We've been in "ISP Period" for a bit now, so I should probably get around to explaining what that means. For the last month that we're in Oman, we all stop classes, go out and interview people about a subject and then write a paper about it at the end of the month.
Overall, it's pretty good fun. My topic is a bit complicated, which has created some difficulties (not that they can't be surmounted). Succinctly, I'm trying to research Omani opinions about the disparities between Sharia law and UN definitions of human rights. This sound a bit touchy, but really doesn't need to be. My thought process starts out with the fact that a lot of people say there is conflict between the two. If there is, it's not necessarily evidence that one opinion is inferior. It's a case of conflicting values. Based on the way I understand the nature of morality, there are some things that contextually specific and there are others that are absolute.
So the question first of all is: Is there conflict between these two bodies of literature according to Omanis? If so, do they view this as a culturally specific thing, or is there indeed a clash of values/worldviews going on here? Some people in the west think that Sharia can be re-interpreted (by looking at the Quran and Sunna through modern perspectives)so that it could be completely in line with UN ideas of human rights. Is that what's happening? Is that what people want? Or are calls for re-interpretation just a form of neo-colonialism...forcing secularism on the rest of the world? If we're dealing with just concretely different and conflicting view on some issues, will the Muslim world push for a global consensus (by maybe pushing the west to no longer say that equality in inheritance laws is a human right, for example). After all, everyone still agrees on a lot of things.
My goal in the interview is to discern what the Omani response to the issue is more than whether they agree with certain perspectives or not.
What makes this hard is that I typically want to interview people who know Sharia well...which is a pretty small section of the population...a part of the population with a smaller percentage of English speakers than the rest of the educated population. So it's a challenge finding people to interview, but some of the interviews have been quite rewarding (as has "chill" time with some of the individuals). That's really what I came here for: good conversations about God, so I've been content with what I've gotten so far. I just need to keep putting myself out there to make contacts and follow up with them, which doesn't always come easily to me. The subject can be somewhat sensitive, but I really think those I interview have nothing to fear. My aim is to just bring out what people are thinking. I'm obviously no expert, but a lot of stuff I've read glazes past points of disagreement.
The word "human rights" has immense normative power, though, and if I don't explain what I'm doing well on the first go around people can become very defensive. It may seem surprising, but nearly everyone I talk to insists that there are more human rights in the Islamic world than in the west, and that women have more rights than men in Islam.
And that's the point--it's not like the west is sitting there saying "hey, this human rights stuff...get your act together" and the Islamic world is sitting there with a sheepish look on their faces. The point is that there are different ways of viewing the world, of viewing what it means to be human. There are indeed different worldviews interacting here, and that certainly justifies a call for dialogue, understanding. etc. (insert Brown cliches). It's true, though. True dialogue and meaningful dialogue comes when you're dealing with people who actually think that there is a right answer, yet respect, talk with, and even love those who are "wrong" anyways.
http://acommonword.com/index.php?lang=en
If two groups at least agree that the most important thing is to love God and the second is to love others, you'd expect they they'd have a lot to talk about.
Enough from me. Peace.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Bubbles
So this is part of the micro view of my life over the last 2 and a half months. The big picture isn’t entirely filled in, so it may give you a distorted view of things, but sometimes there’s no avoiding that. (In other words, my life in Oman has not revolved around bubbles, despite what it may seem like at the end of this post).
We were told that it would be good to bring small gifts for our host family and also some gifts for small children with us when we came. I brought some bubbles, some Frisbees, and some sidewalk chalk. I, in my intelligence, decided to strategically space out when I would give the kids the gifts. The first thing I broke out, towards the beginning of homestay period, was the bubbles. I was initially glad because I had brought four little bottles of bubbles and there were four kids in my host family (although there are up to a dozen kids who come through the house some days). Not too surprisingly, the two oldest took a short but limited interest in them, while the younger ones couldn’t quite figure out how to use them properly. Here’s the key, though—after they were done using them, they returned the bubbles to me. They didn’t seem to understand that it was a gift, despite my efforts. After a bit I thought, “well hey, it’s a small house, so I guess my room is a logical place to store them anyways.”
The heart of the saga, though, is in the later developments with the two youngest children, Selma(4) and Sarah(18months). Their initial shyness began to dissipate with the bubbles, which they call “Saboon” = soap. That’s part of my surprise, actually. At first I was almost offended that bubbles should be called soap. They’re so much more than that---but then I realized…. that “bubble solution” actually is just soap. Marketing has ruined us. But anyways, Selma and Sarah really love the bubbles, which is odd, becaue Sarah hasn’t produced one bubble yet. She loves holding it though, and occasionally laughing as if she’s having fun with them.
And it has been perpetual drama in my room ever since then. For starters, everyone decided that the blue bubbles were superior to the other ones—and somehow the younger girl can seriously bully her older sister around enough to get them. My host sister’s friends have gotten in on the act, exacerbating the mob mentality surrounding the bubble culture. Also, there is this really intense process where they hand the bubbles back to me, then demand them back every 20 seconds or so. The bubbles have been refilled with soap several times now, but for the last 2 weeks, no one has actually blown any bubbles. Still the sheer joy of possessing them, passing them around, crying about them, handing them back to me, running around for five seconds then asking for them back has become somewhat of a neighborhood obsession, or “fad” if you will. The bubbles have been treated so roughly that all but one of the wands are actually broken now. The soap in the bottles is now some solution that’s inferior to the high quality American-engineered and Chinese made bubble solution available at your local Wal-Mart. The sidewalk chalk goes mostly unused as well, yet holding it, opening it, pointing at it, and passing it around are all gaining in popularity as well.
When it comes to children, I think I have the timidity of a five year old (I just hate seeing kids cry), and the grouchiness of a 70 year old (I can’t even describe how many diatribes I’ve prepared telling the kids about the futility of their actions, the false happiness of possession, the importance of sharing, etc.—unfortunately the diatribes are in English, and the kids speak highly colloquial Arabic, or don’t speak at all yet, so very few of the diatribes have been delivered).
The saga is continuing. To write this post, I decided to lock the door and not answer it. (I sometimes lock the door, but the kids have figured out that when they knock, I open the door, and they can run into my room then). It took a while for them to understand that I had wised up and wasn’t going to answer the door (even if they kept knocking for five minutes, and tried the handle every 5 seconds to see if I had unlocked it!)
And this is what cultural immersion is about I guess. There’s something to be learned here about views on property, personal boundaries, private space, public space, etc. but I don’t know what it is exactly.
We were told that it would be good to bring small gifts for our host family and also some gifts for small children with us when we came. I brought some bubbles, some Frisbees, and some sidewalk chalk. I, in my intelligence, decided to strategically space out when I would give the kids the gifts. The first thing I broke out, towards the beginning of homestay period, was the bubbles. I was initially glad because I had brought four little bottles of bubbles and there were four kids in my host family (although there are up to a dozen kids who come through the house some days). Not too surprisingly, the two oldest took a short but limited interest in them, while the younger ones couldn’t quite figure out how to use them properly. Here’s the key, though—after they were done using them, they returned the bubbles to me. They didn’t seem to understand that it was a gift, despite my efforts. After a bit I thought, “well hey, it’s a small house, so I guess my room is a logical place to store them anyways.”
The heart of the saga, though, is in the later developments with the two youngest children, Selma(4) and Sarah(18months). Their initial shyness began to dissipate with the bubbles, which they call “Saboon” = soap. That’s part of my surprise, actually. At first I was almost offended that bubbles should be called soap. They’re so much more than that---but then I realized…. that “bubble solution” actually is just soap. Marketing has ruined us. But anyways, Selma and Sarah really love the bubbles, which is odd, becaue Sarah hasn’t produced one bubble yet. She loves holding it though, and occasionally laughing as if she’s having fun with them.
And it has been perpetual drama in my room ever since then. For starters, everyone decided that the blue bubbles were superior to the other ones—and somehow the younger girl can seriously bully her older sister around enough to get them. My host sister’s friends have gotten in on the act, exacerbating the mob mentality surrounding the bubble culture. Also, there is this really intense process where they hand the bubbles back to me, then demand them back every 20 seconds or so. The bubbles have been refilled with soap several times now, but for the last 2 weeks, no one has actually blown any bubbles. Still the sheer joy of possessing them, passing them around, crying about them, handing them back to me, running around for five seconds then asking for them back has become somewhat of a neighborhood obsession, or “fad” if you will. The bubbles have been treated so roughly that all but one of the wands are actually broken now. The soap in the bottles is now some solution that’s inferior to the high quality American-engineered and Chinese made bubble solution available at your local Wal-Mart. The sidewalk chalk goes mostly unused as well, yet holding it, opening it, pointing at it, and passing it around are all gaining in popularity as well.
When it comes to children, I think I have the timidity of a five year old (I just hate seeing kids cry), and the grouchiness of a 70 year old (I can’t even describe how many diatribes I’ve prepared telling the kids about the futility of their actions, the false happiness of possession, the importance of sharing, etc.—unfortunately the diatribes are in English, and the kids speak highly colloquial Arabic, or don’t speak at all yet, so very few of the diatribes have been delivered).
The saga is continuing. To write this post, I decided to lock the door and not answer it. (I sometimes lock the door, but the kids have figured out that when they knock, I open the door, and they can run into my room then). It took a while for them to understand that I had wised up and wasn’t going to answer the door (even if they kept knocking for five minutes, and tried the handle every 5 seconds to see if I had unlocked it!)
And this is what cultural immersion is about I guess. There’s something to be learned here about views on property, personal boundaries, private space, public space, etc. but I don’t know what it is exactly.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Continued
I apologize for the unfinished nature of my last blog post. I'm still in Nizwa--one of the shababs took us to school with him today so I'm in the computer lab at Nizwa University right now. It's been interesting and enjoyable being here the last couple days, but first a jump back to the UAE and Qatar.
So, I haven't read that much about Dubai at all, but there was this very tall, spire like building there, and I was told that it was intended to be the tallest building in the world. Apparently they had to rethink things half way through when people in Abu Dhabi started planning an even taller buiding. You can see through the top floors of the buiding now, though, because construction is halted. I was told that the builders ran out of money. Dubai has been hit much harder than the rest of the region by the financial crisis. For lack of a better term, let's just say that lots of people in Dubai were acting very American with their money. To get just how symbolic this building was to me (I still don't even know its name), you should look up a picture of it, and I swear it has a ziggurat-ish shape. So there's a tower of Babel, built on the sand instead of solid rock, and the builders didn't count the cost before starting. That's Dubai in a nutshell.
Except for the whole racist, sexist, capitalist social structure thing. I was able to speak Arabic twice in Dubai--with expat Arabs--it's really an international city, and in my opinion, if there's any place that represents the mix of problems, hope, lies, sin, glitz, poverty, and wealth that is the modern world, Dubai is it--or close anyways. After being in a conservative, gender segregated society for so long, the centrality of prostitution was pretty shocking. --- And switching to the whole South Asian underclass, white upper class, and Arab financiers model in the city, it ocurred to me at one point that the problem is more that I am a racist than that Dubai is. I felt all "righteously indignant" and revolutionary as I observed things, but then I realized that I've known the world is like this for so long...but it didn't arouse feelings moving me to really reject things until I saw the rich and the poor together. I will condemn it in my head, but I don't actually FEEL bad profitting from the global, working "underclasses" in the States, but when they live in the same city as rich people I feel like something's wrong. Maybe I'm that guy who just doesn't want "other" races living in my neighborhood, or beggars in public places.
But enough about Dubai. Qatar was even richer and much less Las Vegas-y, a welcome thing. The same goes for Abu Dhabi. The Al Jazeera station did in fact make me feel like I was all that, which was part of the point I guess. Hah, no--not quite the point--but I was learning, though. I definitely know much more about the Gulf than I did, which of course triggers interest in more and more things. There were lots of amazing buildings, museums, and such in Qatar and Abu Dhabi...money can buy a lot of stuff.
And to bring it back quite quickly, here I am in Nizwa, which has a small town feel that I enjoy. We had the craziest time at a technical college the other day where we didn't realize that we were going to have "an open discussion" with Omani students on a stage in front of 100-200 other students. It was great, though. We got the expected questions about Obama, how we "view" or like Oman, etc. (everyone loves telling me that he's the first black, American president--I sometimes feel like I let them down when I reveal that I already knew that). Then, there was a sort of gameshow competition between Americans and Omanis. The questions were in Arabic, but we had some translation help and made out ok.
And I'll stop there, because I know I certainly wouldn't read this whole post in one sitting unless I had lots of homework to do. There's obviously lots that's happened and lots that I've been mulling over and thinking about. As always, it takes time.
Peace
So, I haven't read that much about Dubai at all, but there was this very tall, spire like building there, and I was told that it was intended to be the tallest building in the world. Apparently they had to rethink things half way through when people in Abu Dhabi started planning an even taller buiding. You can see through the top floors of the buiding now, though, because construction is halted. I was told that the builders ran out of money. Dubai has been hit much harder than the rest of the region by the financial crisis. For lack of a better term, let's just say that lots of people in Dubai were acting very American with their money. To get just how symbolic this building was to me (I still don't even know its name), you should look up a picture of it, and I swear it has a ziggurat-ish shape. So there's a tower of Babel, built on the sand instead of solid rock, and the builders didn't count the cost before starting. That's Dubai in a nutshell.
Except for the whole racist, sexist, capitalist social structure thing. I was able to speak Arabic twice in Dubai--with expat Arabs--it's really an international city, and in my opinion, if there's any place that represents the mix of problems, hope, lies, sin, glitz, poverty, and wealth that is the modern world, Dubai is it--or close anyways. After being in a conservative, gender segregated society for so long, the centrality of prostitution was pretty shocking. --- And switching to the whole South Asian underclass, white upper class, and Arab financiers model in the city, it ocurred to me at one point that the problem is more that I am a racist than that Dubai is. I felt all "righteously indignant" and revolutionary as I observed things, but then I realized that I've known the world is like this for so long...but it didn't arouse feelings moving me to really reject things until I saw the rich and the poor together. I will condemn it in my head, but I don't actually FEEL bad profitting from the global, working "underclasses" in the States, but when they live in the same city as rich people I feel like something's wrong. Maybe I'm that guy who just doesn't want "other" races living in my neighborhood, or beggars in public places.
But enough about Dubai. Qatar was even richer and much less Las Vegas-y, a welcome thing. The same goes for Abu Dhabi. The Al Jazeera station did in fact make me feel like I was all that, which was part of the point I guess. Hah, no--not quite the point--but I was learning, though. I definitely know much more about the Gulf than I did, which of course triggers interest in more and more things. There were lots of amazing buildings, museums, and such in Qatar and Abu Dhabi...money can buy a lot of stuff.
And to bring it back quite quickly, here I am in Nizwa, which has a small town feel that I enjoy. We had the craziest time at a technical college the other day where we didn't realize that we were going to have "an open discussion" with Omani students on a stage in front of 100-200 other students. It was great, though. We got the expected questions about Obama, how we "view" or like Oman, etc. (everyone loves telling me that he's the first black, American president--I sometimes feel like I let them down when I reveal that I already knew that). Then, there was a sort of gameshow competition between Americans and Omanis. The questions were in Arabic, but we had some translation help and made out ok.
And I'll stop there, because I know I certainly wouldn't read this whole post in one sitting unless I had lots of homework to do. There's obviously lots that's happened and lots that I've been mulling over and thinking about. As always, it takes time.
Peace
Friday, April 3, 2009
Looking back from Nizwa
I'm in Nizwa now, a small city/town in the interior of Oman. This blog post should be relatively short since "the shabab" = "mangi" = "young guys" are going to go out to get "mashkach" (bbq'ed goat)in a bit. Right now the guys from my program are living with some students here for a week to get a bit of a different perspective on life in Oman. It's pretty sweet--we've been out to wadis and mountains, played soccer in a parking lot last night... and we eat lots of meat. and Coke. I drink lots of Coke with my meat.
I really have no idea where to start because I've visited Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Doha since I last wrote in this blog. (that's right---open google maps, haha--I had no idea where Sharjah was either).
I had a magnificent blog post ready when I was in Dubai...and I'm not gonna write it now...haha--because I have to go. The good life is calling.
I really have no idea where to start because I've visited Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Doha since I last wrote in this blog. (that's right---open google maps, haha--I had no idea where Sharjah was either).
I had a magnificent blog post ready when I was in Dubai...and I'm not gonna write it now...haha--because I have to go. The good life is calling.
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