As a person of Middle Eastern descent I see the world from a different lens. When the Iraqi war was in deliberation in the U.S., about four to five months in advance, I was already having dreams of aircrafts crashing into my house and people screaming. When the war was declared on Saddam and Iraq - I was trembling.

September 11th happened. Who was blamed? The Middle East and its people. Controls were put on Middle Eastern countries, my cousins and brothers put on surveillance. My cousin's house was broken into by the FBI in California. My uncle's phones tapped. My fiancé put into jail for 11 days in our holy month of Ramadan in St. Louis, where he spent Eid, behind bars and pavement walls full of moss and fungus.

Laws were passed internationally against us - "the dangerous people." The word "terrorist" became a synonym for any Muslim name, woman or man. As a born Canadian, I saw my own country pass Bill C-36, the Anti-Terrorism Act, with few sunset clauses. For now, it is a permanent statute. People can be arbitrarily detained and put into jail with no charges and for an indefinite time.

The question I ask is what my family and I did to the world that we are harassed and treated as cockroaches that must be crushed. Because in our minds, we are treated no better. Our blood in Iraq and Afghanistan is being shed, and while CNN shows the total count of American soldiers dead, we are labeled as "collateral damage," with our deaths running in the tens of thousands, but there is little to no mention about it.

It makes me wonder whether Western countries think their life is more valuable than say Arab or Muslim life. I was in France this December and I saw the discrimination clearly. All the McDonald jobs, all the garbage cleaners were either Arab or Black. Yet, when Paris went up in flames with riots spanning across the city, no one seemed to understand. We are not bored; we are unemployed or poor and desperate for equal opportunity.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the Israelis who bulldozed us off our land, broke our homes and bought our land, when we didn't have property rights, are seen as the legitimate bearers of the country. The original inhabitants are thrown to the peripheries of the Gaza strip, where an area called Jenin has become one of the most densely populated areas in the whole world.

They are now building a "security wall" from us terrorists, so they can protect their people. Our villages are getting crowded, children have to stop at check points to go to school, and even if someone is having a heart attack he has to go through the check point to cross the security wall to get treatment. Palestinian people are randomly killed and there is little to no legal retribution provided for their death.

I am not a supporter of organizations that advocate suicide bombings and killing other people. The fact is, we are all human and my life is not more important than yours, nor is your life more important than mine.

It is this inequality of life value that I believe has led to the wars and hate in the world. The West, just like how it believed during colonization, that we were inferior to them, uses us and befriends us for oil. But it is quick to stab us in the back whenever it is unhappy with our performance.

The instant Saudi Arabia runs out of oil, do you really think the U.S. will have as close of a relationship with them? No way! They are strategically interested in Saudi because of oil. We are both blessed and cursed by having oil and this is one of the major reasons why we have so many conflicts and instability in the region. Everyone wants our oil.

I think people in the West need to start thinking that things happen for a reason. Maybe we should start trying to get to the root cause of problems rather than targeting a whole community as a scapegoat for our accusations. People are not bored and they just don't decide to blow themselves up and kill people. Yes, there are lunatics in the world, but these people are not lunatics. These people are upset and have planned these things to get back at the West.

Yes, it is revenge. Taking life at any end is not justified, but who is to say Americans can wage war, walk into our countries, kill our people and say, "It is for freedom and liberty." What is justified and who is wrong? If they see us as terrorists, trust me, people in the Middle East don't think the West is a savior either. Actually, quite the contrary; the West is often alluded to Satan, the Devil and much worse.