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Yemen Dialogues
Paula Goldman, Director of Imagining Ourselves
United StatesGALLERYCONVERSATION
Reading this dialogue four years later, I am impressed by the raw honesty of the opinions we expressed to each other, and the ways...
But I am also struck by my own naiveté in thinking that such connections could, in and of themselves, help change patterns of conflict in the world. As the bloodshed in Iraq continues, and as anti-Americanism grows daily, this dialogue feels like just a small drop of water in a vast, unfriendly ocean. Better than nothing, perhaps.
The most common stereotype held by the Yemeni women about Americans in general is that they are not really concerned with what is happening around them in the world, and that the background and information they do have, about the Middle East in particular, is superficial.
I have been studying in Canada for the past two years and I found out that this stereotype that we have is true to some extent. Some people that I met do not know where the Middle East is or anything about Islam. Of course it is unfair to accuse all of Westerners of being ignorant in regards to this issue, on the contrary, I got to know so many people who surprised me with the amount of knowledge that they have. But in the end, they remain a minority in the university’s campus community.
I have to say that I feel really sad that the war did not at least contribute to free the women in the Middle East from their submissive role. So right there you have a stereotype. I saw in the biographies of the Middle Eastern participants that you have outstanding education credentials, and that you are in fact very active. But I had this image in my mind of women studying only for distraction and to free their minds from terrible oppression.
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