 years ago okay back then in this in this environment you know like what happened and how it became like that and then what makes you what makes the um you know like a in in in mecca i don't know about the rest of uh saudi arabia but in makkah at least during prior time everything has to close down shops everything so every like supposedly everybody has to go to the mosque right there and pray because it's just like 10 minutes walk or less yes and uh and then when they pray you know like um they read it out loud and surah al-fatiha you know like it's very simple it's just basically repeating god is great worship him and nobody else does it repeat repeat repeat and imagine you did it five times a day you know like and then i also saw things like and and uh this is confirmed by other people as well you know like in makkah everything is holy you know everybody behave nice over that no not the the people um like the shopkeepers or even like when i one time i was like cycling the kaaba and this guy was like trying to grab me from behind and my sister-in-law got sexually harassed and you know it sounds like okay this is supposed to be your holy place allah you know like why do you allow these things to happen so it makes me question and then and and also like the whole thing is just about money you know it's um yeah people need something to believe in a place to go for pilgrimage or whatever but imagine you know if those things doesn't exist how much money is going to be lost you know so yeah it's a multi-billion dollar industry it's a religious tourism it's like disneyland exactly yeah um and and i do i do think that if this was sincerely you made a good point if this was sincerely like a real pilgrimage there should be some some sort of charity involved that you don't pay like i remember when i went through yeah we were paying 300 to 500 dollars a night oh the hotels it was this was like outside of ramadan and ramadan is probably even more expensive but we were close to the haram and it was it was like three hundred dollars u.s no canadian i mean we paid like you know per person several thousand dollars so it was quite a lot of money um but yeah you're like it's a big money and the funny thing is the quran says there's no harm in making money from hajj it actually says that it says something oh really yeah it says there's no harm in making business and this and that so i guess they see it as okay but yeah they're definitely gouging like you yeah especially for hajj because there's only one period of time you can go so everything is really expensive right yeah yep so and one more thing now that now that the oil is going away it's becoming even more important yeah yeah people need uh yeah the more people believe the more people go there and the more they spend money on it you know i think i think any religion that asks you to give money is completely [ __ ] i'm for sure i mean all religions are [ __ ] but the ones who ask you for money that's like you should know right away [ __ ] yeah yeah i'm gonna highlight this one uh comment uh before you continue my major she's a fan uh mecca is disneyland of islam exactly yeah because yeah disneyland you don't have that issue in like the real disneyland you know what you yeah i'm pretty sure you'll be safer in the real disneyland than you would in mecca which is yeah at least you could report but over there that's true yeah yeah and i i i had a guidebook with me and um um it says that you know like yes women have have said that they have been sexually harassed but you know if you want to report be you know be careful because the police there might jail you instead you know like so yeah because you don't have witnesses or something right for witnesses or something like that by the way everyone uh please like the stream give it a thumbs up if you're enjoying it and you're appreciating what julie has to say it helps the channel thank you all right back to you if you like max thumbs up for max is it max or maxie uh massimo his full name is massimo ariano okay he's not my son he's just my son adoptive can continue what you were saying yeah so anyway where was i um yeah and i also noticed like one thing in mecca you know like yeah you're every you know like you're a regular person or whatever right but you go to mecca because of your your desire to be to be close to god to be you know like this is your chance you know you might not get this chance anymore you spend all this money and you're here you know so people who are normally nice people they go there and they become more you know i remember this incident and you know we were like we were in i think in medina you know that that mosque and they said like if you go pray near the the straight to whatever so everybody wanted to pray in the front and and then there was this lady i was like oh i lost my daughter she's six years old whatever and then you know like and um i mean my mom's like don't don't bother about that you know like is this you know like it's let's go to the front you know are you just like yeah yeah like i feel bad you know yeah um but you know like she's a nice person but like because you know you want to fight for this chance you don't get this chance anymore and so like uh you know [ __ ] it and uh i wouldn't say that but it's as if you're not like everybody is doing that you know like um and so i i just like okay i'm going to the back so i went i was way at the back and then um like going through uh going circling the kaaba for example you know like everybody wants to be to the front you know like if me i want to be in the front because that's the shortest circle yeah practical reason not because you know but like you know like [ __ ] this [ __ ] i'm going you know whatever where there's nobody you know and i oh i would go at two three o'clock in the morning when there was nobody so yeah anyway but i i noticed like you know nice regular people you know they became more you know like selfish and just want to be in the front don't care about other people things like that so like this is supposed to be a holy place you know you're supposed to be nicer not you know and yeah you would think that saving someone or helping someone find a daughter would be more of a blessing than praying in the front line right but unfortunately that's what dogma i mean this is you know in one in one story this is a problem with dogma like it it elevates certain things over other things i mean to be honest you might you know saving the girl could be a you could look it as a dogma too but that's that's more useful to human beings saving someone's helping someone's daughter rather especially after what you said about and by the way i was warned too by muslims when i was muslim watch your kids sometimes if you're coming from canada or like a rich country you someone might kidnap your kids like i was told to watch your kids carefully because um muslims told me other muslims have had the kids kidnapped in makkah so i was also scared when i went there i was like watching my kids like oh you brought your kids yeah we went we all went the whole family went we all went together yeah yeah yeah in my country is normally if the older people who would go you know kids only the rich people brought their kids i guess because you know however our currency is not that strong in the world so yeah yeah no we needed the it was a family trip anyways and we were going to egypt so we stopped on the way and we made a this was a good opportunity for us to see and i wanted my kids to see you know see makkah medina and all of that stuff overall they were two they were too young i think to really understand what was going on to them it was just like a trip they didn't really care yeah um but yeah their downsides for sure taking your kids to a place like that because obviously if you want to go and do a lot of worship you can't do that with kids around because your kids need to be taken care of right so yeah yeah and uh yeah and then i want to tell you a story uh yeah well it was in mecca you know like um i told you it's like men there they all like the shopkeepers they're always trying to touch you or you know like if you go and i was like looking at shoes right and you guys are okay try this one and then he would touch my leg you know like you know this guy was like looking at jewelry rings and i was like okay and i would like grasp my hand you know things like that wow that's creepy yeah yeah do these people like you know why are these people like so sexually frustrated like that they can have up to four wives yet they're still acting like this yeah but then you look at the place it's mecca everything is covered up you know there's no billboards there's no tv channel showing you like mtv at that time mtv with like you know sexy people or whatever so they're sexually frustrated there's no books or porn or your your internet is blocked um you know like i don't know about today but like you you couldn't yeah it's the same today yeah right because i i went like a couple of years ago and in a couple years well like eight nine ten years ago and even then they had blocks on like saudi like islam qa which is a saudi salafi website was blocked and i i was confused about that for a long time why would they block an islamic website but apparently even for the religious education only from their websites yeah it was yeah i was in dubai and i i had at the time i was reading this like website called religious tolerance or something like that it's just like showcasing all the different religious and religions in the world and no it's black they don't want people to even learning about other religions or any i guess they use certain key words you know yeah so so um so do you think in in do you think that actually societies like that which is ultra conservative actually end up creating more sexual problems if there's a word repression breeds obsession so when you sexually re repress um or when you repress something that's very natural it makes you like so obsessed about it thinking about it every day that's true because if you if it's just there you're like okay whatever but yeah yeah i mean i have no problem with people you know like if i wear a short skirt you look at my legs and then you go home and you wake yourself up you know like go ahead you know don't bother me but you know it's from this whatever you know yeah i mean so imagine this place in my car you know no no posters no billboards no no you know that books with women and women all wear you know yeah yeah and uh and you could tell where people are from women especially you know where they are from by the way they dress like we asians we wear we don't cover our face normally we just like just so you know yeah the saudis they were black yeah the i don't know the you can tell the indians pakistani they were different things you know like so you can tell these things right so and i i think it's my theory that because we asians we don't cover our faces we get harassed a lot and because maybe we're smaller in you know and we're not as um i i notice even the saudi women they're very like expressed like yeah they talk they talk to the shopkeepers even though they they're wearing makeup but the way they talk normally not like that you know okay so we get i think that that's one reason why we got harassed more and yeah so yeah that's unfortunate i mean i i've heard stories like this i didn't realize the i didn't realize it was that bad but i do know that you know apostle prophet actually covered this as well with interviewed nuria she said the same thing and when i went there obviously i wasn't with any women it was just my mom actually my wife was it but she also put on the niqab just for security yeah extra privacy and security because she had also heard that you know white women as well also sexually assaulted one because they look different and they don't they stand out right so when we went to egypt as well she was in the cob as well but then obviously took it off when we came back but yeah that's it's sad it's that bad i i didn't realize it was actually that awful and you know so how did this so this made you real did this make you feel like muslims are fake muslims or that how did you how did you interpret this it may be questioned like um um yeah it's like that's some [ __ ] you know yeah it's all [ __ ] you know like you if you really believe in islam and like you know like this is the holy place unless you wanna even even though i wasn't believing in islam much anymore but i could i was still wanted to go and i still did all the rituals the back and forth the circling you know like okay just whatever just to feel what if you know like what it was like or whatever but at least you respect you know but anyway yeah yeah i mean it's all [ __ ] it's a the rituals is pagan in origin we know that you know the the rituals existed way before islam came you know like muhammad came and took over and said okay we're gonna keep doing it islam from now on you know yeah that's exactly what happened like the rituals and you know there's even examples of hadith where the companions were like you want us to do this this is like like this is pagan right they didn't they didn't use those words but they're like you know going between safa and marwa those are the two idols right the idols that were on the hills and he's like no no this is a sign of allah safa and marwah you can do it so it's now if it's right it's become halal right yeah yeah yeah they were i read that they were but they brought all their idols and put it around kaaba and and the the hunch time it wasn't just a religious programmage it was so the place was also an economy place right they came and traded whatever so it wasn't just religion it was religion slash economy whatever yeah yeah the the the pilgrimage was a big business business thing even back then money makers right yeah so anyway one last thing before we leave the mecca top yeah so i was i got to talking to our hotel attendant he was from in india i think and i had sex with him in the addict um in mecca so to me at that time it was nothing to speak of you know but i don't know but um what happened you know like this is the holy place you know surely god wouldn't let me wouldn't let it happen but i did it and nothing happened yeah so yeah i don't know i just i don't know wanted to see what happened you know and all those things you know like okay that's it you know so i i went to so my mom wanted to bring me to mecca to make me go back to islam it had to opposite in fact i'm sorry mom anyway so i went back and okay that's it that's it yeah eight years now so you went you're actually leaving makkah you became more confident in your positions that islam was false yeah because because like you said so when you saw the kaaba what did you think did you feel anything the fear was still there yeah and then they the the tour guide will give us like a piece of paper with okay she would say okay if you pray here the point is multiplied by 100 000 if you pray here you're not like you know like all those things you should try to do all these things while you're here um the fear was there but other than that the feeling of i'm the chosen one no no you know like some people say you know like um oh it was so surprising you see all these birds like pooping way over there and then i'm breathing over here and no bird poop on me you know like they feel like i'm the chosen one i'm the no i didn't feel i was that that's what don't worry um do you know that means accepted hajj yeah something like that yeah so we have that term you know like sometimes you come back and you're sick you you were sick while you're over there and you come back so you didn't you say oh that's not my bro you know like yeah but if you come back and you feel oh i'm so blessed yeah it's more my bro than not me definitely not my brother you know you know it's interesting that it makes sense that you would expect that if this was truly from god and there was truly some special blessed connection to the real creator in this place you should have experienced that you should have felt that you should because what we see now is that the makkah and every other religious ceremony and ritual is it it's nothing different it's just human beings again playing make-believe and so we what we find is that being just as bad over there as anyone else and i think the people that live there are probably more jaded than anyone else yeah because to everybody else they're like oh my god yeah you just yeah you just come for two weeks and then you go back home you know like people over there when i live there they see the theft the corruption the murder the all of that stuff the the the sexual harassment and of course like you said it's even worse over there because at least if you're in a real disneyland they would the police would come and investigate and take it and throw that man in jail at least he'd be charged or whatever there'd be a case but over here it's just like well you're scared to even tell the police because the police probably don't care they'll probably ask you for a bribe and then they might have asked you at the end of it and you're a foreigner with no rights or whatever um so yeah it's it's actually worse than disneyland you know the non-muslim disneyland would actually be better to take takes k the non-muslim countries take better care of the women than the real house on earth right and you know what i wonder i i i mean i know you wouldn't be able to answer this but i don't honestly wonder like even for like for example the sikhs in the sikh temple the holy the golden temple in india do they have the same sort of experiences where they go there and they feel jaded do people that go to the you know the catholic to meet the pope or whatever do they feel jaded like because some people do have the opposite they do have this religious awakening and they feel inspired and but the funny thing is i guess because i talk to a lot of ex-muslims i know more examples of people like you yeah and they're like like okay this is what is this i expected something else but it even to me when i went i was like i saw the kaaba and everyone told me when you see the kaaba you're going to cry i saw the kaaba my first my first thing was it's kind of smaller than i thought and i'm like i'm not crying and i was disappointed i was like pure muslim i wasn't doubting nothing i was pure muslim at the time i think this didn't have that effect on me so well i think you're being honest with yourself and these other people if they feel something i think it comes from within it's them you know yeah they make the feeling we want it so much that it happened you know or the all this uh the symptom for it i forget what um the you know like you you know like people say oh it's a co incidence you know i was hoping and then it happened it's because you were hoping you see it otherwise you wouldn't see it because you weren't hoping you know thank you so anyway shout out to uh fatally honest she's in the chat as well she's another uh so check out her channel if you get a chance she just makes good content so anyway um yeah so i came back and okay oh sorry one more thing because i just thought of it someone mentioned arab ego and i i don't i think he's talking about something else but it made me think about this did you feel racism at all over there um classes yeah racism maybe because we weren't really mixing with other people so we stick to our people so but glasses we all like being segregated anyway you know like they're trying to they're trying to make people like you know go wherever they need it to go smoothly so um when when i went especially as a brown person you feel that a lot like they call you pakistani if you're if you're black they might even joke and call you abid like slave i felt i mean i i did notice that because coming from canada where you know people they don't really judge you like that i mean maybe they do but they don't say it to your face but over there they say it to your face bucks danny like i'm automatically boxing i'm not even pakistani i'm from kenya yeah yeah in but i'm immediately assumed to be pakistani and you can see the the way they talk to the yeah some of it's classism some of it's racism maybe but you don't feel like these are like holy people at all oh no non-muslims the character is and then they don't line up they don't know how to lie no no no i mean remember that when one time the there was a picture you know when japan was hit by a tsunami or something and then the next day like people you know with all the rubble and people were lining up to get water you know like these people even after such a tragedy they still had manners you know but yeah this place is the opposite you know i i don't want to say all of them are like that you know i work in international companies and i work with uh i don't know i don't remember errors but egyptian you know then you know just some are okay for sure but the place that i went maybe the less educated ones i don't know i i don't want to yeah yeah yeah yeah and yeah that's true not to over generalize what i meant was in that society it's okay to behave that way not not yeah yeah the more the more normalized then it's it's it's considered okay like you know how in america now you have this thing with vocism and everybody is basically so concerned about pronouns and you know racism of course is the cons the care about racism is very very high over there not even existence it's like good luck like you know someone's like nobody cares if someone's racist so the society here is you know i i don't know muslims maybe they'll disagree but it's far more civilized i'm sorry to say if i sound like a colonialist or something i'm just saying my reflections being there people here are far more civilized yeah they treat you with dignity and respect and kindness like as a muslim as a freaking muslim big beard oh i was respected as a human being i had nobody i mean maybe some people treat me badly but for the most part everybody treated me decently like you know yeah in general i love the muslims in the west they're nice they even went to the pride parade you know to show support for lgbtq them here no problem you know yeah but in muslim majority country that's uh yeah different things yeah no i mean non-muslims treated treat muslims here better than muslims treat non-muslims over there yeah um so before we continue because there were two super chats we'll just quickly address them uh one of them was from stop scamming man thank you again for the donation he said hi this is again totally off topic but okay uh recently malaysia's ex-prime minister said it wouldn't be justified to murder the millions of french in the reprisal for colonialism i didn't see much backlash do you know what this was talking about no no okay so that's fine i know what he's talking about there was you know the malaysian prime minister made some really really dumb comment about about like tit-for-tat sort of thing if you don't know anything about that's fine but thank you for the super chat stop scamming man and last question is from azrie he's saying a bit of topic but julie do you agree that malay special rights is like an apartheid system yes yeah it's okay um but i i i understand why he had to you know they had to do it in the first place um in the you know back then um you know when the british came to like you know colonized malaysia or at that time malayu um you know they uh i don't know exactly why you know but they may they brought the chinese to work in the tin mines and the indians to you know from from india and from china to work in the indians working the plantation so over time those opportunities have rewarded the chinese especially you know like so though today if you go to malaysia the chinese are more concentrated in the big cities because those big cities were tin mines before you know the city just form around the mines so the chin the chinese control the businesses in malaysia and uh so the malays were kind of like oh okay how come we were not given the opportunity some people say oh because you didn't want to work in the first place i don't know i don't know why the reason but that's what happened yeah so there was a clash and the you know racial fighting and people died um you know the chinese malay attacking chinese killing one another so because of that um you know the government came up with a program to give some rights to the malay people which you know like programs like giving uh discounts to buy to for loans to buy houses for example or like me i got a scholarship to go study overseas you know those it's not cheap yeah so you know so so they were hoping eventually it will you know like like lessen the difference more i see so yeah but it is because it is happening system and i think today we don't need it anymore you know i don't know i'm not an economist you know like you study these things before you take it yeah but yes it is unfair right so um thanks thanks for that um next question is about uh s murphy malcolm x said different so malcolm x he said different what he's trying to say is that malcolm x when he went to makkah and he was amazed at the hajj so i'm just gonna make it i've read malcolm x's autobiography i do love the guy and i love his book and i recommend people read it i think he's a genuinely good great individual who really truly was trying to find the truth and did whatever he could but the problem with what malcolm x said is he got celebrity treatment the the prince or whoever it was at the time gave him a special access he was kept in five star hotels he was kept away from the halls you know i i've heard from people from i'm from africa and i've talked to my uncle my uncle said when they went for hajj like all the africans would sleep in one giant like room right like it's not like when you say everybody's equal at the hajj it's not true you have people sleeping in air-conditioned tents getting like you know buffet meals like as if they're on like again disneyland sort of experience and then you got people that you know there's like 30 of them sleeping on the floor in a room together all coughing and making each other sick and stuff like that right so you can't really you know malcolm x was genuinely a good person but his experience was was very one-sided he had the freaking prince of the kingdom showing him around giving him you know like he's going to only see what they want him to see he didn't see the racism he didn't see he was a special guest of the hey you know people can have different experience you can go there stay in the worst kind of place and still um feel good about it you know like just because there are experiences too doesn't make my experience less right you know like you can have yeah that's a good point yeah i'm just saying that yeah yeah that's the perfect point okay so go ahead you're done with welcome now and i'm not saying you shouldn't go to maca go if you want to go but that's my opinion about it is uh you know like i'm not against people having religion believe in whatever [ __ ] that you want you know the my problem with religion in general is just when you started discriminating people and call and call it religion and say oh god wants it that way you know like like the westboro baptist church you know like you know you talk to them as a person they're nice but they say oh god said you have to hate facts you know like yeah i'm using that word okay so yeah yeah no we definitely don't yeah yeah so it make you know those are the things that i have a problem with the other stuff you know you want to pray five ten times a day as long as you don't bother other people you don't enforce hijab or women you don't politicize religion you know that that's all right yeah exactly exactly uh someone's asking can non-muslims go there no non-muslims cannot go there no yeah and in terms of um in terms of racism you know i you know some people in the chat are saying that muhammad taught racism i personally disagree with that i know there are racist hadith out there but i was actually taught the opposite that that you don't treat people based differently based on race in islam and you go to any mosque whether there's a black imam or white imam or bosnian or turkish or arab in at least in canada there's no difference you can go to any mosque and you'll be treated the same no matter what your color of your skin is i never felt any racism in canada for muslims this only happened when i went to like you said a classist society where the they're very heavily classist to the point that when you go to in egypt i found this funny on the doors okay they have names on names on the doors of in the apartment building they have people's names on them and they would have like mohandis meaning engineer and then the name or like doctor a lot of them would put doctor like it's like okay does everyone need to know you're a doctor apparently everybody needs to get a doctor can you put it on the name of your doctor you know it's like it's important over there what your your profession is apparently makes a big difference in how you treat it right so yeah anyways we had we talked enough about my yeah no i think was kind of stuck on that yeah so so okay so what happened after that uh yeah so there was a if if there's any turning point that was it for me and then um yeah yeah but that was 2005. but i was still like closeted you know like you didn't tell anybody you know even maybe my my boyfriend at the time but not even my friends knew about it even though you know like i had friends to go drinking with you know like okay no problem with that but they're still muslim you know everybody's still muslim and i didn't tell anybody and um yeah and then in 2010 2011 um i had i've had facebook since 2007 but i was not really active and i was using my real name you know like you know when i had friends and family like work friends and um and family uh on you know like connected to me on facebook and then one day i just i saw like my friend joined a group called murtha in malaysia in singapore um so and then i asked to join you know it's a private group so it's not public to anybody so i joined and then with this account you know like uh julie jalaluddin and and then i started you know posting things and you know it's mostly just reflections and what i saw and i what did i post one time you know something like um about god and women or something like that you know um like why why god is so controlling of women and my my conclusion is that uh god sounds like a middle aged middle middle eastern men you know like the way you know they want to control women you know and then somebody screenshot and then it became viral oh yeah and in malaysia in malaysia at that time there was a few cases before me you know like you know like people who who got viral because of something they said on on the internet you know like and then they got dogs and then um some of them they just like go quite you know like layla for a while stay quiet for a while and then come back or some of them like especially the like if you're like a more public or come from a prominent family they would make a public statement saying that um oh you know like girl i take back what i say you know i'm still muslim just for the blah blah blah you know like but we know you know like we when we talk to them we know they just have to put up in an appearance um so anyway and then it happened to me you know and then uh yeah i got dogs they put all my family's names and um you know my they know my they don't they didn't know what i was i didn't tell i didn't put my address anywhere online so they didn't know where i was living but they know where my my mom was living because my dad was quite uh you know when he was alive he was quite popular person in our village you know he's quite influential so people know and then i i don't know how much they were harassed you know but my sister said some reporters went and to my mom's place i wanted to you know talk to her and uh yeah yeah and they of course they blame me for it you know like because you stopped saying all these things you know like why are you saying all these things and i had an argument um you know in message with my brother for hours i remember that night you know i i didn't say out loud yes i'm worth that but i said nope i don't agree i don't agree with the way islam is you know he was trying to save me you know like pull me back or whatever so can i ask you something so this was in malaya this i was in malaysia and yeah is this against the law in malaysia to post what you posted uh not that i don't know not no it's not illegal but but the if they but some people have been i don't want to say arrested but taken you know okay interrogated yeah they've been interrogated and they have they would have so they make your life kind of difficult it would take your phones away your computer away during the investigation and then they might you might not get it back so like uh there was there was this kid i remember she he liked uh i love israel facebook group one time and he was taken you know like because of that maybe it was a mistake you clicked by mistake or whatever um but i was i was i was technically a muslim right yeah so but if let's say if you're a non-muslim if you're chinese or indian and you say things like that questioning they might take you in and say oh you're trying to mess around with islam and islam has a special right in malaysia you know so it's not really illegal but you know they use whatever law they have like disrupting racial racial harmony for example you know yeah so that disrupting peace yeah you know people have been taken it sounds a little bit better than um pakistan a lot better actually oh yeah yeah like a lot better or like even the middle east like many muslim countries yeah i remember i think the problem with bangladesh is i mean i'm no expert but i think it's more the mobs than the government the government is trying to deal with it but the government is actually um i'll just meet you for a second in pakistan the government is actually the one that's enabling the this um abuse right so it's it's actually perpetrated by the government which is unfortunate okay one second one second yeah yeah nobody knows so while we're waiting for julie to deal with uh maxie um yeah so this is why dogs are haram in islam they ruin your livestream they ruin your podcast no no it's all good uh we have a dog too right now so puppy so that's uh it's it's nice it's nice having a dog um it's it's more more work than having a cat for sure but uh they're really loving like way more loving than cats in general i love both anyway yeah so what what would um where were we what we were saying yeah we're just talking about malaysia and how you got doxxed oh yeah yeah yeah family got dogs your pants with halasta the poetess came to your house um yeah so so anyway my uh yeah my family blame me basically you know like it's because of you you were doing all these things you know seeing all these things on the internet and then i was like you know i was arguing with my brother for hours you know and my brother-in-law you know messaging me saying that you should make a public statement retracting what you said you know like oh well you know i tried to be nice about it but i won't go that far you know like i refused to do that and my brother said i'm gonna come talk to your boss you know drag your ass back home something like that and i was like come on i'm i was at the town was like 38 years old i've been working since i was 25 financially independent i never asked for money i'd live for away from you i'm not dependent on you and you want to do what again you know you know like come on you know and then like and then um so i basically just like oh stood my ground you know yeah but i felt i felt sorry for them you know like i was like you know come at me i'm the one who said these things not them you know don't harass them and up to the point that they were embarrassed to go to work embarrass the kids embarrassed to go to school you know like i'm sorry you know um yeah that's good that's a good point that you were financially independent i always tell people that ask me this question like how can i should i talk about islam because a lot of people want to talk about it because they feel like it's part of the therapy for them to sort of you know let out their feelings and say this is what i was lied to i feel cheated you know this was what i believed to be true was not true and they want to say it i always tell people wait until you're financially independent wait yeah because you don't you don't want to be kicked out of your house exactly it'll just make your life a mess you don't want to mess with your life yeah and if you're young yeah you're young you're a teenager you're dependent on your parents to pay for your bills and your your studies or whatever don't you know like uh you know don't do it yet like you think about that you know you don't want to be homeless you know yeah and and by the way i have to say your personality is just like mine i don't care what anyone thinks i just can't help myself i feel like even if my parents would have been devastated they're very liberal they don't care but i couldn't help myself i'm just that's just my personality and i think people like that we want to share to people and we don't care what the consequences is we just we just do it right well i'm not i'm not young anymore even when that happened i was already 38 you know i'm not like 20 if i was 20 maybe it would be different you know maybe i would listen to them but i was already 38 you're like come on you know so that's true you're an adult like you have every right to say whatever you want to say yeah it's like you know if i don't do it now when am i gonna do it when i'm 60 on my deathbed you know like true so it's like you know like i don't want to keep on being close with it more and more i want to be more open over time till the day i die instead of the other way around and i've like all my life i felt that i will uh like i've always been closeted for one reason or another you know like hiding who you really are and that can take a toll on somebody you know like you today you know like my personality is um it's because of what you went through and that's that's not a good thing like you know if i had kids i don't but kids should be encouraged to speak what you know you can tell them all that's wrong that's right but they should be encouraged to speak instead of hushing them like i shouldn't say that shouldn't say this so anyway and um yeah so and um so my uh so i just sort of like stopped talking to my family at that time and then one day uh my family just came to my house unannounced so my mom my sister and a couple other people they came and what they wanted to do is like make me like quit my job and follow them home and my mom told me okay i'll i'll go to quranic quran classes with you will read the quran together so i was you know like i felt like i was meant to be this um broken bird to be safe and reform you know like okay the you know like i mean that's the way they thought of me you know i didn't feel that i felt liberated if anything well i was depressed at the time but in terms of you know speaking up my mind i felt liberated the opposite so i could there's no way i could do that i think if i went back home with them at that time i could end up killing myself you know like you you didn't want to do that so anyway well they they weren't aware of that you know like they weren't aware of i i think like at that time i was like i was also like leaving um my ex-boyfriend and he was kind of abusive and it took me like a couple years to leave him so that and also coming to terms with what you know like like i told you i was actually abused as a child you know too young and i blame myself for it so those experiences you know i kind of like repress it press you know don't don't think about it it will it will be okay and then one day i just like saw myself um stuck in a cycle i was like being with abusive men one after another it was like so i was you know like suddenly you're just like oh that's it you know like you want to get out of it and the real the realization make you feel so depressed and like but you want to struggle to get out um so and then coupled with this you know like so it's like i had to fight fight with it you know fight to overcome it so i said that's it you know like it's as if like okay i want to start a new that's it leave everything so i told my mom go back home they say i didn't try to explain anything i wanted to but i i couldn't and then it's it's not their fault it's my fault because i we we were never really well at least me anyway maybe they're not like like that but i never really spoke my mind even as a child kind of like hiding close at that even though they know how rebellious i was um so i couldn't explain it i could write it in a blog i could talk to you about it but i could i could not tell my mom you know yeah so i couldn't explain it i just told her go home mom just go home and um yeah and then yeah so and after that i they tried to call me they they never really left me i was the one who cut them off for a while and um they texted me they tried to call me i just ignored messages uh but at that time it was still like they they were still trying to guilt you i mean that's what islam does you know they try to oh you know like it's because of you mom is sick it's because of you in this you know like for months it's the same kind of messages you know i just ignore everything and then one day the messages started changing tone it's more like how are you you know like wow yeah so i guess like maybe maybe like okay like if you if you're gonna keep on blaming me then maybe i shouldn't be in your life um but um i don't want it just okay maybe we should accept you just the way you are and maybe that's that's why the change in tone so and that was like eight years later i mean you know like there were messages here and there calls here and there but like eight years later i'm already here and then they reach out to my husband right now and then my husband my husband was like it's time for you to talk to them so one day so yeah since last year or two years ago wow very recently yeah very recent so i think like seven eight years i didn't talk to myself wow so how was that talking to them well my my husband told my sister maybe just don't talk about religion stuff so we didn't we just sort of like avoid that you know they're still muslim i'm still atheist but we can be family yeah yeah so we just don't talk about those things i mean but you know how moms are you know like you know they they say assalamu alaikum you know like um you know even in text you know we young people we don't do that but older people they say those things i just say oh i like no problem you know like okay let's go along with it you know anyway so yeah i would say um i i i totally understand that i have the same relationship with my brother um we just don't talk about religion yeah yeah because we don't need to we already know we already know don't agree so yeah exactly yeah exactly so um yeah so that that's quite a beautiful journey um you know it seems like you went to a lot of hardship and a lot of difficulties uh what you said about the patterns of relationships is very true as well a lot of times we subconsciously end up going from relationship to the relationship without realizing that you know we've we've um we've got unhealthy patterns in our lives that have started from childhood and we don't necessarily recognize that so we keep repeating the same mistakes it's all too human thing to do you know both guys and girls do this they both end up picking sometimes people that they feel more comfortable for comfortable or they or maybe even more exciting but in many cases it ends up being a bad match it's just that as a child you never you know you never got the proper model or something like that right yeah and and now you're happily married right which is which is great yep yep and my husband is he was born catholic but now he's eight years so yep yep and uh yeah that's another thing you're not allowed to be married to a non-muslim man right yeah so yeah but we got married uh we don't have we didn't have a church wedding or anything like it's just like a lawyer we just said yeah like okay and oh yeah did we talk about how you left malaysia someone's asking did you leave oh yeah um yeah so when i was uh i when my i think when my mom when when when my family came to visit me to bring me home whatever but at that time i already quit my job it was in 2012 or 2011 i forgot but i really quit my job so i i had an apartment at that time that i sold so i was waiting for the money and i i just wanted to take like a year off you know let's just travel a little bit you know and then yeah just i don't know kind of like a spiritual pilgrimage of my own or something i don't know um but the the sale of my apartment took a while to to come through so i didn't i was like oh i had no money i had to start looking for a job again so and then i got a job offer in norway oh okay so yeah so yeah and um but at that time because i was i talked about my depression right so i went until one point that i couldn't really focus at work so i think my job was kind of slipping so that's also another reason i wanted to take some a year off so i went to norway i got a job there so i worked there for a couple of years and then i quit again and something i got i got uh exposed again in norway if uh again yeah kind of stupid i mean how can you get exposed so many times right yeah but anyway oh yeah back to malaysia so i was exposed um like dogs on the internet um like they took a picture of me and they have this group it's called uh pandey dahan uh multan or something like that it's like mortar exposure so they would like every week or so they would uh they would do an exposure expose of another multi and these are the particulars go harass them muslim warriors they took a picture of you from in real life what do you mean online then i post on the internet you know yeah yeah and you know why did they take a ugly picture take a nicer one please you know i want to look good in this position anyway so yeah so i was dogs back in malaysia and at that time um me and my ex at that time we were living in the same house even though we were not talking i was in the process of living for good um but he was talking to another friend who told me you know like oh you got to be careful your name came up in putrajaya putrajaya it's like washington dc you know okay oh wow yes your name came up in putraga i'm like okay but at that time i was like making my plans to leave and then you know so and eventually i left so fine so that was the first expose and then i went to norway and then one day this reporter approached me and then said oh i wanna like talk to you about stuff so we had a nice chat you know i explained my position and i'm like oh this is what i think what i like what i don't like blah blah blah you know and uh turns out it was a tabloid paper yeah and uh and then like uh the few days after that i i even gave him a picture of me okay you give me a picture like okay i give him a picture you know and then i was in the front page of this tabloid newspaper with my with my face blurred you know like criminal yeah like okay just because uh i don't believe in islam and having a different opinion you know and uh and that was that was the bigger ex you know like bigger dogs or whatever but i'm like okay but this time i was like whatever you know like i wasn't uh oh and what happened at that time that made him wanted to talk to me was i created some facebook page um in pantai timur pantai timur is the state i'm from it's actually consisted of two states clantan and terengganu which is like i explained before supposed to be uh more religious than the rest of the country and it even has a nickname means porch so mecca sports meaning that you know like oh we are more religious than you you know like the women there uh where hijab and then you know we segregate men and women you know and if you have like a movie poster in my home state with a face of a woman they would like sharpie your hair wow yeah yeah so anyway so so they were enraged on my facebook page because you know this is mecca sports how could anybody from this day become more tired you know i was like of course you can here i am you know so it's like it's like the biggest slab or something um and uh i you know that so on that page i recruited a few of my friends to become admin end up we we're just having fun like posting like stupid stuff like you know like i i post i think i posted something um like allah and muhammad are gay lovers something like that because we have a word that they teach us you know i remember growing up they say muhammad um is either boyfriend or girlfriend or lover so like technically i'm not wrong they have lovers i assume god is male because he's definitely not female so they're good lover you know like and then people would uh post you know like kind of like a bit offensive things like charlie hebdo cartoons or things like that of that nature so it can get a little you know yeah but to me it's like whether i agree or not the way they approach people that's not my problem it's just a cartoon it's just something they write on the internet it's not like they go and slap people that's different yeah yeah so sorry okay maxi is back okay so anyway so the page was only up for like one week that was all but it got like we got uh likes i don't know maybe reach about 2000 likes and into three days um but after one week it got mass reported and then it got taken down but and then at that time i you know like i told them i told you the admins you know people like oh okay they have to quit being it means they didn't want to be you know like because they're still in malaysia so i say oh okay you know like i'll admit i'm the sole admin you know like no problem so yeah that's what i said you're not like oh i'm the enemy no problem you know and um so this reporter approached me and then we you know like we had a chat you know like normal people you know like what we're doing right now just talking about things like this and then he put me in the front page like saying that all she's because i admitted to being depressed and things like that so oh she's lunatic so you know that's why she left this like gaslighting yeah it's uh it's unfortunate that you know so so whenever someone leaves a religion it's not like they stopped being human if they had any issues they would issues would still continue those challenges and sometimes leaving the religion even though it is a relief and it is um you know it unburdens you from a lot of things still the the the actual process of leaving can be a challenge because of the family pressure yeah you know the cultural pressures the losing of friends and i call it emotional blackmail yeah yeah emotional blackmail and uh so it's you know self-doubt self-questioning and in your case you're very public about it very active so you get a lot more you got a lot more pressure as well from the public and you had this family issue so it's it's understandable that people that leave islam have to go through all this but you know at the end of the tunnel there's always a bright light you know always there's always a chance to to um to to be free once once you're free of the building then you know things do get better eventually right yeah so um so i uh so after the article came out i reached out to him and you know i'm like why did you say all these things i mean you know like when we were talking you were not saying it like that and then can you get him yeah thank you honey sorry it's okay it's okay i have kids so i know the same same issue with kids except so i'm i want to share your link i just made it you for a second i'm going to share your link to your blog and i want to let people know that um you can check out julie's blog her twitter as well i've linked as well in the description so check out her twitter check out her blog um is there any other places people can find you your facebook as well yeah yeah i'm not i'm not active on my blog twitter or facebook but once in a while you know the reason was like facebook in one year you know like sometimes i got reported so much that i got banned for like half a year so i'm like okay and then i would go to twitter you know twitter there unless yeah strict about that so i'm like uh back and forth but lately you know i've been busy and i'm kind of like cool down a little bit but yeah i mean i'm around i'm around i'm not going anywhere let me uh let me go to a couple of questions um then we will end off because it's been a great conversation and you've covered the australian great detail uh we covered the one about the apartheid system and the prime minister the next one is um yeah whether he answered that one about how to find you uh what can't fight this feeling is asking what percent of muslims do you think a closet ex-muslims in malaysia i don't know but i um yeah i can't really say but many people many muslims in malaysia they are many of them are liberal anyway yeah they just they just don't don't bother to question but if you talk to them oh yes i'm a muslim but then they go out drinking with you you know like you see them having sex like you know like yeah like i had i had friends i had one this one friend she was you know she was my drinking buddy and i know she had boyfriends and you know one guy after another and then one day she found out that i was you know i was famous on the internet and she tried to like advise me you know i was like come on i know you're drinking more than i do and then you know you have boyfriend that you're not married to and you want to tell me to be muslim come on you know and then after it was like one time it was ramadan or something and then we ate together yeah so if i mean she considered herself muslim but at least she wasn't being hypocritical after that with me you know okay no problem you know yeah so i think like many muslims in malaysia they're already liberal they just never bothered to question you know like like most people they just don't question they just like it's just a name you know like when i went to norway you know like people there you know like oh what religion are you oh i'm kind of muslim but atheist and they're like oh yeah i'm i'm christianity name but i only go to church for funeral and wedding you know like yeah i think most people in malaysia is already like that oh yeah but the ones who are more vocal you know it's it's not a lot and i mean i see on facebook twitter but i will say this one thing when i started talking back in 2011 or 2012 i think people were more timid about it and at that time like more like i would consider my generation you know like but these days you see young people 18 years old 19 years old already being smart and maybe it's the internet you know like you can get information anywhere that you want you know easily and uh on twitter people are more so what i'm worth that deal with it you know instead of trying to be more like apologists about it um yeah yeah and that's the future as well yeah minor i think you know but it's getting more and more and um what's i gotta say oh yeah i've seen stuff i mean i don't consider myself an activist or anything i just talk stuff on the internet that's all um but i've had people come up to me and say oh yeah you know like years ago i was in school and uh i i so i heard my friends talking about you you know like you're the infamous student you know whatever but look i am today i'm friends with you i'm atheist uh have a few people come up to me and say like oh yeah i want to say sorry because i used to argue with you defending islam but now i'm atheist or agnostic or whatever yeah a few of them um and one time this was when i was back in malaysia or whatever after i was first docs so my face was on the internet and then i went to apple store and this i wanted to fix my macbook and this this girl behind the desk was like you know you can see like what she is like are you juliana yeah oh i follow you on facebook like keep doing what you do okay fine somebody fangirling me yeah anyway so i think it's good you know back then it was more you know closeted but distaste but like you know like many i know many people on facebook my friends we have some facebook groups or whatever they have to be closeted because they're married they have kids you know and they live in the community they you know for work and so they don't have the luxury to be fully open about it so but you know whether you want to be open or not open about it you know like whatever makes you if you can live with it that's fine yeah no no not everybody has to speak their mind all the time you know that song depends whether you can live with it or not so yeah there definitely is a cost to doing this stuff um next question and then we'll we'll try to end off on that uh naj's sent a super chat thank you natures and said can you vision yourself setting up an international advocacy group for ex-muslims in malaysia oh my god i don't know i i could i guess like i said you know i know i don't consider myself an activist i just talk [ __ ] on the internet that's all you know like i guess i should be i mean i'm i mean i do think that i'm in a position because i'm overseas you know yeah so i i i'm in the position i have the luxury to not be afraid and be more open about it so i guess yeah i feel like there's i do feel though because i get asked questions like this a lot too not exactly like that but being involved in that sort of advocacy work or that sort of on the ground you know political action and religious stuff is very different from speaking about like like what i do i do a lot of talking on the internet i don't necessarily know how to do those things so when people ask me you know i i prefer to leave that for people that are good at that and what i'd rather do is use my platform to help people to raise funds for them or to bring awareness to that like ex-muslims in north america does this type of work and they're doing a great job so i support them rather than me trying to do everything and i'm not gonna do a good job right focusing on you know and yeah and to me sp speaking just picking up in itself is um it's a good thing because and then like you know like i because i remember back then 20 years ago 30 years ago i was like you know like i wish somebody would speak up for me and i me knowing about it but i didn't know where to reach who to reach you know but these days you know like you heard somebody talk about it oh that's what i think you know like oh it's okay to have those thoughts you know i don't have to feel so guilty anymore for having those thoughts you know like so even speaking up itself so that's why i said like you know like i can talk i can write things and people can read and then you know that in itself is a big thing and more people more and more it's like being being lgbt or whatever you know people say oh you know like you know like where do they come from back in my day you know they're not so open about it you know yes but they do they didn't exist back then you just didn't know about it because they were more good at being closeted back then they exist throughout history you know until today so we we're not we're not going away we're still here it's just whether you recognize our presence or not you know so exactly and if this is this is like an honorable thing to fight for i mean uh people sometimes wonder why why do you talk about these things because this is basically giving people their lives back i mean i i think it's obvious there's obviously other things that matter in life you know huma there's animal rights issues there's environmental issues political issues and lgbt lgbt is kind of also covered by some of the stuff that we do but because a lot of it is because of religious dog yeah yeah but this is basically giving people their lives back giving people a chance to not you know because when like you said when you leave islam you get gaslit you get a lot of you know bullying you get people emotionally blackmailing you so having people that are saying that you're not dumb you're not there's nothing wrong with you this is okay to think like this and this is your life you want to be with a non-muslim man go ahead of course muslim men can be with non-muslim women so what's that about like so yeah you should have the right to do what you want to do to live your life the way you want to be sometimes people say like you are now a slave to your desires i'd rather be a slave to my desires than to muhammad's desires right yeah like i don't i don't consider myself a slave to my desires i consider myself as someone that you know is doing what is best for his his own life i i prioritize myself obviously and my family and everybody does that you know just someone yeah yeah yeah even if you say that you know being a little selfish is a human nature so you can be a little selfish provided that you know you you want to be selfish for humanity for example or you don't step on other people you know that yeah below yourself is fine yeah like we we definitely want more people to be selfless but sometimes you know being sometimes it feels good to do good so there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with feeling good about helping people about you know any of the stuff that we're doing like i'm i'm happy that i'm helping people i'm really proud of that that i'm having an impact and able to share people's stories like yourself and i want to keep doing it so um i want to tell you another one one little story so after i got when i was in norway and i got dogs i was in the tabloid newspaper so norway is a six hours behind malaysia right so there was things were bit so when i got you know i was in the newspaper and then it appeared on tv as well they mentioned my name on tv and uh and then other people talked about me and there was like somebody talked about oh she's dying she's in the hospital and there's a picture of somebody on a hospital bed with all the machines right and nowhere six hours behind so people will text me are you okay are you in the hospital i was like i woke up so what i'm alive i'm alive and well not in hell yet you know just inhale what happened was that just a lie or was it missing yeah somebody just created a block took somebody's picture somewhere so and that by that time i thought it was kind of hilarious you know yeah anyway so yeah but but i was still kind of like in between i left malaysia i went to norway and they didn't really work out nobody's a very introverted country you know like not like america no i felt like you know like after a couple of years i had to leave i was becoming still depressed i left it all behind but the depression didn't really leave me yet i was still you know in between so anyway so oh and at that time after that that was in 2014 so there was a bigger exposure from before so and then uh people were making police reports against me um so they were like i saw some video on youtube you know like people taking pictures oh these are the police they put against this girl julia routine for saying bad things about islam on the internet whatever you know like so many and then like they even there was a press conference with the police but it was for something else but they asked so what are you gonna do about this person who's who you know say these things on the internet about islam and then the guy said oh we are we understand that she is currently overseas and we will investigate accordingly just a standard response i don't think they were going to do anything but i do sincerely believe that if i was in malaysia at that time they would take me in you know slap me around a little bit take my phone with my computer away just to teach me a bit of a lesson you know like they won't nobody will kill me we're not like those people in pakistan or bangladesh or saudi but i i do believe that you know they would do something just to make your life a little bit harder so you would lay down lay low for a while so did you get another question was did you get any death threats on the internet all the time i mean uh these days again because i kept ignoring them you know so but back then yeah when i was in norway this guy was like i'm gonna come look for you and kill you so i put that picture on my house and i give my address okay i'm waiting i know i mean you know he couldn't afford like to know so yeah like it's always a death threats rape threats you know but uh this you know i just ignore them and these days no no more but i'm also getting less and less controversial these day so yeah yeah i find the same thing with me too i um when i first came out i think you know what i think i think that this is the tactic used that people try and eventually they just give up because it yeah yeah it's it's scare tactic you know they just want you to come back and when that doesn't you know say oh we just want you to come back to islam nope you know you you know you um which means the blood of apostate can be shed that they tissue that even as a child so you know that you can be children oh yeah uh you know you we can kill you for this nope still i'm still a mortal you know like okay you can we can rape you nope you know like and then yeah they just gave up eventually i guess so yeah same thing happened to me um and and i don't i'm i mean the doxing is a real issue like that's not just online sets online sets online i don't i don't consider online sets to be credible unless they're credible like if someone said you live here and and this guy's in canada i would immediately go to the police i would immediately yeah yeah but like if it's like online those are like easy and yeah it doesn't cost anything and there's no mistake if someone's staking it meaning they come to me in real life or something then that's a different story real life doxxing though like what happened to you the real harassment that's real that's yeah yeah i've never yeah not in in real life and in when i was in malaysia you know because i was leaving and um i was but still i was being careful not to disclose my locations and i was staying in apartment with uh guards and israel so so yeah but yes i was afraid of it but it never really amounted to that and when i was overseas most of these threats are online and coming from malaysia so you don't really pay attention to it but yes you're right if it was somebody in the same state as i am this would be different yeah yeah so um the same thing with me like i don't think i'm trying to think do i even get death sets anymore i think randomly i do i don't even care like i'm just like whatever yeah but but what is what does affect me and affected you is the doxing thing is real because i i don't want people to know where i live um i was also being i was called my company was called so i work as a software developer i the company that i work at was called up and stuff so that's a real harassment in real life now i work at a different company and nobody knows where i work which is good i'm not going to tell anybody so that'll be great for now um it's it's uh it's definitely a real risk to being you know online and you know even if you don't call yourself an activist you are an activist because you did these things and you were trying to help people and by doing that you're automatically an activist and you're automatically being doxxed of being you know and the more popular you get the more risk is involved because the thing is this when you when you're a small person when you're small small fish not that many people know you but as you get bigger the chances of crazy finding and what happens with the crazy people is they they're like psychopaths they will not psychopaths but these crazy people they will attach themselves to you and they will continue doing it because they're mentally unstable yeah you get bigger and bigger you get more of these like little sticklers they they stick on you and they won't leave you alone right and one of those people is one of the people that got involved and called my company and wanted to dox me and whatever whatever but as you get bigger you get more of these crazy people right unfortunately they exist in all populations yeah yeah yeah yeah anyways but yeah yeah but i do believe that um malaysians the the asians they are not like uh the muslims in the middle east you know yes yeah they talk like that you know oh we're gonna come and you know but i don't think they you know they really i they have the heart to actually you know do it like they were talking about um uh in you know implementing hudud in malaysia we don't have we do we have channeling but we don't they only handle like things like marriage and um you know like a property settlement but but not criminal cases so like they were talking about that my state wanted to implement who do it and so like if you steal you get your hand cut off right um and then they were talking about oh we want to implement who do we gotta talk talk to doctors and surgeons to do it for us so then when they somebody steals something they're gonna cut it nicely like are you crazy if you don't have if you don't have the courage to take pick up the sword and cut it off yourself then stop talking about it you know like i can't do it so i i i wouldn't want to do it even if somebody stole something i don't want to cuddle somebody's ends you know so so to me like that things like that make me believe the asians they're softer people they may talk about it but they don't really mean it you know like so i'm not really scared because of that and uh fatally honest is asking um does assay have hoodoo i don't know if i said the name right i don't know about cutting of hands but they i saw there's like i think there's a caning or something like caning did you have some caning and you know like arresting women for dressing immodestly uh you know actually it's in indonesia right so oh yeah and it's in the north part it's kind of like that to me like it's like a sister's state to my home state they like compete with each other yeah but they they have caning they i think at one time they wanted to get independence from malaysia and they wanted to have like a separate you know governing and then there were wars or something yeah between them and the rest of indonesia and so like indonesia well they are part of indonesia but jakarta like let them do their own thing let them have a little you know um to do what they want so that to prevent any more wars from happening so [Music] yeah well okay i want to thank you julie this has been great a lot of people were looking forward to this and i didn't mention the beginning but i've known you on facebook for many many years now uh you i think i ran into when i first left islam back in 2015 2016 and uh i've followed you i found a like-minded soul you know yeah and i'm glad that we finally got time to sit down and actually have this conversation for people to hear yeah yeah i think when i first added you on facebook or you ended me i forgot but um at that time you just you just kind of like love islam only like one or two years or something and then seeing you now that you have a podcast i'm very you know like your name is up there with the other uh mortals talking about it is you know yeah yeah and um i'm happy like i said i'm happy to keep doing this i i think it's really important that these stories keep coming out um we are dealing with you know we're fighting a totalitarian system that tells people that their lives are for allah the hereafters for allah and whatever they spend is going to go to this giant paradise or whatever it's going to be avoided so we have an uphill battle right and and you know i do believe that many people because they're born into islam by default we have an uphill battle we need to go against something that has been in them since childhood right not everyone's questioning individual not everyone has the skepticism skeptic mind to be able to really find the way out of this so it's a difficult journey and if you want the world to be a better place we want people to continue to have the right to live whatever religion they want to to marry whatever they want whether they want to or to live with without marriage or you know those that life that we have is so precious and everyone has should be in charge of their own life so it's something important and you know you've you've made a great impact you started many years before when they were much higher and in malaysia much higher you know i want to add one more thing before i forget um make it quick um in malaysia we have like i mentioned that we have the we have the civil law and we have the sharia law so so islam does have a lot of influence on politics even though it's because we have 60 percent muslim and the rest are non-muslims and the sharia court in malaysia is only only take care of things like marriages and property you know division um but technically we who are people who are born muslim like me we cannot leave islam it's a you know you can try they say okay you can fill up the form and submit it and then like years later after you you've lost money to pay for lawyers whatever you know like people have tried and they got rejected and so what they do is they just leave the country like i do you know so um uh and and but another thing is some sometimes you know like non-muslims they wanna marry muslim so they converted to islam so but then it didn't work out and then um they want to leave islam for them they have a chance to leave um but still it will take years and they'll take lots of money but eventually they will be allowed to leave islam um but there's also problem like uh custody battle alimony you know like because they they converted to islam and married this muslim guy who's not so you know a nice person and then they leave and then it's so hard for them as a non-muslim uh to get you know like to fight custody alimony at the sharia court when you know that this kind of problem and also like especially for women i've heard laws and lots of stories but these muslim women who want to get a divorce in malaysia they have to go to shari alcorn and for men if they want to divorce they just say the words i divorce you and then you go to the court and the cop like okay you said it sign and then you're divorced but for muslim women if the men uh don't want to divorce them they have to go to court for years and then they would say okay go to counseling first and then ten years later it still hasn't been settled so i've had lots of stories about that this so it's very unfair system to many people that's that's a good point we didn't talk about that but the yeah the australia law courts um you know if you were talking about something else and you said apartheid system it's kind of like an apartheid system if you're giving about muslims and muslims different rights um especially women and men even have different rights in islam um and it's unfortunate that you know hopefully we will get you know as time goes by malaysia will get more in line with the secular system a system that gives everyone the rights no matter what the religion no matter what the gender even right so um that would be for the best there was there was a case uh this indian lady he got married to a muslim guy and then like the guy ran away with their kid like a baby and now the kid is like 10 years old or something or maybe older and she couldn't see the she couldn't see the girl and she went to court and even though the i forgot like civil caught awarded custody for her but then the guy just took the kid away and then charlie are caught tends to side with the muslims so there's a lot of cases like that so yeah yeah so again thank you so much julie this has been a wonderful conversation and i appreciate all that you've done for you know ex-muslims and for human rights and secular rights democracy all of that um to everyone that's watching thank you thank you to the the moderators who kept the chat clean and was we're keeping uh the conversation flowing thank you to everyone that joined today to the to the whole uh friendly ex-muslim family i appreciate all you guys if you'd like to support the channel do consider joining you can either join on youtube below or you can join on patreon uh giving a small monthly donation helps me to eventually do this full-time which is a goal at the moment i do have to work unfortunately i i need to keep limit the time on this project to what it is uh but i do think that at some point i'd love to do this full-time so if you can contribute a small amount monthly it would be appreciated if not that's okay as well leave a thumbs up below give five stars review on itunes all of that helps and uh check out julie's blog her story is amazing if you want to hear more read more about her she's not that active right now any last words from you julie um some people ask me they could ask questions or whatever i say i wasn't sure about the the format of the podcast so yeah whatever but you're going you're going to upload this video on youtube right yes it's going to be uploaded on youtube at the same link and as well it will also be available on the podcast so if anyone wants to listen to it on you know in without having to actually have the phone open or whatever you can actually download the podcast by searching for a friendly ex muslim podcast on any podcast app okay i will i will post whatever on my wall and all i wanted to say was because some people say they want to ask questions and then i'll try to read the comments and give some answers awesome yeah i'll do that you know maybe we will um do another one someone mentioned in the chat that we should get a bunch of uh you guys malaysian ex-muslims together so you fatally honest um i mentioned to you omera so there's quite a few of you now have interviewed we can get all these yeah more and more people are being open but that's what i want yeah you know i just what would they say standing in the on the shoulder of giants whatever you know people before me now other people you know exactly all right so don't don't hang up just yet and i'm going to end the broadcast to everyone else we'll see you at the next live stream which is going to be tomorrow night the epileptic prophet pat too we'll see you then and uh thank you julie thank you everyone bye for now thank you for giving me the opportunity absolutely it has been wonderful right all right

Channel: Friendly Exmuslim

Views: 13,298

Rating: 4.8553348 out of 5

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Id: HVdKKP2gvBA

Length: 112min 10sec (6730 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021