international students
Oct. 8th, 2003 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angledgeI just had a very long conversation with a Syrian woman who lives on my floor named Aliaa. Naturally, we talked politics.
I find it very difficult to discuss politics with people who are from the Middle East. First of all, I'm almost overwhelmed with some diluted feeling of guilt - I feel like saying, "I'm SO SORRY for what my government is doing ..." But another problem is that often I feel like we're dealing with two completely different sets of information, & both of us consider our set of information to be "the Facts". Aliaa doesn't believe any Arabs were involved in the 9/11 attacks: "I've met Arab religious fanatics. Believe me, they aren't organized enough to do something like this." I asked her why Palestinians were happy to hear about 9/11; she said they weren't. I said, "But CNN showed celebrations on the West Bank the day the news was received." She said the video of celebrating Palestinians was actually a year old, & that Fox News had issued an apology for showing it. I don't know if this is true or untrue. She also told me that American soldiers in Iraq are committing suicide in large numbers. I have heard NOTHING about this (hollyinpa, did your brother say anything about this??).
So - I'm not enough of a news junkie to have hard data at my fingertips to refute things she says, but even if I did, I sense that her reply would be, "The American media is not presenting all of the truth" or somesuch.
As a counterpoint, Ingrid & I met an Iraqi man in London who told us that we should be extremely proud of our nation's actions & that the overthrow of Saddam was the best thing that could've ever happened to Iraq.
Anybody have some insight/advice here? Please, serious comments only (this means you, Hiveboys).
I find it very difficult to discuss politics with people who are from the Middle East. First of all, I'm almost overwhelmed with some diluted feeling of guilt - I feel like saying, "I'm SO SORRY for what my government is doing ..." But another problem is that often I feel like we're dealing with two completely different sets of information, & both of us consider our set of information to be "the Facts". Aliaa doesn't believe any Arabs were involved in the 9/11 attacks: "I've met Arab religious fanatics. Believe me, they aren't organized enough to do something like this." I asked her why Palestinians were happy to hear about 9/11; she said they weren't. I said, "But CNN showed celebrations on the West Bank the day the news was received." She said the video of celebrating Palestinians was actually a year old, & that Fox News had issued an apology for showing it. I don't know if this is true or untrue. She also told me that American soldiers in Iraq are committing suicide in large numbers. I have heard NOTHING about this (
hollyinpa, did your brother say anything about this??). So - I'm not enough of a news junkie to have hard data at my fingertips to refute things she says, but even if I did, I sense that her reply would be, "The American media is not presenting all of the truth" or somesuch.
As a counterpoint, Ingrid & I met an Iraqi man in London who told us that we should be extremely proud of our nation's actions & that the overthrow of Saddam was the best thing that could've ever happened to Iraq.
Anybody have some insight/advice here? Please, serious comments only (this means you, Hiveboys).
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Date: 2003-10-09 08:29 am (UTC)