In response to the column by Nik Antovich on 1/15/08 about U.S. culture and Islam:
Is it weird for an Arab to agree with some of Mr. Antovich’s opinions, and still choose to live in the U.S.? That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I respect his opinions.
Each culture and philosophy has its pros and cons. More important than criticizing another culture, no one should try to impose his or her beliefs on another. In a free (borderless) world, anyone can choose to live anywhere. I guarantee you that in that world, there will be people still living in the U.S., in the Middle East, and everywhere else. Freedom, peace, and love are as precious for an American as they are for an Arab. Every person should be able todevelop their own Ten Commandments. Every person is unique, but we’re all connected, and that’s the beauty of life.
While Europe was going through the “Dark Ages” (roughly 500-1,500 AD), burning books and torturing “witches” in public, Arabs preserved the knowledge from the Greeks and Romans, improved it, then used it to save Europe and gave it a “second birth” (“Renaissance”) in art, science and maturity. Today, if some Americans think that certain “Arabs live like medieval people and need to be saved or converted” (Tom Cruise, playing a U.S. Senator in the 2007 movie “Lions for Lambs”), then education, communication and patience are the only roads to peace, enlightenment and survival.
War is always an assault on freedom, and is therefore never just. Unless the goal of an army is to acquire resources, make profits, exterminate a population, and/or get revenge, war will never be effective. As Noam Chomsky said on the day following Sept. 11: “The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: We can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.”
At the UO World Language Academy, we believe that “you live a new life for every new language you speak.” I’m here to offer that opportunity to our students. No videos are worth a personal traveling experience. Now here’s my favorite: “The person who finds his country sweet is but a raw beginner; the person for whom each country is as his own is already strong; but only the person for whom the whole world is a foreign country is perfect.” Peace.
Mohamed Jemmali
UO Arabic Faculty