Jess's Rant on Americans and the Middle East

Note: Please read my previous post, from Feb 18th, to get the story of where I've been since Feb 2nd! Then, read this post for funsies.

Ladies and Gentlemen -- Jess branches out into political commentary. Otherwise known as: a rant.

When I decided to visit Israel, Jordan, and Egypt -- all countries in the Middle East (ME) -- and started telling people about it, I usually got a combination of the following responses: "Why?", "That's dangerous.", and "Everyone there hates Americans". I'd like to present an argument in opposition to these opinions, and perhaps help illuminate some rather ridiculous judgements that people (mostly Americans and Western Europeans) tend to make. I'll use plenty of superlatives so that you can get a sense of exactly how I feel about most people who've made these comments. :)

So, let's begin by laying out what I consider to be the main assumptions/"logic" that contribute to the formation of the majority viewpoint that leads to the types of responses above. I have abbreviated "Assumptions" as "Ass." for your viewing pleasure / because I couldn't help myself.

Ass. 1: Generally, we (Americans) consider the ME to be comprised of Iraq, Afghanistan, and occaisionally Iran/Pakistan depending on the news that week. These countries -- entire countries, mind you -- thanks to the work of political powers and the media, have been labled as "the home of terrorists". Therefore, we make the jump: the Middle East is the home of terrorists.

Ass. 2: The largest ethnic group in the Middle East is the Arabian peoples -- the Arabs. The majority of Arabs in the Middle East are Muslims, followers of the Islamic faith. Our thought process seems to be as follows: The Middle East is where terrorits live. The Middle East is where Arabs (who are primarily Muslim) live. Therefore, the Middle East = Arabs = Terrorits = Muslims, leading to people thinking about and using these words interchangably.

Ass. 3: Finally, all terrorists harbor anti-Western, primarily anti-American sentiments. There is no other type of terrorism, and all terrorism in the Middle East is the same -- designed to target Americans. Since all terrorists are Muslims are Arabs, it leads to follow that all Arabs/Muslims hate Americans, and will go out of their way to harm one whenever they see one.

Ass. 3 and 1/2: (Another subject that I may or may not get into-- we seem to think that Islam/Muslims hate women, and will go out of their way to treat them unkindly. Therefore, since Muslims are primarily Arab, and Arabs live primarily in the Middle East, all women who travel to the Middle East are in danger.)

If you had trouble following, let me try to condense the above paragraphs into my opinion of how people who responded to my notion to visit Israel and Jordan as I mentioned felt: "You're going to the Middle East? The Middle East is the home of terrorism -- why would you ever go there? Everyone there hates Americans, especially American females. " That's the short version, taking into account all of the "Ass.'s" that I mentioned above.

Now, I'm not meaning to rant against people who've been concerned about my general safety -- I am a female traveling alone, and of course I have to remember certain safety rules that would apply anywhere I was -- I'm smart, I'll take care of myself, don't worry. I'm addressing people (and that might include you, who knows) who may have made the jumps in logic above to draw conclusions which, frankly, I see as riduculous -- not to mention highly prejudiced, ethnocentric, and intolerant. Now, you may think that these views are perfectly well-founded, supported by fact and experience -- you've seen all that news about the "War on Terror", suicide bombings, bombings of Israel by Arabs and of Arabs by Israel, speeches by radical extremist Muslim priests against the heathen Western world -- and what about 9-11? Don't forget our single largest moment of national violation that's happened in the past 40 years.

Let's think about things a little differently -- let's step away from our prejudices for a moment, and consider another viewpoint. My argument is as follows (I've labeled my arguemtns as "Facts" so that you don't get them confused with "Ass.s" :

Fact 1. The "War on Terror" began because of oil (Did we ever call it the War in Iraq? Why not?), not terror. We retaliated against 9/11 because we were afraid -- afraid for our national security, afraid that war could come to our lands, and afraid of the loss of our economic stability. We've secured the oil fields -- you never hear about a fire or a suicide bomb or an air raid against our petrol supply, only against cities and government buildings -- but, in the process, we've created this continuing offensive that proves to be harder and harder to end, this dialogue of terror and terrorists. Now we are fighting an offensive against violence that has been created, not because people (arabs) in the middle east (Irag and Afghanistan) inherently hate us, but because we've been bombing their civilians for the past 7 years.

You have a generation of children who are growing up without fathers and brothers. In 15 years they'll be grown, and when they ask their mothers what happened to their fathers, their mothers will tell them the truth -- your father was killed by Westerners. How else do your respond to that news but with hatred and violence -- especially if you have no other outlet -- no sway in the world media, no way to try the killer in the courts because the courts are run by his country? Certainly, I generalize here -- some historic clashes have escaped the cycle of violence -- but not many. Try as any mother might to raise a loving child in these situations, if someone killed YOUR brother and you had the chance to hurt them or their family as much as they've hurt you -- wouldn't you consider it? Combine this with incredibly charismatic religious leaders who make good use of the media, and with a child who has grown up in incredibly stressful situations, and you breed a certain number of violent extremists.

Not helping the situation is the unwillingness of the American media to distinguish between the current offensive and our retaliation after 9/11. Everyone knows that we haven't been fighting a "War on Terror" for 8 years -- but we won't admit it. We're trying to save face, when what we need to do is be honest with ourselves and with the world and try to rebuild some of the trust we destroyed by choosing to respond with massive violence to a single act of violence agaisnt us. It's a vicious cycle.

Fact 2. The Middle East is made up of (give or take, depending on your use of the term), 17 countries. I'm visiting what many people consider to be the most "Westernized" of these countries -- seriously, some Israelis told me (tongue-in-cheek) that their country might as well be the US's 51st state. Afghanistan and Iraq (and Iran and Pakistan) are not the same places as Israel and Jordan, geographically, politically, culturally... meaning that the places that you hear about in the news, the places that I believe we've helped breed violence into, are no where near where I'm going.

But what if they were? What if I was traveling through Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan -- I'm not, but I've met people who have just come from that part of the world. In fact, I've met single females who just finished traveling there. And you know what? Surpisingly, these countries are made up of people. Not Arabs, not terrorists, not Muslims, not armed masses of anti-Western soldiers -- but extremely hospitable people, some of the niceset people my friends had ever met.

Fact 3. Which brings me to my next point -- countries (including those in the Middle East) are made up of people. Same goes for ethnic groups and religions -- people comprise all of these groupings. People are both good and bad, and, as a rule, we try to give all people the "benefit of the doubt"
when we first meet them. It's called not being prejudiced... we should know that by now, America.

So what's the difference in the Middle East? What makes it/Arabs/Muslims all deserve to be sterotyped and generalized as terrorits? We don't judge entire other groups (such as Christians) by the act of one Christian sect (such as Evangelical Christians). We don't even judge our own country (the USA) by the terrorist acts of it's citizens -- civilian and military -- at home or abroad (school shootings, crashing a plane into a tax building, US troops sexually assaulting fellow soldiers/women in Iraqi villages/prisons).

A little too close to home? We make these judgements because of fear and ignorance -- fear that someone is trying to hurt us, that the acts of a few troubled people represent the intentions of an entire section of the world -- fear that has been built upon by clever media -- and ignorance of the real issues that need to be discussed, the cultural differences between "us" and "them", the lack of understanding of an entire religion/culture/political history. And you know what? Some people in the countries that we fear do the exact same thing to Americans! We would be shocked and personally insulted if someone assumed that we felt one way or another based only on the fact that we were American, or Christian, or gay, or Chinese, or Christian. "You don't know me!", you say. "I'm not like everyone else -- I have my own points of view, my own thoughts and opinions" . So do they. Fear and ignorance are powerful tools in the hands of those people searching for power, who know how to use the appropriate rhetoric to get a few people to behave in extreme ways (in the case of Middle Eastern terrorism)... or an entire country to support questionable military decisions (in the case of the entire US).

Fact 3 and 1/2. A related issue: the violence in Iraq/Afghanistan IS NOT generalizable to the entire Middle East. So when you hear that I'm going to Israel, and think I'm going to be the target of some suicide bomb -- please do a little research. Israel's problems are entirely seperate from what's going on in Iraq. The violence in Israel has (literally) thousands of years of religious-political history behind it. Why haven't we (the US) succeeded in ushering peace into that part of the world yet? Perhaps because we're a country with a mere 250ish years of existence, and a distinct dislike for the public association of " church and state" (let's continue to blindfold ourselves for a little longer, why don't we) -- trying to reconcile viewpoints that we have absolutely no basis of comparison with. Yes, we helped create the problem in the first place (as in Iraq/Afghanistan), and yes, we should try to fix it -- but this is besides the point. Violence in Israel isn't directed against Americans/ the Western World. It's directed either against the Israeli state or retaliation by the Israeli state against the Palestinians. And, for the time being, the extreme acts of violence have paused (though the oppression of an entire people continues -- interesting how the oppressed have become the oppressor). I'm at least as safe there as... being on a Delta flight in the US at Christmas, say?

Fact 3 and 3/4. Also related -- Everyone does NOT hate America. How self-centered we are! First, as was pointed out to me by a Spanish man the other day -- America refers to a set of continents, not one country -- so referring to the US as simply "America" betrays our general viewpoint of ourselves as the most powerful, most important country in the world. Second, not everyone in the Middle East is a terrorist with anti-American sentiments (we've been over this). Do you really think that people here have nothing better to do than to pick out American tourists and bother them more than everyone else? Do you really think that all people here are the same? What about the centuries-old tradition of hospitality before anything else in the Bedouin culture (Bedouins are Muslim Arabs, you know)? What about the desire for open-minded exchange, crossing cultural barriers, that drives travelers and those who welcome travelers every day to their countries and homes?

Whew! Drawing together (and expounding on) the last 3 and 3/4 Facts into an easy-to-read counterargument for people who tell me that I'm doing a dangerous thing by visiting the middle east... "We are all humans. We have the same needs, similar desires for freedom and knowledge, friendship and peace. No matter where you are in the world, you will meet a combination of people -- good and bad -- people with similar viewpoints to you, and people with different viewpoints from you. As long as you're open minded, willing to listen with respect, reply with consideration, and share with your cup always half empty, you will meet people who will be willing to do the same. Be modest -- be willing to admit when you're wrong -- and when you have no basis of comparison on which to have a conversation about a topic, be willing to be a student, to learn another way of thought/action. Don't let fear and ignorance control your life -- let experience drive your version of truth, for what is a "fact" but "a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred", or "a concept whose truth can can be proved" ?"

The people in Jordan and Israel have been some of the nicest, most hospitable people I've ever met. I've heard the same about people all over the Arab world -- the tradition of hospitality has been engrained throughout generations . People here are as educated as you and I -- Islamic universities are the premeir universities in the world -- the tradition of passing on knowledge through formalized education began here! Please form your own opinions, instead of believing everything you are told by trusted media sources or even trusted friends (I'm not included, of course -- you should believe everything I tell you :) ). The only way to know something for sure is to get out there and experiene it -- your reality is comprised of your experiences, and the only person who can change your reality... is you. Meet people on their turf -- don't demand answers to the questions you've come to ask and then leave. Be willing to start a conversation on common ground -- and be willing to admit when there is no common ground to start from. If you can't get out there, learn what you can through literature, scholarship, and the viewpoints of people who've been to the places that you're so quick to form judgements about -- but remember that these are just viewpoints. If all else fails, I hate to be cliche, but the Golden Rule always applies: treat others as you would wish to be treated, and good things will come of it.

Perhaps, together, we can broaden our minds, open our hearts, and form some sort of lasting peace throughout the world. This is WT/political correspondant Jess, getting off of her soapbox and wishing you all a good evening. Hope this was as fun for you as it was for me. Ma'a salama!