I’m not sure this is what you are looking to express. Your feelings, lifestyle, and what you have been through is not being reflected in this tattoo, but rather by getting “kafir” tattoo’d on yourself you will be SOMEWHAT committing a SOMEWHAT racist act yourself.

The meaning of kafir is something that is extremely difficult to understand in simple english, as… its complicated. The word kafir not only means disbeliever, or infidel, it somewhat means a person AGAINST islam and muslims. I’m not quite sure if that is what you are trying to do, but it would not be a tattoo I would recommend. It will without a doubt be frowned upon in all arab communities and people. Even if you have no intent in your life to ever visit any arab community, even so, there is a large population of muslims in the world, no matter where you live.

In very simple words, and in short, I’m sure that a LOT of people would find it offensive and racist, just like myself, rather than understand that you are trying to portray yourself as an atheist and African.

The muslims believe in a false messiah, “dajjal” who would have the word “kafir” carved on his forehead… (you can google this) trust me, weather false messiah or not, weather atheist or not, you do not want to be representing such a “message”. Also, according to muslim belief, satan, or “shaitaan”… is also a “kafir”, meaning that in some ways you would have… “im against muslims, i represent dajjal, and i represent the devil” tattoo’d on yourself.

I hope you understand my point of view, and understand in more detail the meaning of what you will be getting written into you, and it influences your decision in what ever way you want.

I am in South Africa, and I have been googling around for an atheist tattoo idea that catches my fancy.

I quite like the idea of the Arabic script for the word “kafir” or unbeliever or infidel. I don’t know how to post a pic of it here. Use Google language tools to translate “infidel” into Arabic if you’re interested.

The word has some significant resonances for me. Firstly it obviously says “unbeliever” in Arabic, but more importantly, the word “kafir” is the root word of the hated racial epithet “Kaffir” which was used as an Apartheid era slur for black people. (Like “nigger” in the USA, but with the added baggage of decades of institutionalised racism, the political, military, and social subjugation of the majority of South Africans by a racist minority etc.)

I am not black, but I was always an anti-Apartheid supporter. I was often beaten up at school for being a “kaffir boetie” (“nigger brother” or “nigger lover”), and I have always been opposed to racial discrimination in any form. I come from a family of anti-Apartheid campaigners, going back to my grandmother who was spied on, harassed, and eventually banned by the Apartheid government.

So, I think the Arabic lettering of the word “kafir” is very symbolic of where I see myself as an atheist, a non-racist, and as an African. It may pose a problem for me if I ever visit an Arabic speaking country…

Any comments about this? I need to discuss this sort of thing for some time until I’m SURE it’s the tattoo I want.

I really look forward to hearing comments.

Regards,
Marc

Please make sure to get the CORRECT German word tattooed if you decide to do that. I am from Germany and “Befreien Sie Denker” does NOT mean “freethinker”. The German word for freethinker is “Freidenker”. So make sure you get the proper word put into old script.

I have a tattoo of the flying spaghetti monster on my wrist. Of course, not every atheist is necessarily THAT into the whole Pastafarian thing…