K-Zoo Islamic Center

Just a random thought. Everyday on my way to work I drive past the Kalamazoo Islamic Center and I am always curious about it. The other day I went inside the market/store they have there just to look around and ended up spending almost 40 bucks on snacks/food. I hope that now that I will have more time, at least over break until I start my internship, I will be able to sit in on a service. The visit to the Mosque really got my thinking and sparked my curiosity. In the next week or two I hope to set up either a meeting with a member of the center or maybe just a visit so that I maybe try to better understand the traditions and practices involved with Islam and the culture that surrounds it.

Paradise now

This one was interesting to me. I felt that there was no real plot or meaning to the movie. Throughout the movie we see the same trend over and over. Our main characters "numbers come up" and they are thrown into the world of suicide bombing. They prepare, suit up, and make an attempt and are later forced to flake out. They try a second time after a long man hunt for our main character and a similar thing happens. However, in the end we see a change. The character who was originally gung ho about the idea of the bombing has second thoughts. The character who wanted to flake out or was nervous about the bombing decides he has to do it (to regain his honor or something else, the real reason wasnt very clear to me). In the end, the character that turned into a flake chickens out and is locked into a car while the character who as suddenly discovered a sense of purpose and courage goes off to complete his mission or we are lead to believe as we never see a real explosion.

What was the point? I am not really sure which is frustrating to me since I am generally pretty good at picking out the "true" meaning of a movie or story, or at least making up something that sounds good and/or right. This movie was not one of my favorites and I would much rather forget I saw it than have to think about it again.

Beheading the Cat

This story was highly confusing to me and yet rather interesting. For me, Nadine represented the freedom that woman should have no matter what culture they are in (no matter how extreme hr character was). On the other hand we have our main character, someone who feels he is a man and should get what he wants and so on. She is sort of his cryptonite in a way, something he wants so badly and yet he wants her to be his submissive wife. He is intimidated and afraid of her and yet wants her so badly. Why? This doesn't seem to make sense. Why would anyone want to be with someone like this. For me, it seemed like he needed balance. I feel that everyone needs balance in their life and to me, this story was a representation of that belief.

Female guest speakers

Something I noticed when we had two guest speakers in the room at the same time (Gulnar and sadly I cannot remember the guest Professor's name) was that each of them had a completely different opinion on the Hijab as well as how the Quaran should be interpreted. I felt a little sorry for each of them as the seemed to become very flustered and/or uncomfortable with the situation that they had been tossed into. While it was interesting to see the contrasting views not to mention eye opening (one woman thought you should wear the Hijab to appear modest while the other thought it was more of a fashion statement! - or at least that's how she made it seem) I feel that it may not have been the best thing to push either one of them to talk more. Luckily, we seemed to run out of time before anything got too heated. I remember just at the end, the guest professor said "Oh, well I don't know about all of that..." in reference to something about why woman 'should' wear a Hibaj. I liked being able to see the different views and interpretations but I feel it would be a little bit better next time to have each speaker come in separately.

Talk to an Iraqi

This video was one of my favorites from the class and remained that way until I saw Victor's film "Waltz with Bashir". It really made me think of all the stereotypes and generalization that I have (and most likely share with many Americans). How can we judge someone or an entire people without ever talking to one of them or going straight to the source. This video really showed me that some people, myself included, can be very ignorant as well as opinionated. The film was very eye opening to me and I really wished I could have jumped into the screen and talked to him myself. As the film played, my head filled with questions and many of them went unanswered.

What is it like to live there or how is it different from the us?
Do most people own a car? How do you get around?

My list could go on forever. Recently I got curious again and tried to find answers for some of my questions however I had a hard time finding anything that seemed reliable. Most of the answers were written by people that do not live in/have never been to Iraq and simply add to the stereotypes. Some answers seemed "wishy washy" while others seem uninformed (even if they were written by an Iraqi, most of the time it seems that the person answering the question was Iraqi but never lived in Iraq or left at a young age). I wish that I could talk to the guy from the movie since he came to the US so recently and has personally experienced what it is like in Iraq in its current state. I feel that this video does a lot to work towards correcting or eliminating stereotypes but I feel that it is still lacking. We all have questions and no matter how in depth a film is, it will still leave some of them unanswered. What i gathered from the film was that we must think of where we learn what we learn. Essentially I mean that if we do not get our information fro ma credible source (someone who has studied the subject for an extensive amount of time or someone who has been there) or our information may not be true.

Guantanamo

The US Naval base located at Guantanamo Bay is something that has always bothered me for a few reasons. First of all, we are LEASING land from a communist country from a dictator that we were once at "war" with. US citizens are even banned from traveling to Cuba not to mention the trade embargo we have on them and yet we continue to occupy their land and pay them for it! In my opinion, we use the base simply because it is not us territory and thus not subject to US laws and/or regulations. This brings us to my next point about "Gitmo", the horrible acts that have been carried out on people each and everyday. I do not care whether or not the people being tortured are guilty or innocent or whether or not they are citizens of the US, because we all know that because they are "terrorists" (or suspected to be) and/or not citizens of the US they don't have any rights correct? The answer to this is WRONG, a big and bold wrong at that. They are human beings and should be treated as such. How can we claim to be against terror and fight for freedom when we willing take freedom from others, who in many cases seem to be innocent or have no useful information? I feel that we are just as guilty and should consider ourselves terrorist and thus hypocritical in the worst way.

Now, when I say we I do not mean myself or the rest of the US, I mean that the actions of few (the "interrogators" at Gitmo as well as anyone else who has taken place in these acts of torture) reflecting on our country as a whole. When people look at the US what will they see? The millions of people we have "liberated"? The fact that we fight for freedom and fight against terror? The answer is simple. When others look at the US they may see the good however the bad ALWAYS out weighs the good. People will see the thousands upon thousands of innocents that we have killed during our bombing runs and "liberation". They will see the pictures of our soldiers that have been in the news holding dead bodies or videos of soldiers cheering when a bomb destroys a building. They will also see the acts of terror that have been committed at Gitmo, innocent people being held for longer than they should have been not to mention the torture they have endured throughout their imprisonment.

In the end, I feel that Gitmo has worked very hard to "protect" our country and help us in our fight against terror although the work was done as far from correct as humanly possible. The "work" done at Gitmo as done, in my opinion, nothing but work to undo every good thing the United States has done to fight against terrorism.

Something I forgot...

This post goes along with my other post, just something I forgot to mention. Victor made a comment about/posed a question about the music in the movie and the actual meaning of the movie. I understand what he was saying and can easily see that the movie is showing how stupid, for lack of a better word, war is. What is the point of lining up, although modern wars do not have real front lines or battlegrounds necessarily, and killing each other. Most soldiers do not know what they are shooting at, why they are shooting, or who they are killing. War does not prove anything other than the stronger power will generally dominate and win. What does this accomplish? Why don't the policy makers simply fight it out using words? Or maybe policy makers and world leaders should fight in an arena like roman gladiators. At least this way the people fighting the war would know what they are fighting for. I hate that policy makers sit safely behind desks and send thousands of soldiers to "fight for our country" although in most cases, the country that is invaded has posed no actual threat. It is all about "Preemptive" strikes, which just doesn't make sense. To me it is like going to the doctor to get antibiotics before you have an infection and saying "oh well I'm taking these just in case I might have an infection". Why take the antibiotics before you get a blood test? War is the same way. Why attack a country that you THINK is a threat before fully understanding what is going on? In the end, I feel this is a question that will never be answered. While world peace is a wonderful idea and I wish more than anything that it could exist but it is simply impossible. People will always fell threatened and thus nations will always be at war. A sad and very stupid fact, but it is true.

Victor's Film.

I was so pleasantly surprised just how good the movie we watched. At first, when Victor aid it was an animated film I thought "oh great this is going to be useful" and when it started, my fears were confirmed as the video looked very "comic booky". However, as the movie went on, I realized just how powerful the movie really was. In addition. I don't feel like the movie would have had the same powerful meaning or given us the same image if it was created using traditional methods (live action). Personally, I don't think I would have been able to watch over an hour of live action footage of innocent peole being slaughtered, its kind of like watching films about the holocaust. In a way, the animation kind of dehumanizes what is really going on but not in a bad way. He nature of the film allows us to see what is going on without tugging at our heart strings by showing us actual footage of people dying or being murdered, that is, until the end. I think the short clip of live footage at the very end of the movie was just enough to make what we saw real. Without this segment of film, the animated portion would seem like just a cartoon made for adults. The live film really drives home the images and meanings portrayed in the film itself.

Just a few misconceptions

Something that I noticed about the film was they way each of the two families was portrayed (Muslim family vs. Jewish family). One thing that really bothered me about this was the way each of the families were two extremes. On one hand we have a very understanding and even accepting family of Muslims, on the other we have an overly strict and prejudice Jewish family. I guess I just feel that there are some families of Jews (orthodox or not) that CAN be accepting and understanding of others and at the same time, there are probably plenty of Muslims out there that are not as lenient with there families and might shun them for hanging out with people that are not Muslims. In the end, I feel that these issues or extremes kind of distracted a little bit from what really happens in each of these cultures, I think it would have been nice to maybe see more than one family from each background or something a little less extreme from each.

A little side note

Not that it is any excuse but unfortunately right after class on Tuesday (Nov 24th) I went home where my parents do not have internet (how they live without it I will never know). Therefore, the next few blogs will be to catch me up for the blogs I wanted to post about last weeks topic/discussion.

Women in Islam Movie

Something about this move kind of rubbed me the wrong way. While I agree that that this movie got a point across, women in many Islamic countries are treated poorly, I feel at times it was a little over the top. Not only was the plot a little strange (although it may actually happen in many cases) and again very over the top, but i feel that the movie was rather repetitive in a "beating a dead horse" way. The same issue was raised at least 6,000 times and nothing really changed, except the girls age. Multiple times she was forbidden to go to college, could not get a divorce, and was stalked yet she got in trouble. While I understand that all of these issues may be real life problems for women in the Middle East, I think the movie would have been much more effective if there was some kind of change in the plot or maybe a little twist rather than just the same thing over and over or what about making the movie 30 minutes shorter? I feel that changing the length of the movie and/or having some sort of surprise or twist would just make the movie even more effective. In the end, I understand why the movie was made and what it was trying to express, i just feel that it needs a TON of editing or maybe even some rewriting so that the viewers do not become bored and a fall asleep or lose interest in the bigger picture. (Sorry this is just getting posted now, i clicked "save now" by mistake instead of "Publish post" and just noticed it)

Women and Islam

I have to say that I was very surprised by what our guest speakers had to say about how women should be treated according to the Quran. I would have never expected that the Quran would essentially put woman at the "top of the food chain" so to speak. I guess a common misconception when it comes to woman in Islamic cultures is that they do not necessarily need to be treated nicely. This just goes to show, that once again I am surprised to learn that what I "know" about Islam and/or Muslims is very wrong. Unfortunately, I feel it is safe to say that most Americans (as well as many other more Westernized) have formulated stereotypes that are very wrong when it comes to cultures that seem to be much different than their own; in many cases, these stereotypes are so far from the truth that the truth seems unbelievable. Going into Tuesday's class, I was expecting to hear the speakers talk about how women are trying to overcome many obstacles set before them due to the teachings and writings of the Quran. As I said before, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that women SHOULD in fact be treated with much respect.

Headscarves

This video was not only confusing for me but also rather shocking. I can’t believe that so much trouble could be caused of wearing a scarf on your head. I just don't understand how someone can justify ruining someone’s life by taking away someone’s citizenship and not allowing them to go to college for wearing a scarf. Another thing that was incredibly shocking was the fact that during the graduation ceremony, the women were the one beating and abusing the women wearing scarves. It seems odd that they fight for women’s rights and yet are so counterproductive when they perform acts of hatred against other women. Finally, I could not believe the immaturity of the Prime Minister of Turkey. How can a grown man (and men once everyone jumped in on it) boo a women out of a professional and governmental setting. All and all, I feel that the whole situation is rather silly and almost comical in the sense that all of these problems are caused by a few scarves that women want to wear on their head.

Gold Dust

From our discussion in class I could see that there was some issues with the relationship with the camel. The way I see it, the relationship goes much deeper than just “a boy and his camel”. The camel is not simply a pet or mode of transportation to him, the camel represents his livelihood and to Ukhayyad, the camel is family, quite possibly the only “true” family he has. I also noticed that many people had a problem with him divorcing his wife or abandoning his family for the camel. However, as I interpreted the book, he didn't have a very good or close relationship with any of his family members and thus the camel was the only family that he had (at least in his eyes).
There is another way to look at it also. Imagine that you a blind and maybe your family is not always around or maybe they aren’t very close with you. In order to help you function you own a Seeing Eye dog. Is the dog just a tool that helps you live your life? I would say no, the dog represents freedom and a sense of independence. The dog will become more than just a tool as you and the dog almost become one. He cannot function without you and you ‘’cannot function” without him (at least not easily). Your dog will slowly become closer to you than almost anything in the world. That is how Ukhayyad felt about his camel. It was not just a camel. It was his freedom, his independence and his family.

Discussion on the Children's Books

I was very nervous about our discussion of the children’s books. While I knew there were some very powerful meanings behind them I felt as if most of us, being very capable college students, would not take the books seriously. I feared that you would find them childish (mainly because they are children books, go figure) and uninformative. My nervousness and fears were confirmed when I asked everyone what you thought of the books and no one said anything for just enough time for me to feel as if no one liked them. However, just as I was losing faith someone spoke up (although I cannot remember who it was). After that it was like the discussion began to snowball and go in directions I could have never imagined.
After we discussed the content itself we moved onto the pictures. When I copied the books I left/cut the pictures out, mainly to condense them so they were easier to read (sine the pictures were hard to see in black and white). I would like to claim that I left the pictures out on purpose so that you would analyze nothing but the text and form your own images but this is not the case although it worked out for the better in the end. I feel that the discussion really soared and we found many deep and hidden meanings in the text and then the pictures. Each picture tells its own story and has its own meanings, they are almost as if there is a second story in addition to the text.
As I said before, I was nervous about filling time and worried that the discussion would go nowhere but I was pleasantly surprised. I was so happy that almost everyone (if not everyone) participated or had something to say. You guys really did a great job in looking at the books as so much more than just children’s stories because they really are. Their meanings our powerful no matter what age group is reading the book and I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for participating.

The Day of Ahmed's Secret

As a future teacher, this book was particularly upsetting to me. Ahmed should just be your average little boy but unfortunately his family as needs. He works tirelessly from sun rise to sun set delivering hundreds of pounds of fuel oil. His routine is so unchanging that e takes the same route each day, eats the same meals, and sees the same people. He does not have time to play, go to school, make friends his own age, or have any sort of life that a young boy should have. He seems to have matured at a very young age and although he is proud of his job and what he does, there is something that he is more proud of. I was almost in tears the first time I read this book and found out what his secret was. He can write his name. That doesn't seem like much but for a child it is huge, not to mention the fact that he is most likely self taught. He is so proud that he can write that it changes his entire day. He goes through the whole day of work and thinks of nothing but revealing this HUGE secret to his family. As readers we must understand why this is so important. He taught himself to write his name despite having no free time to learn except the occasional short lunch break. To me this is amazing, touching, and upsetting. All children deserve the chance to BE children and to see one struggling just to support his family and not having any fun or any kind of formal education really breaks my heart. I can only hope that situations like this will become a thing of the past in the very near future.

Sami and the Time of Troubles

While many people found this book more upsetting, I find it hard to choose which is more upsetting between the two. These two books are so different that I feel that they cannot be compared. While the other one doesn't seem upsetting, to me it is (see my next blog) and this one is upsetting in a completely different way. Sami is a little boy who essentially lives in the dark. His city/country is ravished by war and fighting. He goes to bed each night in the basement of a house with no front wall due to an explosion from a bomb. The basement is dark and his noise machine does not sound like the ocean or a rain forest; his noise machine is the rat-tat from machine guns, people scream, and loud explosions. He is not rocked to sleep in a chair by his mother or father but rather by the shuttering and shaking from the explosions all around his house. During the day he has nothing better to do than play with his friend, building forts and pretending to kill each other. While most kids play army, this is very different for me. These two boys live in a world of death and violence and seem to be imitating what they are seeing in real life. Children in our country play army and have no idea what the true effects of war are.
In the end, I feel that this book is sad because I have no idea what it feels like to go to sleep each night wondering if I will wake up or if my family will be dead when I do. I don't know what it’s like to not have a childhood that isn’t filled with death and violence. I could not imagine being Sami and only know that I would do everything in my power to get out of a country like that. He seems like a very strong and mature person, almost as if he was forced to grow up because his childhood has been taken away, something that I will never be able to completely relate to.

The Mosque

When we first arrive at the mosque I had no idea what to expect. I had never been inside one and was kind of excited to see one. I was pleasantly surprised by both our tour guide and the information he had for us. I learned more in that 2 hours or so than I would have ever dreamed of. I was half expecting him to be the stereotypical Muslim and knock other religions or seem above everyone else (yes everyone has their stereotypes whether we like it or not). The other part of me knew I was being stupid and judging people before I had a chance to talk to them so I tried to put those thoughts out of my head knowing they were most likely incorrect, as are more stereotypes.
When we are all sitting in the room behind the prayer chamber there were many things that surprised me. I found myself focusing and hanging on his every word, something I generally have a hard time doing. One of the most surprising things to me was when we discussed the prophets of other religions. According the Imam, Islamic people hold the prophets of other religions in the highest regard. They have just as much respect for Moses, Jesus, Noah, and any other prophet as they have for Mohamed. This is something that really changed my outlook on Islam (and Islamic people). He also cleared up many of the stereotypes that have been floating around. Much of what he said would have seen unbelievable to me except for the fact that he was so passionate about what he was saying. His beliefs are so strong and he seems to care and believe everything that he says, that I felt inspired by his words. He was truly genuine with us and if I had the time to visit again, I would not hesitate to go an observer a prayer session.

The Road to Love

The road to love was a very interesting movie. I found myself looking at the film as being rather stereotypical. I am not saying that I disagree with or dislike the film, I just feel that it could have been done better. For me there was two key problems that made the film less enjoyable for me. These issues involve the speed that the subtitles moved and the way homosexuals were portrayed.
First of all, since the movie is in a language that I do not understand, the subtitles were sometimes blurry, lagged (hard to follow which character was saying what), and sometimes moved to fast for me to do little more than skim them and try to get the general idea. This may seem like a minor idea but in a film like this, the script is critical. At points I found myself just waiting for the scene to end or making an attempt to piece together what I missed as the text raced from one sentence to the next.
However, the issues with the subtitles are very minor when compared to my problems with how the characters were portrayed. I myself have many gay friends so I feel like most of the characters being interviewed simply “fit the mold” for the stereotypical gay man. For example, when the characters were being interviewed, they almost tried to force themselves on their interviewer. This is typical of many guys worst fears, the fact that “all gay guys will hit on any guy that moves” seems to be a commonly known “fact”. I feel that the opposite is true. The majority of gay and lesbian people that I know are sometimes afraid to hit or even talk to a member of the same sex because of the way the react (since they are obviously trying to turn you gay when they talk to you right?).
As I said before, I am not completely knocking the movie because it did have its good points. All I am saying is that for me, the stereotypes sort of overwhelmed or paved over the message the film makers were trying to get across. The stereotypes combined with the fast paced subtitles made this film just ok for me. If you try to look past its few seemingly minor problems, you can find deeper or hidden (even if they are not meant to be hidden) meanings. However, these two problems are a lot bigger than that seem and sometimes hard to look past.

Mid-Eastern Parenting

I, like much of the class I assume, felt a sense of fondness towards the father of the narrator. He as kind, loving, and cared for his son in a way that a father should. This is something that was a bit odd to me. Looking at everything that I “know” about the cultures and traditions of Middle Eastern society, a father should be strict and would not she I would just not expect him to show so much love and kindness without any kind of angry or punishment for his sons actions. This just goes to show that, as discussed in my previous blog, although I do not feel that the Arabic writing on buildings is wrong nor do I feel that Mid-Eastern people try to take over everything; all of us still have some kind of stereotype and in many cases a prejudice towards others.

The father was my by far my favorite character in the book. He was so kind and understanding towards his son, I only wish my father was so understanding when I ran the lawn mower into our above ground pool and punctured the thin aluminum draining the entire 4,000+ gallon pool into our yard. I got screamed at for days about that and yet I feel as if the father in the book would have simply given the narrator a talking to and maybe a simple lecture about being more careful or something along those lines. In a way, he is the perfect father; kind, understanding, wise, calm, and patient. These are all qualities that all of us should possess and they are qualities that I would not have thought of when you asked me what a typical Mid-East dad would be like. Until reading this book, I would have likely said that a father in the Mid-East would be strict and maybe not show how much he cared all the time. There were times in the book where I was sure some sort of physical punishment would occur but alas, I was wrong. As a I said in my previous blog, one of the only ways to rid this world of stereotypes and prejudice is to demonstrate and educate people, something this book seems to do very well.

"Real Bad Arabs..."

While watching the video "Real Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People" my mind was flooded with thoughts. It was not the stereotypes themselves that surprised me, it was how strong rooted they were. Every single one of us have our own stereotypes and prejudices towards each and every culture, race, and ethnicity that we encounter; whether we know it or not. Some of these stereotypes are brought on by our upbringing while others rise from what we see others doing. In this case, the media seems to have a powerful influence over what we think about the mid-east and its people.

I have been watching movies for year that depicted terrorists or rebel groups of Middle Eastern people. Until watching this video, the thought of racism or prejudice never crossed my mind. Looking at the video made me realize just how skewed the view of the Mid-East has become. I myself know a few people that crack jokes about or discuss how “those people just want to take over everything” or “why do they have to write in Arabic on their shops, how do we know it’s not a secret message”. This is something that often occurs, especially when people around me are discussing Dearborn and its large Mid-Eastern population. This video really shows just where some of these stereotypes must have been developed

Hollywood has a large impact on what American society does and how the people act and even dress. This is yet another reason I would not be surprised if the stereotypes presented in movies is the reason that many Americans have prejudices towards people from the Mid-East. The images from movies combined with other forms of media, in large part the news, will continue to reinforce stereotypes and I don't know if anything can really be done about it. The only thing that I can think of is better education about people from the Mid-East and positive views of them in the media.