looking forward to a few weeks from now...
Yesterday a friend came to speak in Arabic class, one of the Jordanians that Ketan and I have been meeting with on an off for 'language exchange'. Muhamad: the poet, actor, volunteer, company owner, and engineer. In just two days he's going to be leaving Jordan for the first time in his life to travel to Kuwait and work there for a contract that he has for a year. His last words to our class were ones that i wouldn't have doubted to come from his mouth, but which i'd like to discuss because they addressed a topic that has been on my mind recently. He essentially said that it was great that we were all learning Arabic so that we could be able to explain ourselves, and have ourselves be understood by Arabic speakers (just as it is good for Arabic speakers to learn English so that they can have their thoughts reach English speakers), but even with that, there are still people who speak the same language, be they two Arabs or two English speakers who can still not understand each, despite the fact that they have a common language.
After hearing his words I thought immediately back to the lecture we attended yesterday at the Diplomacy Institute where an American political scientist and writer, Dr. Philip Gordon, spoke about American politics in the Middle East. Although I've been in the Middle East for nearly 5 or 6 months now, and heard the wide ranging (or perhaps less ranging) arguments on American Policy in the Middle East from locals, this was the first time i actually saw these arguments juxtaposed to an American academic who was less willing to simply give into the 'mistakes of America' and lamely nod their head in agreement (usually my position for fear of losing some level of respect, and also because i don't have enough political or historical background to really defend any other standpoint most of the time). It quickly became clear during the question and answer period that there was going to be a difference between the speaker and the Middle Eastern scholars in the room who attended the meeting (who were few in number mind you). Although Dr. Gordon was just as quick to criticize American Policy and the choices it's made over the past few years in concern with the war in Iraq and such, he would not secede the point that the major fault of it all was America's support for Israel... which appeared the be the major issue in need of addressing from the M.E. scholar's points of view. I don't know that the arguments can be as easily summed up as I've just summed them up, but it's not really the political arguments that I'm as concerned about here. What concerned me was how quickly the Q&A question reached a point where neither side seemed open to a real discussion, but rather simply to some level of insulting the other. The only way for one side to really listen to the other, was for them to simply agree with the other side... and if they didn't agree, it seemed that only a larger gap was made.
During the discussion many ideas popped in my head... were these seeming attacks coming from the ME scholars simply posed with cultural inflection? So that although the speaker might have found them insulting, they may not have intended to be... or that had they intended to be insulting, was the insult a way in which new ideas were supposed to be brought up, rather than speaking about specific ideas directly (for instance how one of them had to clear up after the first round of questions, that the intention in almost all of the questions was to deal directly with the Israeli issue, although that hadn't necessarily been made clear through the words posed in themselves)? (my mind raced back to the very first article we were to read about Arab communication skills, and the meaning of metaphor more than words themselves, how were their questions inflected, and what did they really mean?). Then I started thinking about the "power of knowledge" and all the problems that are within such a power, but then all the problems that exist within the idea itself given that knowledge seems such a relative term at times. In what ways were either side already coming with such a strong belief in their own knowledge that they felt they should be able to control the opinion of the other (thus perhaps closing themselves off to the others knowledge)? Of course the problem with such a question is also easily answered by the fact that this lecture was presented in a very 'political way' so to speak... where Dr. Gordon made many points and only referenced briefly the historical/economic/ perhaps even cultural reasonings that factor into the largest political stances of America, because I'm guessing he assumed that the knowledge he based his works off of was already understood by the audience... perhaps there would have been more open ears had he been willing to really flesh out such details without assuming them as "all-understood".
And so Muhamad spoke... speaking the same language may not necessarily lead to understanding. Indeed. What does lead to understanding then? Willingness to listen, for sure. But how do you reach that? What is knowledge and why does the assumption that we have it lead to a feeling of power or right over someone else? I hate writing questions like this because they seem so useless. i really haven't done a good job trying to think them out in this entry. In fact, i feel rather much like a flower power child high on something (not that i really know what that feels like, but i can only assume). I'm really only writing this entry because i haven't written in a while...
In other news for people who I haven't been in contact with. After next week on April 14th I'll be heading back to Wadi Rum, the town of Disi to study a type of poetical song called "Samir" that the 'bedouin' perform, and which i detailed previously in my discussions of my previous stay. I will be staying with the family of one of the people i stayed with before... so I've heard. Thus far they've refused my offerings of paying, as I will be completely dependent on them for the entirety of two weeks. I'm currently reading Layla Abu-Lughod's "Veiled Sentiments" in what little time I have here. I'm really enjoying the read and recommend it to anyone (it's easy).
Tomorrow is also our last day of classes. We have our final test in Arabic as well as last lecture for our "thematic seminar." Studying for the Arabic test will be interesting because I have been studying independently outside of class ever since we got back from Egypt, but will be held responsible for what was taught in their class. Thank God I like reviewing Arabic grammar.
That's all for now.
