Hello friends,
It has been some time since I wrote last, and as always I would have liked to have kept in touch better. Since arriving in the Middle East, it has been a balancing act of trying to learn about the history, learn Arabic, open myself to personal experiences, and serve the society. Somewhere through all this documenting the process has been left behind. Despite this, my gratefulness for the roles you have all played in my life is undiminished, and I wish I could maintain better the relationships with all the compassionate and supportive people I have been surrounded with. So, here it goes…
I have found myself settled in Cairo, a place which I had no plans for visiting and have not really gained any real affinity for. Yet somehow, it seems like where I should be.
It has become a habit of mine to seek out the things most difficult for me. For as long as I can remember I felt that it was only a matter of time before my weaknesses would be exposed and I would suffer for them. In some ways, this is the latest incarnation of challenging myself with the intent to grow as a person, a leader, and a human being.
As of a bit over a month ago, I committed to trying to perpetuate a project giving Iraqi refugees legal aid in the resettlement process. It is a project whose demand is manifest and whose purpose I would like to lay in the hands of one with far more experience, but which has been left to us because, as one of my partners put it, "we were the last ones left in the room." A side note is that I had originally planned to go to law school this fall, but at the time I was only on waiting lists. The opportunity before me seemed one that I couldn't let go by. So, it will be at least another year, possibly two until I begin law school. While I'm still really excited about the prospect and even a little jealous of some of our interns that are going to law school, what we are beginning is so exciting that i don't think about it much.
It is a role currently fulfilled by a woman long ago consumed by her compassion for humanity and passion for justice. Hers is a decisiveness that commands both attention and obedience, and because she so facilely wields it over such a broad network, it overshadows the lack of nuanced legal expertise expected by all those who come to her. They are qualities which also come at the expense of the stability of organization and the patience for empowerment, but her accomplishments in an hour easily outweigh the accomplishments of most people in a week. So, criticism comes with all the same contradictions as the humanity she represents. While I could talk about my boss for quite some time, this is all only to say that she is an entirely different leader than I am and have needed to reconceive what the organization will look like without her clout and dominance.
Since then, I have gained a set of invaluable partners in developing this project and we have begun imagining how to fill in the considerable shoes that left for us to fill as of September 1st. But to describe this vision it is relevant to first describe how I got here and the population we are trying to serve.
Where I Am, How I Got Here
I had originally approached the Middle East as a learning experience, more focused on basic information that in putting myself in challenging situations. In March I briefly flew home after having been in Jordan and Syrian for about 2 ½ months because it was looking like my mother would need a thyroid operation on a tumor that might have been cancerous. By the time I arrived however, upon further advice, she decided to wait on the operation, and the problem has since diminished to the point that it is not necessary.
All this happened soon after I was rejected from going to Israel. I didn't expect to be rejected, but upon reflection, I don't think they really appreciate tourists that are planning to spend unstructured time in the West Bank. Also, I happened to be going to Ramallah on the same day as Dick Cheney. Also, I had two passports because the Syrian Embassy lost and then found my first one. I don't think that helped. Even more bothersome is that the reality that having an Israel stamp on your passport basically prohibits you from any Islamic country except for Jordan and Egypt. While I really liked the people that I had met in Jordan, I chose Egypt because I wanted to expose myself to various points of view in the Middle East.
While it's impossible to wrap a culture in a bottle, there are a few characteristics that are important to highlight about Egypt and Cairo in particular. My roommate, who is from a rural town North of Cairo, once told me that there was no comparison between Cairo people and the people from his town. It was in the context of a description of the people from his town as generous, peaceful, compassionate, and honest. That's kind of what Cairo is like.
I always hesitate to describe anything as the inevitable conclusion of a set of circumstances, but I can't help but believe that the unyielding stream of scams that characterize Cairo has been molded by the centuries of tourists not interested in the Islamic customs or history which are held far more dearly than Pharonic ruins. The economic incentives created by a steady stream of wealthy vacationers have definitely played a part in Egyptians' preying upon the sensibilities, courtesies, and vulnerabilities of those passing through. The specialization has not stayed limited to Westerners. The majority of Iraqis, whom are perceived as rich, have been victims a similar array of skills. Away from the touristy areas, it decreases, but the Middle East has a way of wearing you down. In many ways the family is what the society is built on, and the commitment to the benefit of the entire society is negligible in comparison. Approaching it without a strong social network is damn hard, no matter who you are. Extra barriers, language, cultural, discriminatory, or otherwise, just add to the hurdles to surviving.
Aside from those more uncomfortable aspects, Egypt has a small intellectual and political culture. By western standards it is miniscule, but compared to the rest of the Middle East it is downright vibrant. Partially it comes from a relative amount of freedom of speech—as of about 5 years ago independent media and NGO's were permitted. Partially it comes from a much more lengthy history of education than other countries in the Middle East, and finally it comes from the formal ban on religious fundamentalism in political participation, the simple lack of external threats, and the failure of the government to perform basic functions, which all mobilize people to various forms of political thought. Although in a free election, religious fundamentalism would easily dominate, the repression of such parties opens a small window for the liberals of the country to squeeze through and begin articulating themselves.
It was in this context that I was dropped with my goals of learning Arabic, understanding their frame of reference, and if possible contribute however appropriate. I began a six week Arabic class, and soon met some activists who acquainted me with their world.
While the democracy activists are not representative of the country in general, it has become the culture with whom I've surrounded myself socially. I had a long discussion with a passionate, insightful, and very well-connected Egyptian friend of mine who manages an independent media non-profit and we discussed the various democratic and liberal movements in Egypt. At the end of describing my belief that a readiness to accept criticism and reanalyze one's point of view as a necessary characteristic for any truly selfless, sustainable, or effective movement, I asked him if he knew any activists with such characteristics and a vision of long term change. "No."
So, I began my direct service. I sent out a message on a Cairo listserv asking if there were any opportunities to serve refugees. Two days later I was taking the testimony of Iraqi refugees applying for resettlement.
The Vision
Resettlement is not the solution for most Iraqi refugees. Even though the US has made explicit their desire to admit thousands more refugees, it is still a drop in the bucket of the approximately 2.5 million refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt not to mention the millions displaced internally in Iraq. The program is more of a condolence program for the Iraqis who have suffered for their cooperation with the US. Despite this, the dream was sold long before it even existed. For every Iraqi resettled, twenty design their life around the possibility. Our job is not only helping in getting resettled, but helping redesign the dream for those who won't be.
Iraqis in Egypt are a group far more educated than the norm, self-reported estimates range between 2/3 and ¾ of Iraqis in Egypt as having college degrees. My guess is that that is an overestimation, but regardless it is a very select subset of people who have the education and capabilities to integrate into Egyptian society. Unfortunately, Egypt is not amenable. In practice, refugees don't have the right to work, the right to attend public schools, or the right to form organizations among themselves. They can start a business, but they require an Egyptian partner, which has unfortunately often ended in being cheated out of money. The sum of these has bred frustration and helplessness in a population that often already struggles with the trauma they left behind.
The primary services that we have the capability and potential to offer is resettlement legal aid. In early 2008, the US expanded a program to allow Iraqis associated with the US forces to go through an expedited process for resettlement. Urgent cases such as severe medical issues, torture victims, or refugees in danger in Egypt, also have a chance through the painfully lengthy UN process.
We receive people with all their problems, expectations, and hopes. The challenge is trying to engage all of these in a productive way. A friend who works with refugees in the non-profit community mentioned that she tried to not let someone go without helping to solve one of their problems. It is not something that will always be possible, but that will be the aim.
Soon after I agreed to take on the project, my boss sent out an e-mail asking for help. The only respondee was probably the most valuable person I could imagine in the process. Passionate, sensible, solely interested in the benefit of Iraqis and with experience fundraising and initiating non-profits, Susannah has been my other half in the planning process. Though for her it is a side project, she has offered her ability to see systems with clarity and the ability to communicate this effectively. She is the reason why we are now a collaboration with the American University at Cairo with an indispensable research director and a fantastic legal director.
She also brought with her the desire to see the community for what they possess and the potential it represents. It is a constant challenge in a situation where what the community lacks is so apparent and urgent, and in a populous which so thoroughly oppressed in every form of community building in the previous Iraqi regime.
But it is exactly this process that we hope to initiate—to help people see themselves in the lens of their own potential and the potential of their community they live within more than their needs and their persecution. It's not a process for which everyone is ready. For many the direness of their current situation does not allow for external concerns. But many are, and fighting the misery of being a refugee while trying to develop usable skills needs only the few to initiate the process.
An unintuitive side effect among the entire effort and one that I hope to break down, is that I have felt culturally a bit farther away from the people that I'm serving. When in Jordan and Syria, I was teaching conversation classes with college students. That my students did not need my approval allowed more authentic relationship than that of a service provider. When people come with hopes of resettlement, the discussion naturally becomes one of a description of victimization. Even with the most honest of people, the discussion is framed in a way which surrounds their dire situation in Cairo. Discussions on religion are necessarily around their political context, and there aren't many natural opportunities to pierce that discussion. Those whom I have become close to are the refugees that contribute to the organization, a group of exceptionally selfless individuals whom I've been looking for since I got to the Middle East.
In some ways, though, I'm okay with not being exposed to the intolerant aspects people don't tell us about themselves or the more ugly parts of their history. Often conceptions are limiting in what you believe you are capable. What is expected of you becomes who you are. We would like to expect the best of people, to set up who they would like to be and design the system around it.
None of this is to say however that we don't recognize our limitations, and the care with which we must approach confidentiality issues and suspicion within the community that often characterizes the perspectives of the refugees we serve. It is more to express that we operate in a conflicted world, that in the Middle East nothing is beyond the conflicts of the past, and that in most cases it is impossible to extricate those conflicts that came as a result of what was forced upon the whole society and the ones in the individual.
For the vast majority, they are simply subjects of the tremendous violence that has descended around them. Their family has been killed, or their children kidnapped, and virtually always their lives have been threatened. For many who prefer not to admit it, they suffer from post-traumatic stress issues. None of it their fault, many are still children. As anyone who has spent much time in the Middle East can verify, it can break you down if you don't have a social network to support you. We work with people who often have not only been left alone, but are too scared of their neighbors to rebuild them. If we can build up something where they can feel again, whether abroad or in Egypt, it will easily have been worth all the effort.
The Ulterior Motive
On the practical level, our project has been generously taken on by another non-profit in Cairo, a religiously affiliated but non-evangelical non-profit called Saint Andrew's Refugee Services. So, it relieves the need for formal recognition. Though office space is closer to a nook than an office, it offers a place to start. The precarious first stage of starting a project like this requires that money, quality service, team of committed individuals, and office space all need to materialize simultaneously.
We've got the team of committed individuals. About 4 staff including myself and what looks like will be about 4 interns.
But the appeal made here is a material one. Operating out of Egypt allows for a relatively low start up cost. The most urgent need is basic costs covering. We have received a start up grant of $9000 from the Saint Andrew's funders, and hope to receive further funds from the American University of Cairo. But the short fall is still well short of our needs for salaries, office space, and translators.
This project is something that currently has operated, astoundingly generously, out of the pocket of my boss, but she is leaving on August 31st, and all the costs will be now borne by us.
I know that many of you are leftists being similarly underpaid, but for those of you that believe in what I'm doing and can make a contribution, no matter how small, we would all greatly appreciate it. If you happen to know anyone who might be interested in such issues, or ideas for further sources of funding they would also be more than welcomed.
The hope is that this will be enough to buy us some time to develop our services to a sufficient extent that we will be able to pursue more formal sources of funding during this year.
As usual, I'm going to throw in a Buddhist perspective here. In Buddhism, the idea of karma exists. It is an idea that was not introduced to be a theology for the sake of theology. Everything the Buddha taught was designed to help people come out of suffering. Karma was intended to explain to people that they had to bear the fruits of their past karmas. You don't have a choice about the things you are currently experiencing or the fruits of past karmas which you haven't yet lived through. But what you do have control over is the type of karma you are creating in the present moment, and if you strive to perfect that intention and that action in the present moment, you will be planting seeds of happiness in the future.
This works out in my favor for the current situation, but far more important than any contribution is the intention and desire to do good in the world and the will to actually do it.
with peace,
Jeff
P.s. let me know if you have any questions about anything I'm doing. if interested in giving (it is a 501(c)(3) organization and tax deductible), please make it out to:
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Global Mission
8765 W. Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631
and then specify Iraqi Information Office on the subject line.
Also, please let me know if you are planning to give a contribution so we can track it and plan around it.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Wishing AIPAC Couldn't Sway 5% of the Vote in Florida
I couldn't help but cringe while watching Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC in the Middle East.
While I thoroughly support almost all of his other policies, and firmly believe in his personal & political instincts, his unfortunate lack of international experience was desperately on display the same day he received the nomination. With all his domestic policies, Obama has put thorough effort into understanding all perspectives, appreciate where the opposing sides are coming from and trying to present a nuanced, insightful solution by integrating these perspectives and addressing them all.
It was not displayed in that his solution or his stance was the right or wrong one, it was displayed because his speech was so utterly detached from the perspectives of the entire Arab world, which is just unlike him. It was a speech which was tremendously in tune, however, with the spirit, concerns, perspectives, and self-conscious identity of Jews. So, much so that I think it allowed me to understand them better. But in the rare occasions he mentioned the legitimacy of Palestinian concerns, it was insulting by its sheer lack of effort to understand what they really want.
It is one of the inevitable issues in any presidential contest that you have to be an expert on everything, and the easiest way to fake that is to agree with the dominant political consensus. Unfortunately, with regard to Middle East policy that consensus rarely takes into account the culture and perspective of the average Arab. Every reference to the average Arab seems to be simplistic portrayals more reflective of how the Arab world is misunderstood than its reality.
That rare mention of Palestinian concerns was his encouragement of Israel to grant ease of movement, alleviate economic conditions, and halt new settlements in the West Bank (after the security of Israel was secured, and an undivided Jerusalem declared the capital of the Jewish state). Yes, Palestinians do care about these things, but having been in the Middle East, I suspect that those practical accomplishments are subservient to a much greater goal.
Justice.
It is a concept that holds far more weight in the Middle East than freedom, democracy, economic development, or peace. The rare references to freedom come in elite circles' self-conscious references to the west or with freedom from international mingling. The rare references to democracy come with allusions to the hypocrisy of Western governments not to acknowledge the legitimacy of Hamas' victory in Gaza.
While every Palestinian would like to go back in time and retroactively instill justice, at this point I think most would settle for a more recent and enduring justice. They have felt lied to, exploited, and ultimately helpless because of their situation in the West Bank, and the root is often seen as a puzzlingly staunch commitment of the United States to the Israelis. It is a commitment where every decision that gets taken by the US or the international community seems to account for only one side of the story. In many ways it isn't a hard problem to fix. So, here is what I would have said to AIPAC, and I think it is something in the ballpark of what Obama would have said if he had put the same thought into understanding the perspectives in the Middle East with the same care with which he approached, let's say, health care.
"Most of you here want me to proclaim how diligently I will protect Israel's existence & security. How staunchly I will oppose extremism in the Middle East, & how firmly I will stand when dealing with Arab leaders hostile to Israel. Those are important points, and I will address them in due time.
But I wish to start from a different perspective—the perspective that despite 60 years of steadfast American support, Israel is no closer to the long term stability that it seeks. And so we must begin to attempt to undermine not only the extant threat of extremism, but the roots of it endurance.
The problem before Israel is not the extremists, but the ease with which they recruit people to their cause. The problem isn't the hostile Arab leaders, but the fact that they gain rather than lose political points by railing against Israel.
The very root of the problem goes deeper than day-to-day security issues. If it is dealt with as such it is a fight which will go on forever.
The problem is that Arab people feel that they have not been dealt with fairly. And while I fully sympathize with the need for an identity, and a homeland and a peace with which to enjoy it, this simply will not come without a true relationship with the average Arab.
I am suggesting a different approach. We talk a lot about winning the hearts and minds of the Arab people in Iraq, but we rarely get into specifics. There are quite a few tried and true ways to begin to do it.
The first is simply listening. Designing policies based on the actual needs of the people instead of solely the security needs of Israel. This might sound like a bleeding-heart approach, and I'll admit to some degree it is. However, more than that it is an eminently practical approach. Hamas wins elections not primarily because people chafe at what they perceive as Israeli injustice, but because it serves their practical needs far better and is far less corrupt than Fatah. They lay their claim to legitimacy on the fact that the party addresses their needs.
By preempting that need, by actually addressing the needs of the dispossessed and by giving them hope for their future, we can build not only a rapport but a constituency that supports and is invested in the peace process.
Right now the Palestinian people have no reason to be invested.
Hezbollah has gained tremendous popularity not because it uses violence, but because it was seen that the outcome was the first glimpse of fairness that the Arab world has seen in the last century. Not that Israel should capitulate or not capitulate in the face of the situation they were confronted with by Hezbollah. Far more important than that, is that we have an opportunity to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab people by providing that sense of justice, that sense of fairness to the surrounding Arab countries.
In the mind of many Arabs, peace hasn't seemed to bring a sense of justice or fairness, and until recently war hadn't either. Hezbollah offered for them the sort of targeted instead of senseless violence that seems far less morally reprehensible than the targeting of innocents of Al Qaeda or the anarchic violence led by extremists in Iraq.
Let there be no mistake. I will oppose extremism wherever it lies, and wherever innocent people are put in danger for the sake of ideological intolerance, I will stand ready and willing to act to protect them. (…here is where we insert all of the Obama's resolute text on opposing intolerance and appreciated the Israeli self-image and concerns…)
I think I might have lost every friend I had in this audience, but I shouldn't have—because I have only one goal. It is the peace and security for every child is born not knowing the ideology or violence of their fathers. I think of that humanity, so rich with possibility. Whether it is the unyielding service of humanity, the tireless service of God, the attempt to improve themselves, the search for truth, or simply the modest plight of a better life for their children, it is too often that this selflessness and goodness in humanity is usurped by horrors of senseless violence, the wars of the past, the hopelessness of the future, and the bigotry of ideological fanaticism.
I am working for peace, and the only difference between me and many of the politicians who are equally earnestly working for peace, is that I know this is the only way to reach that enduring peace.
I mentioned that 60 years of efforts toward peace despite steadfast support of the US have failed to bring Israel closer to feeling their country is at peace. The reason for this is that they have sought to impose peace through military superiority.
The difference in how I seek to deal with the Middle East is not a policy change. It is one of approach. It is treating the people on the other side of the table with the respect that in our hearts each one of us craves more than anything else."
While I thoroughly support almost all of his other policies, and firmly believe in his personal & political instincts, his unfortunate lack of international experience was desperately on display the same day he received the nomination. With all his domestic policies, Obama has put thorough effort into understanding all perspectives, appreciate where the opposing sides are coming from and trying to present a nuanced, insightful solution by integrating these perspectives and addressing them all.
It was not displayed in that his solution or his stance was the right or wrong one, it was displayed because his speech was so utterly detached from the perspectives of the entire Arab world, which is just unlike him. It was a speech which was tremendously in tune, however, with the spirit, concerns, perspectives, and self-conscious identity of Jews. So, much so that I think it allowed me to understand them better. But in the rare occasions he mentioned the legitimacy of Palestinian concerns, it was insulting by its sheer lack of effort to understand what they really want.
It is one of the inevitable issues in any presidential contest that you have to be an expert on everything, and the easiest way to fake that is to agree with the dominant political consensus. Unfortunately, with regard to Middle East policy that consensus rarely takes into account the culture and perspective of the average Arab. Every reference to the average Arab seems to be simplistic portrayals more reflective of how the Arab world is misunderstood than its reality.
That rare mention of Palestinian concerns was his encouragement of Israel to grant ease of movement, alleviate economic conditions, and halt new settlements in the West Bank (after the security of Israel was secured, and an undivided Jerusalem declared the capital of the Jewish state). Yes, Palestinians do care about these things, but having been in the Middle East, I suspect that those practical accomplishments are subservient to a much greater goal.
Justice.
It is a concept that holds far more weight in the Middle East than freedom, democracy, economic development, or peace. The rare references to freedom come in elite circles' self-conscious references to the west or with freedom from international mingling. The rare references to democracy come with allusions to the hypocrisy of Western governments not to acknowledge the legitimacy of Hamas' victory in Gaza.
While every Palestinian would like to go back in time and retroactively instill justice, at this point I think most would settle for a more recent and enduring justice. They have felt lied to, exploited, and ultimately helpless because of their situation in the West Bank, and the root is often seen as a puzzlingly staunch commitment of the United States to the Israelis. It is a commitment where every decision that gets taken by the US or the international community seems to account for only one side of the story. In many ways it isn't a hard problem to fix. So, here is what I would have said to AIPAC, and I think it is something in the ballpark of what Obama would have said if he had put the same thought into understanding the perspectives in the Middle East with the same care with which he approached, let's say, health care.
"Most of you here want me to proclaim how diligently I will protect Israel's existence & security. How staunchly I will oppose extremism in the Middle East, & how firmly I will stand when dealing with Arab leaders hostile to Israel. Those are important points, and I will address them in due time.
But I wish to start from a different perspective—the perspective that despite 60 years of steadfast American support, Israel is no closer to the long term stability that it seeks. And so we must begin to attempt to undermine not only the extant threat of extremism, but the roots of it endurance.
The problem before Israel is not the extremists, but the ease with which they recruit people to their cause. The problem isn't the hostile Arab leaders, but the fact that they gain rather than lose political points by railing against Israel.
The very root of the problem goes deeper than day-to-day security issues. If it is dealt with as such it is a fight which will go on forever.
The problem is that Arab people feel that they have not been dealt with fairly. And while I fully sympathize with the need for an identity, and a homeland and a peace with which to enjoy it, this simply will not come without a true relationship with the average Arab.
I am suggesting a different approach. We talk a lot about winning the hearts and minds of the Arab people in Iraq, but we rarely get into specifics. There are quite a few tried and true ways to begin to do it.
The first is simply listening. Designing policies based on the actual needs of the people instead of solely the security needs of Israel. This might sound like a bleeding-heart approach, and I'll admit to some degree it is. However, more than that it is an eminently practical approach. Hamas wins elections not primarily because people chafe at what they perceive as Israeli injustice, but because it serves their practical needs far better and is far less corrupt than Fatah. They lay their claim to legitimacy on the fact that the party addresses their needs.
By preempting that need, by actually addressing the needs of the dispossessed and by giving them hope for their future, we can build not only a rapport but a constituency that supports and is invested in the peace process.
Right now the Palestinian people have no reason to be invested.
Hezbollah has gained tremendous popularity not because it uses violence, but because it was seen that the outcome was the first glimpse of fairness that the Arab world has seen in the last century. Not that Israel should capitulate or not capitulate in the face of the situation they were confronted with by Hezbollah. Far more important than that, is that we have an opportunity to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab people by providing that sense of justice, that sense of fairness to the surrounding Arab countries.
In the mind of many Arabs, peace hasn't seemed to bring a sense of justice or fairness, and until recently war hadn't either. Hezbollah offered for them the sort of targeted instead of senseless violence that seems far less morally reprehensible than the targeting of innocents of Al Qaeda or the anarchic violence led by extremists in Iraq.
Let there be no mistake. I will oppose extremism wherever it lies, and wherever innocent people are put in danger for the sake of ideological intolerance, I will stand ready and willing to act to protect them. (…here is where we insert all of the Obama's resolute text on opposing intolerance and appreciated the Israeli self-image and concerns…)
I think I might have lost every friend I had in this audience, but I shouldn't have—because I have only one goal. It is the peace and security for every child is born not knowing the ideology or violence of their fathers. I think of that humanity, so rich with possibility. Whether it is the unyielding service of humanity, the tireless service of God, the attempt to improve themselves, the search for truth, or simply the modest plight of a better life for their children, it is too often that this selflessness and goodness in humanity is usurped by horrors of senseless violence, the wars of the past, the hopelessness of the future, and the bigotry of ideological fanaticism.
I am working for peace, and the only difference between me and many of the politicians who are equally earnestly working for peace, is that I know this is the only way to reach that enduring peace.
I mentioned that 60 years of efforts toward peace despite steadfast support of the US have failed to bring Israel closer to feeling their country is at peace. The reason for this is that they have sought to impose peace through military superiority.
The difference in how I seek to deal with the Middle East is not a policy change. It is one of approach. It is treating the people on the other side of the table with the respect that in our hearts each one of us craves more than anything else."
Friday, May 2, 2008
communicating compassion and selflessness in the Arab world
Subconsciously, I have always presented myself in a way that I think is best suited to the person I'm speaking to. Without noticing it, I'll often try to intuit the frame of reference people are using and try to present myself in terms of that frame of reference.
In the Middle East, there are things about myself that I just don't talk about. it isn't because I am in any way ashamed or want to hide them about myself, but primarily because people don't really have any frame of reference for it. I can count on two fingers the number of times that I've any sort of substantial conversation on Buddhism with Arabs, and on one the number of times where it has made any sense to them. I've also given up on trying to explain to people that my only goal in life is for people to have the optimal ability to come out of their inner turmoil. Even when this is simplified down to working for the good of society and people is usually seen with some skepticism.
I
There are a number of different hindrances to this understanding. The first is that Islam, especially as it is practiced today, is about as far as a religion can get from Buddhism.
After telling an Arab friend that Buddhists were agnostic on the question of God, he asked me "Who do Buddhists pray to when they need help?" to which I answered "Buddhists don't pray. They meditate. They try to recognize that whatever is going on is impermanent and improve the way they interact with it." He looked at me quite confused.
While Buddhism is completely focused on the individual purifying himself, Islam is solely focused on God almost to the exclusion of attention to internal issues. Buddhism relies on faith for the purpose of focusing on the work of meditation by which you overcome your personal hindrances, while for Islam faith is the end without which everything else you do is purposeless. In Islam, any attempt to improve oneself is almost solely behaviorist. In Buddhism modifying behavior is only a modest prerequisite to arriving at true peace within oneself. The idea of retraining the subconscious mind has no reference as most of the unexplained parts of a person are referred to as the soul.
While many of these parallel to Christianity in the West, the Muslim world has virtually no importation of these ideas and the tradition of doubt and consideration of all perspectives is non exisitant.
II
The second is that the Arab culture is one far more based on pride than on service.
As a Syrian friend was defending the protests about the drawings of the prophet in Denmark, he analogized the situation to someone insulting your father. He asked me "What would you do if someone insulted your father?" I told him "It depends on whether it is true or not. If what he said is true then I would try to help my father overcome whatever failings the person was pointing out. If it isn't true and the person is an idiot. How is that my problem? I'm not going to go out and yell and scream at every idiot in the world. You could spend your whole life doing that and never get anywhere." He was floored. He clearly had no way to relate to this approach. He went on and discussed how there had been criticism before and after assorted but similar methods the criticism had stopped. At that point I realized we were coming from different worlds. In numerous situations I have noticed this approach repeated. Criticism is seen as the problem not an opportunity to solve a problem.
However, I have grown to understand where he is coming from. In the Arab world, in a society where relationships matter far more than quality of work or integrity, one's reputation is everything. Slander is more than a personal insult. It can be a direct economic and social threat.
But what he was touching upon was a more obvious and broadly accepted culture of pride. As I was studying Arabic I came across the word for "humble." I thought, that is a word that I want to know. Then I noticed it had the same meaning as "small" and "insignificant," and came from the root which meant "to humiliate, disparage, derogate, detract" and "to be lowly, humble." As I looked it up in the English to Arabic side, I found another word which I hoped to be more aligned with the meaning I was looking for. This one came from the root "to despise, scorn, disdain, to look down on, to have a low opinion of." Ouch. (Neither of my dictionaries had a word for "selfless")
While charity and forgiveness are themes often returned to in the Quran, these are not the same as compassion and selflessness. Charity and forgiveness can often serve directly in the culture of pride. There no doubt are people working selflessly in the Middle East, but they are the ones who have bucked the overwhelming focus on social status and reputation. It is few people who have accepted my explanation that I would like to understand different cultures and bridge a dialogue between the Middle East without asking how it connects to a career.
Of course these are some of the same difficulties people in the US have in understanding what I'm doing what I'm doing. But the difference is that the US is a number of different cultures coexisting, and while there may not always be mutual understanding, there is an acknowledgment of the coexisting cultures and their validity. The homogeneity of the Middle Eastern culture makes it a bit more difficult to understand the purposes of people outside that perspective.
III
Finally just being a Westerner makes me suspect.
In Cairo, a friend recently told me that NGO's doing work serving marginalized populations are often targeted and deprecated if they receive any attention at all, and they are usually accused of being pawns of the West and serving their interests. These interests I gather are left vague and impending. In the end it doesn't matter what these interests are. At this point we have a half a century long history of intentions, words, and actions that whatever their justifications have perpetuated if not caused conflict and suffering in the middle east. So, no matter how benign an organization's purpose may seem, just receiving US funding is often enough to discredit them as truly serving the interests of the people.
IV
Until now, I've accepted this as part of being in a culture that is not mine. I came not to tell people about myself, but to understand them, and serve them, and help them however I can. But after having been here for some time I have gathered that some of these qualities that I have so much trouble communicating are some of what the society needs most desperately to invest in its long-term future and to grow as a community. As I've looked at many of the problems endemic in the middle east, it has seemed more and more that the problems are a symptom, not the problem. It is a trendy argument to be made that the middle east is or isn't ready for democracy. I have developed some thoughts on it, but ultimately it isn't the question that I'm seeking an answer to. Because ultimately that question leads to many more questions. (and more relevant questions such as "what are the goals of democracy and how can we best meet those goals given the current situation?") The question I'm seeking the answer to is how can I help the people of the middle east be happy and at peace--not only internationally but with themselves at an individual level.
I was talking with a friend who had just had a couple of Arab friends come back from a NGO training conference in the US. The thing that had struck them most on a trip that included a session with Condoleezza Rice, and many activists, organizers, and community investment NGO's was how people treat their kids in America. The idea that parents would ask their kids where they wanted to go on a trip and what they wanted to learn was one they had never, ever run across in the middle east.
This same situation and the ultimate power of the culture had struck me when I was traveling through the US. I stayed at different times with two single moms in rural America, just barely getting by. One was a vegan, caring mom, full of love, who at 27 had just finished her art degree, but her life was completely designed around the parenting needs of her son, who was about 8. She was an amazing parent. Always juggling two jobs, but finding time to help her son with homework, and emphasize the joy of learning. She wasn't coddling, he didn't always get what he wanted and when he pouted she would talk him through how to best get through the situation. He was probably the most mature eight year old I've ever met. When I clumsily knocked over his lego set, he was heartbroken for about 10 seconds, after which he said "It's okay we can rebuild it."
I stayed with another single mom, about 24, with two kids, 3 and 6. The 6 year old daughter was precocious, but already showing the outer independence which belied the desperate neediness for attention and care. She told me on more than one occasion in my 16 hours at their home how she wished that people would send her flowers. It nearly broke my heart. A bit more revealing was the night before when the mom told me about her family story. As she spoke of her mother, their times of the various times of poverty and riches, I noticed that it was the same pattern and lack of needs of the children. Growing up without attention, she moved in with a boyfriend after high school and was still intuitively saw the solution as a man who would provide them with thing as opposed to investment in themselves.
It left me feeling a bit helpless. It just made it exceedingly clear to me in a short time that economic problems aren't the root. How to you teach culture? Self-reflection? Critical thinking? Asking oneself how to make a situation better as opposed to finding whom to judge?
Though, I'm kind of jumping the gun here. I'll write more later on the thought process that led me to believe that the problems of the middle east weren't just in communication, economics or power struggles.
In the Middle East, there are things about myself that I just don't talk about. it isn't because I am in any way ashamed or want to hide them about myself, but primarily because people don't really have any frame of reference for it. I can count on two fingers the number of times that I've any sort of substantial conversation on Buddhism with Arabs, and on one the number of times where it has made any sense to them. I've also given up on trying to explain to people that my only goal in life is for people to have the optimal ability to come out of their inner turmoil. Even when this is simplified down to working for the good of society and people is usually seen with some skepticism.
I
There are a number of different hindrances to this understanding. The first is that Islam, especially as it is practiced today, is about as far as a religion can get from Buddhism.
After telling an Arab friend that Buddhists were agnostic on the question of God, he asked me "Who do Buddhists pray to when they need help?" to which I answered "Buddhists don't pray. They meditate. They try to recognize that whatever is going on is impermanent and improve the way they interact with it." He looked at me quite confused.
While Buddhism is completely focused on the individual purifying himself, Islam is solely focused on God almost to the exclusion of attention to internal issues. Buddhism relies on faith for the purpose of focusing on the work of meditation by which you overcome your personal hindrances, while for Islam faith is the end without which everything else you do is purposeless. In Islam, any attempt to improve oneself is almost solely behaviorist. In Buddhism modifying behavior is only a modest prerequisite to arriving at true peace within oneself. The idea of retraining the subconscious mind has no reference as most of the unexplained parts of a person are referred to as the soul.
While many of these parallel to Christianity in the West, the Muslim world has virtually no importation of these ideas and the tradition of doubt and consideration of all perspectives is non exisitant.
II
The second is that the Arab culture is one far more based on pride than on service.
As a Syrian friend was defending the protests about the drawings of the prophet in Denmark, he analogized the situation to someone insulting your father. He asked me "What would you do if someone insulted your father?" I told him "It depends on whether it is true or not. If what he said is true then I would try to help my father overcome whatever failings the person was pointing out. If it isn't true and the person is an idiot. How is that my problem? I'm not going to go out and yell and scream at every idiot in the world. You could spend your whole life doing that and never get anywhere." He was floored. He clearly had no way to relate to this approach. He went on and discussed how there had been criticism before and after assorted but similar methods the criticism had stopped. At that point I realized we were coming from different worlds. In numerous situations I have noticed this approach repeated. Criticism is seen as the problem not an opportunity to solve a problem.
However, I have grown to understand where he is coming from. In the Arab world, in a society where relationships matter far more than quality of work or integrity, one's reputation is everything. Slander is more than a personal insult. It can be a direct economic and social threat.
But what he was touching upon was a more obvious and broadly accepted culture of pride. As I was studying Arabic I came across the word for "humble." I thought, that is a word that I want to know. Then I noticed it had the same meaning as "small" and "insignificant," and came from the root which meant "to humiliate, disparage, derogate, detract" and "to be lowly, humble." As I looked it up in the English to Arabic side, I found another word which I hoped to be more aligned with the meaning I was looking for. This one came from the root "to despise, scorn, disdain, to look down on, to have a low opinion of." Ouch. (Neither of my dictionaries had a word for "selfless")
While charity and forgiveness are themes often returned to in the Quran, these are not the same as compassion and selflessness. Charity and forgiveness can often serve directly in the culture of pride. There no doubt are people working selflessly in the Middle East, but they are the ones who have bucked the overwhelming focus on social status and reputation. It is few people who have accepted my explanation that I would like to understand different cultures and bridge a dialogue between the Middle East without asking how it connects to a career.
Of course these are some of the same difficulties people in the US have in understanding what I'm doing what I'm doing. But the difference is that the US is a number of different cultures coexisting, and while there may not always be mutual understanding, there is an acknowledgment of the coexisting cultures and their validity. The homogeneity of the Middle Eastern culture makes it a bit more difficult to understand the purposes of people outside that perspective.
III
Finally just being a Westerner makes me suspect.
In Cairo, a friend recently told me that NGO's doing work serving marginalized populations are often targeted and deprecated if they receive any attention at all, and they are usually accused of being pawns of the West and serving their interests. These interests I gather are left vague and impending. In the end it doesn't matter what these interests are. At this point we have a half a century long history of intentions, words, and actions that whatever their justifications have perpetuated if not caused conflict and suffering in the middle east. So, no matter how benign an organization's purpose may seem, just receiving US funding is often enough to discredit them as truly serving the interests of the people.
IV
Until now, I've accepted this as part of being in a culture that is not mine. I came not to tell people about myself, but to understand them, and serve them, and help them however I can. But after having been here for some time I have gathered that some of these qualities that I have so much trouble communicating are some of what the society needs most desperately to invest in its long-term future and to grow as a community. As I've looked at many of the problems endemic in the middle east, it has seemed more and more that the problems are a symptom, not the problem. It is a trendy argument to be made that the middle east is or isn't ready for democracy. I have developed some thoughts on it, but ultimately it isn't the question that I'm seeking an answer to. Because ultimately that question leads to many more questions. (and more relevant questions such as "what are the goals of democracy and how can we best meet those goals given the current situation?") The question I'm seeking the answer to is how can I help the people of the middle east be happy and at peace--not only internationally but with themselves at an individual level.
I was talking with a friend who had just had a couple of Arab friends come back from a NGO training conference in the US. The thing that had struck them most on a trip that included a session with Condoleezza Rice, and many activists, organizers, and community investment NGO's was how people treat their kids in America. The idea that parents would ask their kids where they wanted to go on a trip and what they wanted to learn was one they had never, ever run across in the middle east.
This same situation and the ultimate power of the culture had struck me when I was traveling through the US. I stayed at different times with two single moms in rural America, just barely getting by. One was a vegan, caring mom, full of love, who at 27 had just finished her art degree, but her life was completely designed around the parenting needs of her son, who was about 8. She was an amazing parent. Always juggling two jobs, but finding time to help her son with homework, and emphasize the joy of learning. She wasn't coddling, he didn't always get what he wanted and when he pouted she would talk him through how to best get through the situation. He was probably the most mature eight year old I've ever met. When I clumsily knocked over his lego set, he was heartbroken for about 10 seconds, after which he said "It's okay we can rebuild it."
I stayed with another single mom, about 24, with two kids, 3 and 6. The 6 year old daughter was precocious, but already showing the outer independence which belied the desperate neediness for attention and care. She told me on more than one occasion in my 16 hours at their home how she wished that people would send her flowers. It nearly broke my heart. A bit more revealing was the night before when the mom told me about her family story. As she spoke of her mother, their times of the various times of poverty and riches, I noticed that it was the same pattern and lack of needs of the children. Growing up without attention, she moved in with a boyfriend after high school and was still intuitively saw the solution as a man who would provide them with thing as opposed to investment in themselves.
It left me feeling a bit helpless. It just made it exceedingly clear to me in a short time that economic problems aren't the root. How to you teach culture? Self-reflection? Critical thinking? Asking oneself how to make a situation better as opposed to finding whom to judge?
Though, I'm kind of jumping the gun here. I'll write more later on the thought process that led me to believe that the problems of the middle east weren't just in communication, economics or power struggles.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Getting over a stolen laptop
so, the below entry I wrote about a month ago about a week after I lost my laptop. i didn't want to publish it because I wanted to give it some time to make sure I still thought it was honest after the anger passed (which it has)...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello all,
I'm sorry for not writing sooner. There are many practical reasons why I haven't written for a few weeks now, but they are all only proximate causes. The real reason why I haven't written is because I have been angry. I don't like when I'm angry and I'm constantly worried that I'll give a biased point of view of a culture that 1) has no shortage of biased points of view, and 2) feels victimized and paranoid about these biased points of view, thus perpetuating the circle of misunderstanding.
I don't by any means consider myself an angry person, and I've been more angry the last week than I can remember being in a long time. I'll get to the specific reasons in a moment, but the reason is basically unrealistic expectations and the wrong approach to the Middle East.
I came to the Middle East thinking of it as an situation where I would learn the language, learn the culture, interact with the people, grow as a person, and come out of it with a greater ability to communicate with a different culture--essentially as an academic exercise. Recently, at a moment of particular frustration, I was talking to a British friend who has lived in the Arab world for about a year and a half. He told me "The Middle East is hard. Not long after I was first arrived in Morocco, I just broke down and cried." If you prepare emotionally, for that sort of experience you can expect it, deal with it and move on. When you come a idealistic greenhorn, it feels like the whole culture is undermining your attempts to learn from it and help it grow.
You can't approach the Middle East like that. If you want, you can do the tourist thing, and go about in the world insulated by money, but that is not what I wanted and still not what I want. Nothing in the West really prepared me for it, and because people here are 1)used to dealing with it and 2) very proud of their culture and don't want to say anything that reflects poorly on it they haven't really prepared me for it. The tendency to repress seems a strong one, and quite honestly the thing I am most grateful for since I've been here has been a piece of advice to never leave my passport and money anywhere--not a locked apartment, not a hotel room, not anywhere. If it hadn't been for that I probably would be without a passport and down a few hundred dollars more than I am. If someone had said to me before the trip, "If you think someone is cheating you, don't trust them for a minute" and "Don't ever leave anything unlocked anywhere, no matter how trusted you think it is" I'd probably still have a laptop, an ipod and a whole lot more compassion. But there has been only one person that has cautioned me about it, and even him only after a hundred conversations emphasizing the generosity of people.
As a liberal, there is the strong tendency to fight categories and to try to expect the best of everyone. Those aren't good assumptions in the Middle East. Not that you should expect that everyone is bad or anything of the sort, but know that you will get ripped off because you are vulnerable. After it happened to me a few times, I tried to do everything I could to prevent it. After failing time and time again due to the magnitude of things I didn't know, I try my best and accept that it is going to happen. The male social situations which are the majority of my interactions form a sort of model around which to build a more realistic approach to the Middle East. In them, you get the very male energy and attitude that is built around cleverly insulting each other and the assertion of dominance over each other. It is a culture that I definitely recognize from the US, but one that is marginalized to frat houses and high schools. It is a culture where pride and dominance are the natural approach. It is a culture that I've occasionally had to deal with, but never one I've been comfortable with or liked. When you stack all the cultural and linguistic barriers against one, it has been that much harder.
The anger comes as a reaction to feeling taken advantage of. It was there when my ipod was stolen. It was quite a bit worse, when I loaned money to a person who disappeared before he could return it to me. It was subtly reignited each time a person would give me grossly incorrect change. It started to burn when I was charged about $35 for a load of laundry, and when my laptop was stolen, along with my wallet, all the books I had bought to learn about the region, and about 15 pages I had been working on writing to trying to express my sense for the culture, different experiences I had that illuminated the differences, and how to grow closer. Finally, reporting the incident to the police who are now using as an opportunity to extort greater bribes from the hotel is not exactly doing anything to restore my confidence.
I think my approach is often similar to the western tendency of grafting our thought patterns onto the rest of the world with atrocious results, and I see that in myself more than anything. I'm not quite over the anger, but I'm starting to get to the other side of it.
I'll try to recreate my conceptions of how my experiences reflect different parts of the middle east, I hope they will be helpful to both cultures. That's really my only purpose here.
However, for those that would like to categorize and write off the middle east, I still do run into ubiquitous acts of kindness and generosity.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello all,
I'm sorry for not writing sooner. There are many practical reasons why I haven't written for a few weeks now, but they are all only proximate causes. The real reason why I haven't written is because I have been angry. I don't like when I'm angry and I'm constantly worried that I'll give a biased point of view of a culture that 1) has no shortage of biased points of view, and 2) feels victimized and paranoid about these biased points of view, thus perpetuating the circle of misunderstanding.
I don't by any means consider myself an angry person, and I've been more angry the last week than I can remember being in a long time. I'll get to the specific reasons in a moment, but the reason is basically unrealistic expectations and the wrong approach to the Middle East.
I came to the Middle East thinking of it as an situation where I would learn the language, learn the culture, interact with the people, grow as a person, and come out of it with a greater ability to communicate with a different culture--essentially as an academic exercise. Recently, at a moment of particular frustration, I was talking to a British friend who has lived in the Arab world for about a year and a half. He told me "The Middle East is hard. Not long after I was first arrived in Morocco, I just broke down and cried." If you prepare emotionally, for that sort of experience you can expect it, deal with it and move on. When you come a idealistic greenhorn, it feels like the whole culture is undermining your attempts to learn from it and help it grow.
You can't approach the Middle East like that. If you want, you can do the tourist thing, and go about in the world insulated by money, but that is not what I wanted and still not what I want. Nothing in the West really prepared me for it, and because people here are 1)used to dealing with it and 2) very proud of their culture and don't want to say anything that reflects poorly on it they haven't really prepared me for it. The tendency to repress seems a strong one, and quite honestly the thing I am most grateful for since I've been here has been a piece of advice to never leave my passport and money anywhere--not a locked apartment, not a hotel room, not anywhere. If it hadn't been for that I probably would be without a passport and down a few hundred dollars more than I am. If someone had said to me before the trip, "If you think someone is cheating you, don't trust them for a minute" and "Don't ever leave anything unlocked anywhere, no matter how trusted you think it is" I'd probably still have a laptop, an ipod and a whole lot more compassion. But there has been only one person that has cautioned me about it, and even him only after a hundred conversations emphasizing the generosity of people.
As a liberal, there is the strong tendency to fight categories and to try to expect the best of everyone. Those aren't good assumptions in the Middle East. Not that you should expect that everyone is bad or anything of the sort, but know that you will get ripped off because you are vulnerable. After it happened to me a few times, I tried to do everything I could to prevent it. After failing time and time again due to the magnitude of things I didn't know, I try my best and accept that it is going to happen. The male social situations which are the majority of my interactions form a sort of model around which to build a more realistic approach to the Middle East. In them, you get the very male energy and attitude that is built around cleverly insulting each other and the assertion of dominance over each other. It is a culture that I definitely recognize from the US, but one that is marginalized to frat houses and high schools. It is a culture where pride and dominance are the natural approach. It is a culture that I've occasionally had to deal with, but never one I've been comfortable with or liked. When you stack all the cultural and linguistic barriers against one, it has been that much harder.
The anger comes as a reaction to feeling taken advantage of. It was there when my ipod was stolen. It was quite a bit worse, when I loaned money to a person who disappeared before he could return it to me. It was subtly reignited each time a person would give me grossly incorrect change. It started to burn when I was charged about $35 for a load of laundry, and when my laptop was stolen, along with my wallet, all the books I had bought to learn about the region, and about 15 pages I had been working on writing to trying to express my sense for the culture, different experiences I had that illuminated the differences, and how to grow closer. Finally, reporting the incident to the police who are now using as an opportunity to extort greater bribes from the hotel is not exactly doing anything to restore my confidence.
I think my approach is often similar to the western tendency of grafting our thought patterns onto the rest of the world with atrocious results, and I see that in myself more than anything. I'm not quite over the anger, but I'm starting to get to the other side of it.
I'll try to recreate my conceptions of how my experiences reflect different parts of the middle east, I hope they will be helpful to both cultures. That's really my only purpose here.
However, for those that would like to categorize and write off the middle east, I still do run into ubiquitous acts of kindness and generosity.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
On Impressions
I was at the home of Mohammed this weekend (the weekend in the Islamic world is Friday and Saturday because Friday is their day of prayer) where an episode of “Cops” was on. He mentioned that if anyone was planning to go to the United States, their mothers would beg them not to go. Without fail the mother would believe that her son would get shot in the street by an African American.
In Washington DC, before I left, when I first mentioned to the teenagers and African-Americans who regularly hung out on my block that I was going to the Middle East, the first reaction for a few of them was “Shit, you think it’s dangerous in DC, over there everyone’s packing.” They were definitely joking, and another soon spoke up and said he thought I would be fine because as long as a person greets people with respect and interest you make friends easily and are welcomed.
For all the reasons you might imagine, my mom didn’t want me to go to the Middle East. The specters that some Americans (especially worried mothers) might imagine in the US are easily laughed off here. The likelihood that someone would get kidnapped or seriously hurt are extremely slim unless you consciously put yourself into a dangerous situation (by that I mean Gaza or non-Kurdish parts of Iraq. There really isn’t any place in Jordan that I wouldn’t feel safe). I sometimes joke with her that I do whatever I can imagine that would worry her the most.
In Washington DC, before I left, when I first mentioned to the teenagers and African-Americans who regularly hung out on my block that I was going to the Middle East, the first reaction for a few of them was “Shit, you think it’s dangerous in DC, over there everyone’s packing.” They were definitely joking, and another soon spoke up and said he thought I would be fine because as long as a person greets people with respect and interest you make friends easily and are welcomed.
For all the reasons you might imagine, my mom didn’t want me to go to the Middle East. The specters that some Americans (especially worried mothers) might imagine in the US are easily laughed off here. The likelihood that someone would get kidnapped or seriously hurt are extremely slim unless you consciously put yourself into a dangerous situation (by that I mean Gaza or non-Kurdish parts of Iraq. There really isn’t any place in Jordan that I wouldn’t feel safe). I sometimes joke with her that I do whatever I can imagine that would worry her the most.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
My fitful Arabic
I'm only starting to become comfortable enough with Arabic that I'm not intimidated by casual experiences. The process, which has been extremely fun and has made me lots of new friends, has been one of humility and been I think most valuable in understanding how hard it is to learn a language and how hard it is to be an immigrant. A day or two after I arrived, I looked out the window, and my first thought was "Holy shit. What have I gotten myself into?" Progressing fitfully, the last three weeks have also made me eternally grateful for the overwhelming effort that strangers have put into making sure I was comfortable. Everyone immediately tries to speak in whatever English they can manage, wants to relate to me any connection they might have to the US, and wants to be friends.
Yes, of course, there are other, mostly benign, motivations besides a warm hospitality, but for the most part it comes with a pure heart. There is sometimes the unrealistic or subconscious hope that the friendship might somehow help get them a visa to the US. There is the subtle prestige that comes with having a Western friend. There is the rare opportunity to practice English with a native speaker. However, it is very rare that a Jordanian will exploit the relationship for any sort of monetary gain.
More than anything it makes me want to go out of my way to help the innumerable immigrants in the US when I get back. To see American in the idyllic light of opportunity where democracy is real and the only thing holding you back is your will, while only relatively accurate, still makes me want to work harder to help us to live up to that dream for Americans and immigrants. Of course I recognize that it is not to the benefit of the country to open wide the gates of immigration. So, the goal is not only to live up to that dream domestically, btu to support the developing world in meeting this dream themselves.
Yes, of course, there are other, mostly benign, motivations besides a warm hospitality, but for the most part it comes with a pure heart. There is sometimes the unrealistic or subconscious hope that the friendship might somehow help get them a visa to the US. There is the subtle prestige that comes with having a Western friend. There is the rare opportunity to practice English with a native speaker. However, it is very rare that a Jordanian will exploit the relationship for any sort of monetary gain.
More than anything it makes me want to go out of my way to help the innumerable immigrants in the US when I get back. To see American in the idyllic light of opportunity where democracy is real and the only thing holding you back is your will, while only relatively accurate, still makes me want to work harder to help us to live up to that dream for Americans and immigrants. Of course I recognize that it is not to the benefit of the country to open wide the gates of immigration. So, the goal is not only to live up to that dream domestically, btu to support the developing world in meeting this dream themselves.
growing acclimation
I’m sorry I haven’t written more recently. Since I left Amman, I have established a nice existence in Irbid, a sizable town of maybe 800,000 near the Syrian Border. I haven’t written more recently for a few reasons. First and primarily it has been because I’ve felt that I needed to focus on learning Arabic and about the history of the region, which has monopolized my time so far. The second was that after I wrote my last entry, I realized that I wanted to not only be honest, but also try to give as complete and accurate a picture of the culture as I could. Finally, it was because I want this not to be just a chronicle of my series of experiences, but also give some insight into the culture, and I felt that I didn’t have enough experiences to start to extrapolate that insight.
So, I’ll begin very generally before going into specifics.
The first thing you notice is the tremendous generosity and excitement with which Jordanians, Palestinians, and pretty much all of the various immigrant groups greet foreigners. In fact, their generosity is only surpassed by their pride in their generosity. I’ve borne frequent witness to both.
It has been one of my small obstacles to try to go somewhere and learn how to interact with waiters. Either I’m alone and do the best I can or I am with someone and he insists on doing all the talking and paying. I’ve gotten many promises to let me do the talking ‘next time’ but as of yet none of them have been fulfilled. An Muslim friend of mine (originally from England) once relayed to me the almost perpetual fighting within his family anytime they would go out to eat over the right to pick up the check. I can definitely see that happening here. One of the common responses to “Thank you” is “No need for thanks. It’s my duty,” which is the general approach to the situation.
One of my students whom I went to dinner with recently (who of course bought me dinner) said that he was nowhere near as generous a person as he should be if he followed Islam strictly.
I will talk more about Islam later, but I still very much feel that I have only scratched the surface of it and how it affects the values and cultural norms in society. For now, I’ll just say that it is easy to see how the complete immersion in Islam could translate into both a tremendous generosity with concomitant pride.
So, I’ll begin very generally before going into specifics.
The first thing you notice is the tremendous generosity and excitement with which Jordanians, Palestinians, and pretty much all of the various immigrant groups greet foreigners. In fact, their generosity is only surpassed by their pride in their generosity. I’ve borne frequent witness to both.
It has been one of my small obstacles to try to go somewhere and learn how to interact with waiters. Either I’m alone and do the best I can or I am with someone and he insists on doing all the talking and paying. I’ve gotten many promises to let me do the talking ‘next time’ but as of yet none of them have been fulfilled. An Muslim friend of mine (originally from England) once relayed to me the almost perpetual fighting within his family anytime they would go out to eat over the right to pick up the check. I can definitely see that happening here. One of the common responses to “Thank you” is “No need for thanks. It’s my duty,” which is the general approach to the situation.
One of my students whom I went to dinner with recently (who of course bought me dinner) said that he was nowhere near as generous a person as he should be if he followed Islam strictly.
I will talk more about Islam later, but I still very much feel that I have only scratched the surface of it and how it affects the values and cultural norms in society. For now, I’ll just say that it is easy to see how the complete immersion in Islam could translate into both a tremendous generosity with concomitant pride.
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