It’s easy to sit down on a couch in front of one’s television set and pass down judgments of ignorance, lack of education, hooliganism, or just plain “they’re scum” on the youngsters who had caused so much unrest recently in France. It’s especially easy if you haven’t previously experienced social injustice.

I’ve had it easy most of my life. Opportunities for upward mobility—socially, financially, and career-wise—knock on my door on a semi-regular basis. My family’s financial situation has always been more than satisfactory. Coming from a multi-cultural background, I’ve managed to fit in almost anywhere I go in the world, despite the fact that I am obviously Muslim from the way I dress. For a long time I also had dual American/Egyptian citizenship until I renounced my US passport in 1998 to protest against US policies in Iraq at the time.

Since then, traveling has become more and more difficult. There was no way on earth I could have foretold the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that would lead to, among other things, extensive and terribly long background checks before granting visas to anyone from the Middle East wishing to travel to Europe or the United States in particular. There was no way I could have foretold that renouncing my US citizenship would turn me into a second-rate citizen of the world.

On November 9, I was exposed to my own dose of social injustice. I was on my way from Cairo to Budapest to attend the World Science Forum, where I was invited to speak on science journalism. My journey took me to Milano, where I normally would have had an hour and a half of transit time. Due to a fog at Milano Airport, my flight from Cairo was delayed. Airline staff in Cairo insisted that I had nothing to worry about and that my flight from Milano to Budapest would be informed to wait for me. Instead, and for the first time in my long experience of air travel, this particular flight to Budapest decided to leave the gate minutes before its departure time, leaving behind not only me, but at least 10 other passengers from other connecting flights.

Needless to say, when something like this happens, it’s a bummer. But it happens. I have been able, in my mind, to find many excuses for the airline to explain why it left earlier than scheduled, leaving behind those passengers. Maybe it was the fog that plagued Milano airport for days—as I discovered when I returned from Budapest four days afterwards on my return trip to Cairo. Perhaps the fog had suddenly let up and the pilot was anxious to leave under the safest conditions possible. Perhaps the airline just likes to be very prompt in sticking to its departure times (which I can assure you is not the case since not one of the flights I took with them left on time—far from it). Maybe the flight attendants wanted to get this flight over with as quickly as possible and just go home. I can even understand that.

I can’t understand, however, the differentiation of treatment between me and the other passengers who missed the plane that followed. All the other passengers happened to be either American or European. All were provided a night’s accommodation at the airport hotel. Since I did not have a visa that would allow me to leave the airport, and there was none to be bought, I was told that my only solution was to spend the next 12 hours in the airport until the next flight to Budapest departed.

I asked for any sort of compensation: using one of the airline’s lounges, having my ticket upgraded to business class, or just getting directed to a decent transit lounge to stretch out and rest. None of these options were available. I asked who to go to in order to lodge an official complaint. “Complain to the company,” they replied. “Tell me who I can speak with now,” I requested. “Unfortunately, there is no one,” I was told. All they could provide me was a voucher for dinner from the snack bar, which had closed by the time all of this was done. The whole airport in Milano shuts down at 11pm, with absolutely no services available until 6am the next morning.

I must ashamedly admit that I broke down in tears when I realized what was happening to me. I had never conceived that I would be treated as a second-rate citizen of the world. I had never conceived that I would be treated differently than others simply because of where I come from. I had heard about things happening to other people, but had distanced myself from thinking that it could happen to me.

The last thing I told the woman from the ground staff, who was telling me that there was absolutely nothing she could do for me, was, “One day you will come to Egypt and see how we treat foreigners. We take complete strangers into our homes and stop our cars if we see a foreigner having trouble with a taxi.” I sobbed. A man who I assume was European, who also missed his flight but was lucky enough to be able to go to the airport hotel, tried to calm me down by saying, “This is typical Berlusconi politics.” What the heck Berlusconi has to do with me having to stay in an airport for 12 hours without a decent chair to stretch in is beyond me, but at least the man had the sensitivity to try to make me feel better. I could not say as much for the airport staff.

I lugged my bags around the airport to see what my options were. No open snack bars, no chaises longues to make myself semi-comfortable in, no water that I could find. Only the bathrooms were open, which I thanked God for. I looked around me and found about 30 other people in my same predicament—all of obvious Middle Eastern origin with the exception of maybe one couple who might have been Russian or something.

I slumped into one of the airport chairs and tried to make myself comfortable. I couldn’t. The chair hurt. I cried a little more. Eventually I convinced myself that crying wouldn’t get me anywhere. Something must be done, I told myself. I have to be proactive. No problem is ever solved by crying.

Ideas raced through my head. A hunger strike! I was already hungry anyway and was forced, due to the circumstances, to fast the night. A demonstration! I could gather all the Middle Easterners in the airport and hold a protest at one of the gates. Or better yet, we could all stand on the tarmac in front of one of the planes and prevent it from taking off!

I took my wonderful ideas so seriously—they had actually given me hope in spending an exciting evening and actually getting my voice heard—that I looked around me to choose who would be the first lucky people for me to approach and conspire with. I had already met a young Turkish couple who went through all the arguments I had with the ground staff and failed as I did. I decided to approach them first. I didn’t have enough courage to ask them to go on a hunger strike with me or to hold a demonstration, but I did suggest that we think of some kind of group action. “But we’ve already spoken with everyone we can speak with,” was their basic argument against. “Who else is there to go to to voice our grievances?” They did have a point—if you want to think civilly and logically that is. I still wanted to make a commotion at the airport though.

I decided to try speaking with two Arab men, an Algerian and a Jordanian. The Jordanian continuously smiled—rather smirked—as I told them of my idea of having some sort of group action. I could just see him saying to himself, “What a crazy veiled woman! Go back to your family where you belong!” The Algerian was kind enough to go through all my arguments with me. He had also spoken with every single person possible to try to solve his own predicament. In the end, the only solution was, “Complain to the company.” He invited me to spend the night on the makeshift bed he was using and explained that he would find somewhere else to sleep. I declined explaining that I was a sturdy woman who could hold her own quite well, thank you.

Not to go into more details on how I eventually managed to make my own makeshift bed out of airport chairs, my point here is that social injustice hurts. It hurts to the bone. It hurts one’s pride. It hurts one’s sense of dignity. It pushes one to the brink of illogical reaction sometimes. And other times, perhaps the only reaction possible is the illogical. I can hardly begin to imagine what it would be like to be treated this way every single day of my life. One injustice and I was ready to stop airplanes from flying. What kinds of riots would I be behind if I was repeatedly treated as a second-class citizen in France as a result of my ethnic background? What kind of mayhem would I cause if no matter how hard I tried, every door was shut in my face? I truly do not want to know the answers to those questions. God has clearly saved the world from the likes of me being unjustly treated on a regular basis.