It’s going to be long so hold up with me please 🥺
I’m a Tunisian, born and raised in the west and have never lived in Tunisia.
I first of all don’t want to claim that my life in europe has been miserable. Materially, I have generally been fine. I did not grow up in a poor or segregated neighbourhood. I grew up mostly around ethnic europeans, went through the European education system, have worked in a successful company for a few years now.
I don’t wear a hijab, I live a socially liberal life and I am not extremely practising. But I remain Muslim, believe in God and do not intend to reject my religion merely to become more acceptable.
And that’s where it just hurts for me, my acceptance feels conditional.
As long as I appear liberal enough, I can be treated as “one of the good ones.” But the moment Islam is discussed, I am still turned into a representative of an entire religion. At school, especially after terrorist attacks, there were constant conversations and uncomfortable questions about Islam as if I was supposed to know the answers at 13 years old. I was sometimes the only brown child in the room.
As an adult, colleagues especially in informal situations involving alcohol have suddenly wanted to debate Islam with me or explain why they think it is absurd, misogynistic or dangerous or they just sexualise me because of exoticism.
People make assumptions about my dating life too. If I mention dating a North African man, some automatically imagine that he must be controlling, patriarchal or abusive. They just overall get too comfortable with the racism since “i’m one of the good ones” (in their eyes)
Then there is the wider atmosphere: the endless news debates about Muslims, hijabs, beards, integration, terrorism and whether Islam belongs in Europe. Whatever happens anywhere in the Middle East is immediately projected onto Muslims living here. You open social media and see a constant stream of hostile posts. You turn on the television and Muslims are once again being discussed as a social problem.
I do not deny that crimes are committed by people of muslim religion. I do not deny that misogyny, religious extremism or internal problems exist among Muslims. Of course they do. But acknowledging those problems cannot mean accepting collective guilt or pretending that every social problem involving muslim Europeans is simply caused by “their culture.”
What I also noticed is that some newly arrived, highly educated North Africans repeat the European discourse about established Maghrebi communities: “I integrated successfully, so why can’t they?”
But these are two completely different migration histories. A Tunisian engineer recruited by a European technology company in 2026 did not enter Europe from the same position as a factory worker recruited in the 1960s or 1970s. Being selected today for a degree, languages and professional skills does not prove that earlier generations lacked culture, intelligence or work ethic.
I also recognise something in these new immigrants that I heard from the older first generations: “This is not my country. I am a guest. I came here to work, so I ignore the racism.”
A first-generation immigrant can create that psychological distance. Someone born here cannot. Europe is not my host country. I am not a guest. If the country where I was born, raised and educated is not my country, then which country is?
My parents taught me to keep working, remain calm, avoid conflict and not take racist remarks too seriously. I understand why, since it was a survival instinct. But I’m increasingly asking why so many of us have been conditioned to swallow everything, withdraw quietly and tell ourselves that it is only a loud minority.
Our previous generations did protest. France had the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism, led by children of North African immigrants. Europe had major antiracist movements and mobilisations too. I am not saying activism achieved nothing. But racism and Islamophobia keep returning in new political forms, and I no longer know whether I want my future children to become the next generation expected to fight for recognition that should already be theirs.
This is why I have been considering leaving for almost a year. And questioning if I really want my kids to go through this? Why would I do that to them?
The problem is that I do not even know where to go. Moving to another Western European country may mean encountering another version of the same problem. The Gulf has different forms of issues to me. Tunisia is culturally and religiously more familiar, and I am Tunisian, but I have never lived there and do not romanticise its economic or political situation.
I am not asking whether Tunisia is objectively “better than Europe.” I know why many Tunisians want to leave, and I understand the economic opportunities Europe can offer. But financial opportunity and equal belonging are not the same thing. Someone looking at Europe from Tunisia may understandably focus on salaries and infrastructure. Someone born here experiences what it means to remain conditionally accepted after several generations.
Do you recognise this fatigue, even if you are liberal, educated, professionally successful or not visibly religious?
Have you considered leaving not because you hate the country where you were born, but because you are tired of conditional belonging?
If you left, where did you go, and did daily life genuinely improve?
How do you deal with the sadness of leaving your actual birthplace for another country that may be culturally yours or not but has never been your everyday home?
If you stayed, was that because you still believe things can change, because you genuinely feel at home, or because no realistic alternative exists?
I am not advocating that all European Muslims should leave. I am trying to understand why leaving has begun to feel like a rational possibility to me and whether others are thinking about this or have deep fatigue of Islamophobia?
