Getting comfortable
I'm getting used to being here again, finally after a month of super-painful culture shock. I even ate a hamburger!But I feel like every day when I only speak one language, I loose something more and more. LIKe bits of myself are just fading away. Language is one of those things that really messes with you, and unfortunately, i don't think enough americans get to experience it. What I mean is, the world in which we live, everything that surrounds us and that we are a part of is defined by our language. When that language is suddenly taken away, it causes us to see things differently. Physically see them differently. And then when we switch back to our mother language, things that used to be comfortable become estranged. Sandra Cisneros describes it in her book "Caramelo" pretty well when she describes a Mexican-American girl crossing the boarder to visit her family in Mexico. The physical sounds of the world change: a bird no longer says "tweet-tweet", the color yellow isn't just yellow, it's amarillo. The smell of dirt in the air is different, the colors of the landscape are different when you percieve things in a different language. I wish there was a way I could study this at Hamilton as a part of my thesis, but I don't think we have enough bi-lingual students. Anyway, every day that goes by, I can feel my english perception of the world coming back more fully and strongly than before. And the sweet orange of my granada perception slowly disappearing. It feels like that dream that you had that was so wonderful and life altering, and you keep telling it to yourself over and over so as to never forget it. But applying words to the dream alters it, and causes it to fade away even more quickly because you have immortalized it in story, instead of accepting it as the fleeting empty part of life it really is.
I met a boy last night who had some really interesting political views. I think a lot of people get scared by my liberal outlook, but they don't understand that the fact that i'm liberal is the very reason I will accept their views as their own interpretations of the world. I'm not going to try and change anyone. How would it be consistent for me to say that to change a country's politics is up to it's own citizens, but to change a person's politics is up to another? People have their reasons for believing what they do about the world. I know I have been blessed and privileged in my life so that my eyes were forced open at a young age. But it didn't have to be like this. So many of my friends are conservative or even apathetic, and as much as i want to show them what i've seen, I know I can't. In time if their views will change, as will mine. The opinions that we have, if educated and strong, will become more ingrained in our world view and those that are weak will be modified. This modification process is something that we must do for ourselves: no one can change our minds for us.
And so when we started talking about politics, and he pulled the whole "we should just blow up those fuckers in the middle east", I just got up and left. Some of my friends stayed and argued with him, but I didn't. I know he has his reasons for thinking that blowing up an entire region of the world might solve something. But I have my reasons to be fully against killing so many innocent people. I think I just love people too much. He noticed that I left, and when I saw him later he asked me about it. I told him that I can comprehend his views and that I respect him enough not to fight them, but that my views were quite different than his, and that I don't really expect him to understand, much less respect them. This of course fascinated him, and provoked him even further. But the way I see it, there's no point in arguing. Look at us. We are two americans, privileged enough to be able to be seen in public together, privileged enough to sit in public and talk about politics without fear of getting shot or bombed. We've lived our entire lives in the protective bubble of the superpower, covered by the seemingly impermiable walls of "freedom, justice, liberty and democracy". Most things of misfortune that have happened to us were caused by ourselves or own neighbors, and not the laws of a foreign government. How can we, sipping on beers poolside on a summer night possibly feel like we have any significance arguing over the fate of thousands of people abroad. What I mean to say is, that whether or not he and I agree, or will ever agree, it doesn't change the fact that our friends are dying overseas. Arguing will never solve anything.
I cannot describe to you how much my time of studying psychology has helped me understand this. I understand why people have their reasons for believing things, and why they're so impossible to change. Furthermore, I also understand why some solution like "bomb the fuckers" will cause more problems than solve them. Solutions are not simple and cannot be conjured up by one party and imposed upon the other. Example: Solution to Israeli Lebanese conflict: bomb the shit out of lebanon until the government bends to submission and denounces the fundamentalist party within its boarders. That could never work. And as we are seeing now on the news, it's most definitely not working out. What's worse, is that since the US has a history of constantly siding with israel, our ally's actions are having a massive impact on how the rest of the region sees us. As if they didn't already hate us enough, this is just the icing. All that being said, I do understand that Israel has been threatening to strike back at Lebanon for a long time. And I offer no solutions. After all, how can I? I'm not there, and I don't know anything more than what I can read and hear. It's all so fucked up because we talk about israel and lebanon as if they were just people or feuding families. Sometimes I think we as third parties forget that we're talking about people. Like when they say that Israel and Lebanon are bombing eachother, I'm not picturing regions or even governments, i'm picturing my friends Ben, Naomi, Rachel. When they talk about Syria I picture Mostafa. I have hanging on my mirror a picture of children from an Afghani orphanage. It's there to remind me that every day their lives are in danger. That they will probably grow up hating my country, hating me for what we did to them and their parents. They're up there, looking at me every morning to remind me that no action goes without consequence, and that between the occupations, the bombs and the gunfire, there are children trying to grow old.
I met a boy last night who had some really interesting political views. I think a lot of people get scared by my liberal outlook, but they don't understand that the fact that i'm liberal is the very reason I will accept their views as their own interpretations of the world. I'm not going to try and change anyone. How would it be consistent for me to say that to change a country's politics is up to it's own citizens, but to change a person's politics is up to another? People have their reasons for believing what they do about the world. I know I have been blessed and privileged in my life so that my eyes were forced open at a young age. But it didn't have to be like this. So many of my friends are conservative or even apathetic, and as much as i want to show them what i've seen, I know I can't. In time if their views will change, as will mine. The opinions that we have, if educated and strong, will become more ingrained in our world view and those that are weak will be modified. This modification process is something that we must do for ourselves: no one can change our minds for us.
And so when we started talking about politics, and he pulled the whole "we should just blow up those fuckers in the middle east", I just got up and left. Some of my friends stayed and argued with him, but I didn't. I know he has his reasons for thinking that blowing up an entire region of the world might solve something. But I have my reasons to be fully against killing so many innocent people. I think I just love people too much. He noticed that I left, and when I saw him later he asked me about it. I told him that I can comprehend his views and that I respect him enough not to fight them, but that my views were quite different than his, and that I don't really expect him to understand, much less respect them. This of course fascinated him, and provoked him even further. But the way I see it, there's no point in arguing. Look at us. We are two americans, privileged enough to be able to be seen in public together, privileged enough to sit in public and talk about politics without fear of getting shot or bombed. We've lived our entire lives in the protective bubble of the superpower, covered by the seemingly impermiable walls of "freedom, justice, liberty and democracy". Most things of misfortune that have happened to us were caused by ourselves or own neighbors, and not the laws of a foreign government. How can we, sipping on beers poolside on a summer night possibly feel like we have any significance arguing over the fate of thousands of people abroad. What I mean to say is, that whether or not he and I agree, or will ever agree, it doesn't change the fact that our friends are dying overseas. Arguing will never solve anything.
I cannot describe to you how much my time of studying psychology has helped me understand this. I understand why people have their reasons for believing things, and why they're so impossible to change. Furthermore, I also understand why some solution like "bomb the fuckers" will cause more problems than solve them. Solutions are not simple and cannot be conjured up by one party and imposed upon the other. Example: Solution to Israeli Lebanese conflict: bomb the shit out of lebanon until the government bends to submission and denounces the fundamentalist party within its boarders. That could never work. And as we are seeing now on the news, it's most definitely not working out. What's worse, is that since the US has a history of constantly siding with israel, our ally's actions are having a massive impact on how the rest of the region sees us. As if they didn't already hate us enough, this is just the icing. All that being said, I do understand that Israel has been threatening to strike back at Lebanon for a long time. And I offer no solutions. After all, how can I? I'm not there, and I don't know anything more than what I can read and hear. It's all so fucked up because we talk about israel and lebanon as if they were just people or feuding families. Sometimes I think we as third parties forget that we're talking about people. Like when they say that Israel and Lebanon are bombing eachother, I'm not picturing regions or even governments, i'm picturing my friends Ben, Naomi, Rachel. When they talk about Syria I picture Mostafa. I have hanging on my mirror a picture of children from an Afghani orphanage. It's there to remind me that every day their lives are in danger. That they will probably grow up hating my country, hating me for what we did to them and their parents. They're up there, looking at me every morning to remind me that no action goes without consequence, and that between the occupations, the bombs and the gunfire, there are children trying to grow old.
posted by Jessica @ 11:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home