Watching Queen Rania’s videos
by Dima on December 10, 2008
in Middle East, blogosphere, observation, random
As I wrote before, I find Queen Rania’s YouTube project very interesting and apparently thought and conversation promoting. Also, as I wrote before, I do have a comment at least about one item published under her project (have not watched them all yet :).
It is a video about the stereotypes Middle Easterners encounter in the US, which is done with a lot of humor featuring young people sharing their thoughts. Here it is:
I can really relate to people interviewed in the video in a sense of being tired from dealing with stereotypes. When people hear that I am from Israel, one of the most common responses (perhaps the most common) is “So, have you served in the army?”, which projects a very particular image of the entire people.
What I cannot relate to, is the way people in the interviews picture the way they would like to be treated. All of them want everybody else to thank them for some positive (yet still stereotypical) characteristics or ancient achievements of their people. For me that is a rather disappointing dream.
In my utopian world, the nominal labels attached to you, such as race, religion, nationality, etc., are really not important. What important is what you put into these labels as a person. I believe that I treat people first of all for what they and this is how I would like to be treated. I wish the people in the video would simply asked to be treated for what they are.
I realize the constraints in which Rania’s project is operating as well as its stated purpose of “breaking down stereotypes about the Arab and Muslim worlds.” I also realize that this is just a video amidst a myriad of other information and initiative related to the subject. However I do think that she is in a more influential position than many other people. This is why I think continuing framing the issue in terms of “us” and “them”, trying to show “them” that “us” are as good as “them” if not better, is not necessarily the best way to “bridging the East-West divide.” I wish Queen Rania could raise above the regionalism and promote a more inclusive framework of tolerance and inclusiveness.
What do you think?
I totally agree!
and I’m glad you are not blogging behalf of the Israeli government ;)
and thanks for interducing me to this royal Jordanian project…
Keep blogging!!!
See ya soon,
Dori
What an interesting question. How do you find out who someone is in the early part of a conversation. Maybe the first step is to begin a conversation about something relatively uncontroversial on which the other person knows more than you do.
Of course, the response to a declaration of nationality should depend on the circumstances and your purpose. One way to go would be to try to learn about the country using the native as an informant. Given how ignorant most of us Yanks are about other nations, that would be a pretty helpful approach.
Alternatively, you might try to find out more about that person following up on the lead. Americans tend to ask other Americans “what do you do”, meaning what is your job. Would that work with Israelis? Maybe. It would be a dangerous start of a conversation with a Palestinian, especially one from Gaza. With an Egyptian, maybe it would be better to ask “where are you from in Egypt?”.
But what is the line between what each person is, and their culture? What is really only of each individual? How could we evaluate who they are out of their culture, their language and their history?
Say, for example, that you meet a person from the Middle East, and you discover that they are middle eastern poetry lovers, and they know all the poetry of Khayyam, and Rumi and other ancient poets…how can one not thank them for that too? How could they be a poetry lover without the poetry? science geeks without the history of science? cooking geniuses without a world of cultural inheritance?
Without that, we each are pretty poor stuff…i think…
(Happy New Year Dmitry! hugs!)
Thank you all for the comments!
@John: I do think that genuine interest in your conversation partner is the core of any interaction with a new acquaintance. And I do agree that any such conversation should be contextualized. For example, I think you can ask a Gazian who spent 5, 10, 15 years in the US what they are doing, but that would not be such a good idea with a current Gaza resident.
@Claudia: Although I sense a tone of disagreement in your comment, I am not sure we disagree. If I discover that you are “middle eastern poetry lovers, and they know all the poetry of Khayyam, and Rumi and other ancient poets…” I will be glad to appreciate their knowledge and their passion. I will be also glad to appreciate the middle eastern culture in broader sense as well. I will be glad to thank Khayyam and Rumi for their contribution to that culture.
But all that will have nothing to do with the fact where my conversation partner was born. You don’t have to be born in the middle east to love and know middle eastern poetry. I do not see why it is appropriate to thank(!?) anyone just for the mere fact that they happened to be born in the same region where these cultural developments originated.
I agree with the last part…(the “mere fact that they happened to be born…). But I also think that people are at least the vessels of their language and their cultural and political history…and my sense was that it was this that they were trying to get acknowledged. I speculate that this may have to do with the fact that we often here veiled arguments (not from you, but in general) that their culture is in some way worthless. and they try to say is that it is not.
I am not sure we disagree either, and maybe my example was bad…but my question remains…if, in your utopian world, people are treated as by “who they are” and not the “labels” that name who they are…where is the line? How does one tell? I thought maybe their reference to ancient accomplishments was a way of explaining what the “label” means to them, what they value about the “label” they carry…as opposed to what others have attributed to that label. It seems a good way to start an anti-stereotype conversation: instead of having to skip the group you belong to (the somewhat perverse idea of a “post-racial” “post-religious” “post-ethnic” society), you can discuss what it is that belonging to these groups means.
cheerioooo