12 false assumptions about the Middle East

Since I have been back and talking to my North American friends here in the United States, I have met some interesting assumptions about the Middle East. I would like to talk about some of them here. Of course, this is a small space, and every one of them is really complicated, but here is my best short comment on each one. I'm always happy to talk about them in much more detail in a different context!

World peace is a good goal, or at least world-not-so-much-suffering-and-antagonism, but that's not a very catchy slogan. Anyway, one way to meet this goal of more people being okay is learning more about The Other. We have media to help us do that, but there are some commercial forces that sort of get in the way of the message sometimes, and the view Americans get of the MIddle East is, at times, incomplete. After traveling in the Gulf States for six weeks and returning to the US, here are 12 assumptions about this area that I have had the good fortune to talk about.

1. The Middle East is Iraq and Afghanistan.
Actually, the Middle East is a geographical term for the countries between Asia and Europe. Another way to describe this area is The Arab World (which does not include Iran). Another way to see this part of the world is Dar Al Islam, the abode of Islam. So you can talk about this part of the world geographically, ethnically, or ethno-religiously. If we go with the geographical term, it encompasses 17 counties that range from Egypt around the Arabian Peninsula up to Iran. This list gets bigger if you decide to go with countries that speak Arabic as the national language. No matter how you slice it, this is a large and varied area. If you took 17 states from the United States, or 17 countries of Europe or Latin America, you would see a huge variety of experience, culture, and attitude. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have a few things in common, but Cairo and Dubai are really rather different places. So, as Americans, it is important for us to remember that when we say "The Middle East" it is not like saying "The Midwest" of the United States. It is also important not to think only "US War Zones" when we say "The Middle East". There is more going on than war.

2. The Middle East is one big volatile war zone.
While this is certainly true for parts of this geographical area, there are also many countries that are stable and doing okay. While Yemen is having some challenges, they are fairly contained, and the surrounding states are very stable in that they have governments that work, social structures that function, markets that supply their populations with food, water, and security, and media that at least entertains and to a certain extent, informs. Certainly the Gulf States are models of stability, even if one may not agree with how that stability is achieved. Nonetheless, it works. There are many places in the Middle East where people live happy, content, fulfilling lives.

3. Arabs hate North Americans.
Nope. Americans, when they behave like polite, respectful, cheerful individuals are well received. Throughout the Middle East, many more Arabs have travelled to the United States and Canada than vice versa. Of course if you are from Canada, everybody likes you, but even if you are from their southern neighbor, most Arabs in the Middle East do not automatically recoil from you. In fact, they may well ask where you are from be able to talk about places in your state that they have visited or attended university. Many Arabs are unhappy with certain United States government policies and positions, but that is not the same thing as hating the citizens. Most Arabs are well educated and can tell the difference between people and their government.

4. Women are oppressed in the Middle East, and the head covering is the symbol of this oppression.
While there are government policies that some women would like to see change, in general, they do not feel oppressed. In fact, there is a cultural regard for women that is quite positive. Of course there are contradictions such as the mother is due the highest honor in the family, but the father's opinion is the one that counts in decision making. In the US we have this kind of contradiction at many levels as well. However, what sends most Americans and Europeans into a tizzy is the head covering. Without going into the complexity of all the kinds of head coverings (and there are many), suffice to say that in many cases when a woman covers her head she is choosing to do so out of cultural or religious feeling, not because she resentfully has to. Of course in certain countries, she is, indeed, required to cover her head, but in many more countries it is a choice (of sorts). In the Gulf States, there were covered and uncovered women. When I chatted with girls about their choice to cover or not, they all had a great deal to say on the topic. As a result, to merely see the head coverings as oppression is inaccurate, and to merely focus on the head covering when one is actually interested in women's rights is being distracted by a red herring.

5. Everybody has arranged marriages and women are forced to marry men they have never met.
It is true that marriages work a little differently in a place where family relationships are more salient than in the US. Bottom line, women do get to choose, but the choices are different from US choices. In many countries, your female relatives will scope the possibilities and make recommendations to both the young man and the young lady. In stricter countries, like Saudi Arabia, they get to meet in chaperoned situations and then most of the relationship takes place on the phone. Weddings are gender segregated affairs, but quite lavish. Divorce is legal, and divorce rates are similar to the US or only slightly lower. In choosing someone to marry, it matters very much what family they come from, so that can limit the field of choice. In some Gulf States it requires permission from the Emir to marry a foreigner. In Kuwait, if a woman marries a foreigner, her children are not considered Kuwaiti citizens. So, there are some complications in marriage, but it's not as dire as some Americans I have spoken with think.

6. Women in the Middle East have no sense of fashion because they wear a big black bag.
In the Gulf States, the Big Black Bag is called an abaya. Abaya fashion is complicated, sophisticated, and, quite frankly, very beautiful. There are different kinds of cloth, lengths, cuts, decorations, and accessories whose endless variation kept me in rapt attention in every mall and coffee shop we attended. And under the abaya (which is only worn outside the house) are the most glitzy, fashionable costumes ever. To add to the complexity, there are very subtle ways to show what is under the abaya in public, such as a slight lifting of the hem while one goes upstairs to reveal a bit of fashionably frayed jeans and wicked stilettos, or the slight opening of the front of the abayas while one glides through the mall to reveal the dress beneath. Any student of Victorian literature knows that the abaya, in its covering, reveals more than it hides. And the head scarves? There are whole shops devoted to piles and piles and piles of head scarves of different cloth, drape, and intricate decoration. And men participate in this too! For men and women, the adjustment of the head covering is a graceful, elegant, practiced movement. Fashion is big business in the Middle East, and for some, being fashionable is a full time job.

7. Everybody speaks Arabic in the Middle East.
Sort of. If you want to learn to speak Arabic, don't go to the Arabian Gulf or Iran. Actually, in most Middle Eastern Cities, there is a lot of English. In the Gulf States now, you start learning English in first grade. Imagine if the US started teaching Arabic in first grade and required it as a subject throughout high school? Just imagine the uproar if the US required ANY foreign language starting in first grade. Anyway, there is a lot of English, as well as Arabic, French, Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog, Chinese, and on and on. It is quite a multilingual place. However, your humble correspondent did continue to try to work on her Arabic whenever possible even when Urdu would have been the better choice.

8. All men study jihad in the Middle East.
Well, yes, and no. Jihad is actually a word that means "struggle", and in Islam the struggle can be a struggle inside yourself to be a better person. It can also mean a struggle to liberate your people from oppression. So, most people who follow Islam struggle to be a better person, but only a minority take up arms, and most people will say that is a misunderstanding of what jihad really is. Which leads us to number 8.

9. The Taliban is what all Middle Eastern Countries want to be like.
The Taliban were the government in Afghanistan in the late 90s and are now a group fighting to restore conservative Islamic government to Afghanistan. The repressive, conservative, violent policies of the Taliban are exactly what people in the Middle East do not want. These are forward looking countries who want education, employment, stable government, and national security, just as the United States does. Sure, there are Kings, Emirs, Sheikhs, and forms of government that do not mirror US systems, but the US has very good relationships with these governments such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Jordan, and many others.

10. Everybody in the Middle East loves Iran.
Well this is an oversimplification. Iran has complicated relationships with its neighbors. Kuwait is right next door and is quite rationally concerned about what happens to Iran, but it does not want to be subject to Iran or its policies. Qatar shares a ginormous gas field with Iran and so is quite concerned about the implications of developing this field. But while everybody is justifiably concerned about what happens to a big geographical neighbor, it is important for Americans to remember that Iranians are Persian and speak Farsi in contrast to their neighbors who are Arabs and speak Arabic. Its complicated. One really needs to take a political science course to get the complexities, twists, and turns of these relationships.

11. Arabs are oil wealthy sheikhs who live in pampered luxury.
Not really, but sort of. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, the UAE, and Kuwait have taken control of their oil and gas wealth. The result of these natural resources means that the citizens of those countries are reaping the benefits because they have leaders who believe in sharing the wealth of the nations. This is in stark contrast to, say, Nigeria or Texas. If you are a national in these countries, you get free education and health care, subsidized housing and utilities, deals on loans, and job security. However, this is not say that everybody is equally wealthy as there are gradations in family status, and everybody does have to work and take some advantage of the education. It is true that in relative terms, these nationals are doing very very well. However, the leaders of these oil wealthy countries realize that there is an end to the oil, although Qatar has natural gas to last hundreds of years according to the World Trade Organization. Nevertheless, there is a high level push for developing a "knowledge economy" (educating people), and looking for diversifying their economies beyond oil. There is some very dedicated thought on getting beyond oil.

12. Arabs are nomadic bedouin who ride camels and shoot guns in the air.
This is the classic image from Lawarence of Arabia and other "documentaries" of the Middle East. Actually, the nomadic desert life, which includes riding camels and hunting with falcons, is a favored myth of the ethnic past on the Arabian Peninsula, but it is not the present situation by any means. The majority of people in Middle Eastern countries have been settled agricultural people for thousands of years. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Iraq are known as the cradle of civilization. In your "copious spare time" try googling "the fertile crescent". Anyway, the Arab On A Camel With A Gun was a real guy on the Arabian peninsula in the 19th and early 20th century, but he has been replaced by a a guy in a business suit driving a Range Rover and carrying a laptop. However, there is still a romantic tradition of camping in the desert and riding around the dunes, just not on a camel, but in your four wheel drive SUV or ATV. There is also an active falcon hunting community, passionate but small. What confuses some Americans is the national dress of the white robe with the scarf on the head held down by the black circlet. This traditional dress is indicative of national identity, but it does not automatically come with a camel, and it is much more commonly associated with a laptop, a cell phone, and a pack of cigarettes.

Just the middle of the journey

Tonight we leave for America. Unlike in Casablanca, our exit visas have already been obtained and are safe in our passports. Even though we will soon be in another country, the work has only begun. Gathering data is one thing, and processing it is quite another. Nevertheless, this is an ending of sorts, and this morning I took my last walk along the plagette (corniche/boardwalk). I have my modest little "no elbows, no knees" suit in which I join all the other walkers on the plagette at 6:00am. There are quite a lot of people out walking in the early morning, some in "sport hijab" and others less covered up. There is a quite the determined elderly person who is quite round, who huffs and puffs along like a little steam engine in her billowing abaya and burka. Her tenacity is astonishing. There are also twenty somethings how walk or jog along in hijab with a baseball cap on top. Teams of young men run by in tanks and board shorts. I assume they are training for the "peal diving competition" that is coming up soon. One morning I was marching along and I saw six women sitting out on the rocks in the early morning, just chatting away. The walking seems to have gotten in the way of a good chat.


Although it is a source of consternation and dismay in many quarters, I rather enjoyed the stray kitties. On the surface they are quite cute, although I know they life a hard short life. I will go back and pat my no-where-near-as-tough kitty and love these strays through her.


This is such a lovely walk, and there is such good company. I feel like I'm part of some kind of exercise group as we all walk back and forth along the beautiful intersection of earth, sea, and sky.