Culture War

Often, when people ask me what I study here at Rutgers, and I tell them I major in Middle Eastern Studies with a concentration in Arabic language and culture, they look at me one of two ways: bright-eyed, with raised eyebrows, and a confused look or they are thoroughly impressed and want to know more. I like when people take interest in what I study because it’s one of my passions, but at the same time, I find it ignorant of people who look at me like I have a second head attached to my body. I chose to study the language, culture, history, and present social conflicts of the Middle East for several reasons. One being that people like myself with a knack for critical languages are in demand, the second being that it interests me, and third, I think one of my purposes in this crazy life is to help people on a large scale and I hope to achieve that by working in government intelligence. Maybe people are confused by my interests because I don’t look like I have any Middle Eastern heritage, but that’s the problem. People constantly separate themselves and others with a cultural divide. I like to call it a “culture war”. Just because I’m not of Arab decent, it’s strange that I like to learn about their people and their lifestyles?

I’ve always been highly intrigued by different types of people and cultures outside my own. I am first generation German and second generation Sicilian, so naturally, I grew up around loud Sicilians and boisterous Germans, each with their own delicious cuisines, traditions, and customs, but for me, it didn’t stop there. I wanted to know what else there was to experience, to see, and to taste of course. When it came time to decide what I wanted to make of myself with respect to college and a career, I chose to concentrate my passion for learning languages and absorbing cultures into something that was in demand; national security, foreign policy, international relations, you name it. The possibilities are endless when one immerses themselves in the diversities of the world.

Today, it seems as if every corner of the world has a problem with the Middle East, but why? I believe the reason is because the world, doesn’t understand the Middle East, and from my experience, many people choose to be as ignorant as they are. So, when people look at me with a confused face when I tell them I’m a Middle Eastern studies major, they’re not confused about what my studies entail, they’re confused as to why I would WANT to study that, and that’s just it, because I’m not another ignorant person who fears what the average person may not initially understand. No matter the color of someone’s skin, or what God they believe or don’t believe in, or however they choose to express themselves, we are all pink and bloody on the inside. We all live on the same earth and we are all human, so what difference does the rest make?

Americans are constantly trying to intervene in the countless problems that are continuously unfolding in the Middle East and they do this without understanding the problems they are trying to fix. Dr. Mordechai Kedar Ph. D, an Israeli scholar of Arabic culture and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, identifies two problems with respect to the misconceptions that Western policymakers have about the Middle East. He says “the first is that they think that peace between Israel and the Palestinians will make all the other problems easier to solve. The Sunni will cooperate with the Shia, the Arabs will cooperate with the Persians, and the tribes of Libya will sit around the fire and sing “Kumbaya” together. This theory is totally baseless. If there is peace between Israel and the Palestinians, not a single struggle in the Middle East will become easier to solve because all those struggles have absolutely nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian problem. The second is that solutions that were tailored for the culture of the West cannot work in the Middle East because the culture of this region is totally different (Frank).”

I agree that we don’t need to all get together, hold hands, and sing songs, but we could remove this mentally created cultural divide and end the culture war that we, ourselves, establish on our own, by simply opening our minds to what makes our world beautiful, the diversity! Aldous Huxley, an English philosopher, once said “there are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception” and I couldn’t agree more (The Doors of Perception). If you really think about it, most problems are rooted in misconception, but the true mistake is the failure of not taking the time to change your perception and understand, without biased opinion, what you don’t already know.

Citations:

Frank, Michael. "Americans (still) Don't Understand the Middle East. This Man Wants to Help." Chicago Policy Review. N.p., 10 Dec. 2015. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.

"The Doors of Perception." By Aldous Huxley. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2016.