How to fix a problem

A rant about middle easterners by Dawn produced the following post to another blog by an 18 year old Iranian-American Co-ed.

From That Broken Girl:

my whole deal with the middle eastern hating brouhaha going on in every western country is this: for years all these countries have reaped the benefits of their jingoism (OIL) without any responsibility or the realization that said jingoism and–if i may–dabbling in other countries would eventually blow up in their faces(no pun intended). it’s like someone coming over your house, maybe cleaning it up a bit, and then taking all your valuables on the way out. a bit sketchy, i think. but really, what do i know? i’m an eighteen year old college coed. i’m not a pundit, not an analyst, not a historian, not a theorist. i’m just someone who gets a little sad when i hear people make sweeping statements about the middle east without taking a good hard look at how and why things are the way they are.

okay, here’s the point: i am an american (just look at that smile!). but, i’m also middle eastern. i’d like to be both. i’d like for other americans to realize that bombing everyone in the middle east will get nothing done because we have done it before with unsatisfactory results(if you really think about it) and everyone there does NOT hate america. in fact, go look at some of the photo essays and read some of the articles on iranian.com (many written by americans of the anglo-saxon variety) by people who have visited iran in particular, and you will see that this whole “death to america” garbage is pretty much obsolete in most places but the itty bitty villages where most people can’t even read.

Dawn replies here with a great apology and a couple good insights.

Dawn’s big point is that she identifies with people she’s met from other cultures. She thinks of them as people, not as nameless, faceless members of a crowd. I can relate to this so much. Living in Iran for several years in the mid-70s helped me see the value of experiencing different cultures. Other experiences like sitting in a cafe in Kiev with a former member of the Red Army talking about the propaganda we heard about the other side totally demystify other cultures.

This is why exchange programs between the US and other developing countries continues to be as important as ever. We’ll never understand each other if we don’t get to meet.