RACHEL JOHNSON
Staff Writer
Before the start of my semester in London, I don’t think I ever really understood the racial profiling that went on in the world.
Now, studying overseas has become an enlightening experience and a good opportunity to witness worldly perspectives as well as relate them to events that affect the United States.
I’m taking a course called “The History of the Modern Islamic World” which initially was for the sole purpose of meeting my non-Western heritage requirement. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I learned that the concepts we would learn would become more relevant than I could have ever predicted.
Learning historical events, has helped me to better understand both sides of the Middle East saga: their side and my side.
Like in the United States, many Middle Easterners in London are persecuted based solely on stereotypes. My professor told one student, who is Indian not Middle Eastern, that he should play a joke on the British police by wearing a turban and carrying a large backpack while riding the subway. His point was that the British are incredibly suspicious of those individuals who fit the stereotype of a terrorist. Basically, anyone who appears to be remotely of Middle Eastern descent is assumed to be a suicide bomber.
What so many people aren’t aware of about the natives of the Middle East is that their mistrust of Western powers is greatly warranted. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, for example, is one that is totally misunderstood by Western civilizations. Many believe it is an issue of selfishness, but it is truly one rooted in much deeper conflict than the possession of land.
The issue goes back to pledges made to Islamic nations by the British in the early 1900s. The first, the McMahon-Husayn Correspondence of 1916, was supposed to give the Muslims their own nation should they declare war against insurgents who were threatening British imperialism. The second was the Sikes-Picot Agreement of 1916, and it gave land to French allies instead of to the Muslim nationalists to whom it had been promised. The Balfour Declaration a was third promise made in 1917 and gave the land of Palestine to mistreated Jews, thus displacing an enormous amount of Arabs from the land in which they had lived for so long.
The importance of these pledges is not in the terms of agreement, but rather it is the conflicts inherent between them that placed a greater significance on European imperialism than on loyalty and trust.
As is evident by the progression of the pledges, Western powers had promised provisions and land for the Arabs, but they had abandoned those declarations once their own aims had been achieved.
It’s no wonder, then, that many inhabitants of the Middle East have such a strong distaste for Western representation in their lands. Not only do the areas not belong to these outside armies, but because of the aforementioned history of broken promises, many Middle Easterners have little trust in the United States and Britain.
There is never a justification for terrorist attacks like Sept. 11 that pitted the Middle East against the United States. Knowing about the broken treaties should not persuade Americans to brush off terrorist attacks as commonplace misdemeanors to be ignored.
Rather, the knowledge should serve to illustrate that familiarity of the past allows us to be more understanding in the reason for this deeply rooted sentiment of frustration and distrust.
Not to say that everyone should take an Islamic History class, but if people would learn more about Middle Eastern culture, they might understand the the unhappiness among the people.
Such a class may even help Westerners to look past a turban, backpack and unfamiliar accent. They can, then, appreciate that person for being an individual contributing to a beautifully diverse world.
02-16-2006