Where They Live, Where I Live: Barriers

For this assignment, which can have a different title than the one suggested, reflect on how the differences between where you grew up or where you live now and where Middle Easterners live might act as barriers to understanding. What resources will help you overcome such barriers? The key factors to consider here are the universal and the particular, environment and culture.

The differences between cultures throughout the world are vast. It is difficult to pinpoint specific differences between any two cultures, and only slightly easier to determine where some of these create barriers. A more preferable topic would be where the common ground is. I always drift to agriculture for this subject, while farming is different all over the world; for some reason there always seems to be something interesting to talk about which can be easily related to. However, this example of mine is specific to where I grew up. In rural Lancaster County it seems almost obvious that agriculture is part of a common knowledge that I could discuss with any individual. Across the world this may not be true; my perception that has been endowed upon me by my hometown could be easily proven false. For example if I found myself conversing with someone from Cairo. My perception could also be reality if I ran into a Moroccan olive farmer instead. The big problem is that where I live is a specific location but where “Middle Easterners live” is an open ended concept. It is almost impossible to determine barriers created by growing up in Lancaster County and the entire Middle East (even if I focus just on North Africa), because where one example might prove a point another might dispel it.

For the sake of argument I will generalize

The most prime example is education. It can be and often is a barrier. Not how much we are exposed to it because there are well educated and uneducated people all over the world but instead what we learn about each other. In my school district I had one course that dealt with the Middle East for a specific unit. My tenth grade “World Cultures” class included a two week unit on the Middle East where I quickly learned and then forgot names of countries and their capitals. The classroom is not where I learned about the Middle East, it was instead from television, movies, the internet and other forms of mass media where I made my first impressions of the Middle East. This could easily create a barrier between someone from south Lancaster and someone from the Middle East. The information that is presented in mass media is almost never properly explained and presented in the in-depth version that is required for proper learning. In many parts of the Middle East the same problem persists. Propaganda and sound bites about America (almost never Lancaster County) are generalized and simplified. However I do believe there is a larger focus on the western world in the Middle Eastern world than vice versa.

The good news is the reassure to fix this problem is a simple one: education. By changing how and what we learn about, not only the Middle East, but all regions of the world we can overcome the barriers that separate us. The United States should strengthen its world cultures education programs: abroad opportunities and international exchanges should be promoted in our high schools, mandatory world cultures classes should be at all levels of secondary education, and large block grants should be given to the states to provide programs featuring international speakers. However, our schools and government can only do so much. In the end it is a societal issue that will need to be solved by individuals. Our mass media will need to change. The way we talk about other cultures in print and television will need to turn from fear and distrust to the more realistic tone that Arabs and other Middle Easterners are similar to those in the United States, and these barriers that exists can be easily torn down.

It is through these methods that I will overcome this barrier. Three years of college level courses, have allowed me to learn not only about the Middle East but from Middle Easterners themselves. My tutors, professors, and even my fellow students have been from the Middle East. Learning from them and with them has torn down the barrier that separated us. This collegiate experience has taught me that most people around the world are very similar; advanced education specifically with a personal touch.