At the start of this conference for Fulbrighters in the Middle East and North Africa (basically, the Arab world) many of us later agreed that we were greeted with a jarring realization: Israeli students were at the conference too?!?
Now, I know this sounds horrible, but let’s put this in perspective. All of the rest of us had been immersed in marjority-Muslim Arab countries for the last several months. We all, especially those of us surrounded by Palestinians, have become accustomed to hearing the narratives that these communities share with us. We have almost begun to feel their emotions during this process of cultural exchange and understanding. So while it may seem a little unjust, it’s understandable that upon hearing the introductions of these Fulbrighters who were researching in Israel, a wave of panic swept over our faces and the blood briefly stirred in our veins during our confusion over how we could possibly be sharing this forum with them. So disconnected are we from Israel, even being just an hour’s drive to its border, and so immersed in the opposing environment that our instinctual reactions spoke volumes.
But I think it’s safe to say that an initial reaction was all it really was. As the conference started and we began discussing our work in our different countries, the atmosphere became one of intellectual discourse and comparative understanding. We asked questions to others about their projects based on our time in our own countries. We put each of our experiences in context, pushing ourselves to understand more about these cultures that we were immersed in from different angles that we hadn’t previously thought about. Indeed, enrichment was what this conference had turned out to be.
During the second of five panel discussion sessions, I found myself sitting on the same panel as one of the Israeli scholars, a girl studying modern contemporary dance in Israel. To some people this topic might sound a little bogus. Whereas some people mock Israeli culture as what they see as something expropriated from other Middle Eastern traditions (there is no way that I’m going to take on that issue right now), what she presented left even those critics intrigued. She discussed the development of a very modern form of dance, something that borrowed from many non-traditional influences, but also something that became a form of abstract expression. She discussed some of the dance expressions that evoked feelings of tension and guardedness, senses that she saw as being influenced by modern attitudes in Israel today.
I had sat next to her on this panel and became fascinated by her work and her findings. Being someone who fancies himself a dancer, I was interested in how the dance might look. What kind of music was involved? What kinds of clothes? Where does this dance take place? As you can probably tell, my knowledge of modern dance isn’t really up to par, let alone my familiarity with modern Israeli dance.
After the panel we began talking and ended up hitting it off. In fact, I’m pretty sure that she’s the single person who I spoke to the most throughout the entire conference. We discussed dancing (at length), then cultural environments, job hunting, you name it. Eventually we even found out that we had similar dietary issues and started discussing health insurance woes.
Before I exhaust the topic, I’ll just say that this conference was so cool and involved so much intellectual exchange that I ended up connecting with basically all of the Fulbrighters studying in Israel, let alone from everywhere else. We even ended up discussing my initial instinctual reaction of shock to their presence at our conference and they shared their feelings of apprehension before they attended.
By the end of the seminar, all of us agreed that the students from Israel belonged with the Middle East and North Africa group, and that our discussions would not have been the same without their shared experiences. I sincerely felt that we all benefited from their participation and it made me feel warm inside to tell them that, even though it sucks that there was some discomfort about it in the beginning.
***
Then came the conflict that was way out in the open.
As our seminar, which consisted of five panel discussions and three lectures from Tunisian professors, came to a close, my friend Stephanie presented her research in Jordan.
She had initially planned to research women’s roles in the Jordanian military (I think) but, upon meeting huge obstacles, changed her topic to focus on ecotourism in Jordan. She talked about the efforts of some governmental organizations to keep certain nature preserves open and her work in studying the profits generated for local communities by ecotourism to these preserves.
But the conflict came before she even started talking. Stephanie is an active duty Air Force officer, on assignment to do her Fulbright research. It’s confusing, I know, but she got the Fulbright while studying at the Air Force Academy. She doesn’t get any money from Fulbright because she’s still being paid by the military, but she does get the opportunity to learn Arabic and gain some international experience before she pursues her military assignment, which I recall her telling me was in intelligence.
One of our fellow Fulbrighters from Syria listened to her talk, then let loose with his questioning. He talked about how the American military is seen as this horrible, deceitful, destructive, inhumane, manipulative force and asked how she dealt with the conflict of representing that, while also pretending to be a Fulbright researcher, who is supposed to be a cultural ambassador for understanding and educational exchange. If that doesn’t seem like that bad of a question, then I definitely did a better job of wording it than he did because he straight up attacked her. Everyone in the room felt like he was calling her a two-faced liar with hostile and despicable intentions.
The room was frozen in shock and Stephanie tried to answer the question in a diplomatic fashion, not really answering as much as trying not to be overcome by anger. I was listening and getting really upset about the exchange and how the guy could have framed the inquiry so poorly.
I don’t deny that he may have had an interesting point to raise. Indeed, many of us face difficulties in being associated with the American government as we try to conduct our research and get close to people who think that we are spies. How much would it hinder our abilities if one of these skeptics knew that there was an active US military officer in our group as well? What’s to stop such a person from thinking that we’re all spies or military of some sort and, worse yet, what’s to stop this kind of a rumor from spreading to anyone in contact with the rest of us and ruining our ability to research sensitive topics? Is the integrity of the Fulbright Scholarship possibly at stake by having a participant from the US Air Force involved?
As interesting as these points of discussion are, the way that the topic was introduced was uncalled for and turned many of us off from the topic. Worse yet, during our end-of-the-seminar discussion (which was 15 minutes later) the questioner brought it up again and an argument broke out that had to be interrupted by a State Department official, who said that the debate wasn’t productive and was taking time away from the focus of the seminar.
In the end, none of us got to hear from Stephanie about if she considered there to be a conflict and how she may attempt to reconcile the different goals of these organizations, if she even believes them to have different goals.
She did, however, make one good point before the argument was stopped in its tracks: if the military is going to be interested in the Middle East, wouldn’t it be a good thing to have officers like Stephanie who spend time with the people in the Middle East, learning the language and gaining some cultural understanding?
I agree with her, but whether the chance for her to have this experience is putting the integrity of the rest of us at risk is an interesting question as well.
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