My 15 Minutes Remain Elusive

I finally found the YouTube broadcast of the panel that Queen Noor of Jordan participated in at last year's ServiceNation Summit.

I was sitting in my 2nd grade classroom at the Modern American School, having just sent my students off to gym class, when my phone rang. I put down the math homework I was grading, and picked up the phone, pleased by the serendipity of its timing. It wasn't a number I recognized, but I answered anyway.

"Is this Maryah? My name is Barbara, and I'm the Chief of Staff for Queen Noor." I was glad I was sitting down. "Her Majesty is participating in a panel in New York City next week, and someone recommended you as a Peace Corps Volunteer who loved Jordan enough to come back again. I wondered if I could get some stories from you about the importance of Peace Corps, and international service."

Of course, there are few things I love more than talking about my travels abroad, and especially about Peace Corps. I told her many of my favorite stories, including the story of the Jebel Bani Hamida bus station, which she thought would be too controversial for her purposes. Most importantly, I talked to her about Peace Corps' Third Goal, to bring knowledge of my host culture back to America. For the first time, I explained, I had come home from somewhere that people really cared about. Even the most unexpected people, housewives who'd never been 100 miles from home and never seemed interested in international affairs, had a thousand questions about Arabs, Muslims, Islam, women in the Middle East, public opinion of America in the Muslim world, the education system in Jordan, etc. And unlike the few questions I would get about the places I've lived in Europe, when it came to Jordan, people were very conscious that they really had no idea what the answers to their questions would be. People really listened to what I had to say.

Due to computer problems, I've not seen more than two thirds of the video myself, and I haven't yet heard Her Majesty mention anything that might have come from me. Nevertheless, what she and others have to say about public service, international service, and its importance to international relations are worth hearing.

Egyptians and the American Presidents

Cairo, Egypt

I never bring up politics in the Middle East, because politics are taken so personally here, but it comes up all the time anyway. I blame Bush ... and praise Obama. That's what I heard all week in Jordan.
Obama? Thumbs up!
Bush? We're glad he's gone!

Among others, I had a fabulous long conversation with a tour guide on the train to Luxor about American politics abroad, especially vis-a-vis Israel/Palestine. Why does America unconditionally support Israel? she wanted to know, and she displayed a deep understanding of American politics and political philosophy. American democracy, she said, is supposed to be about protecting the rights of minorities, about defending those who don't have the means to defend themselves against the tyranny of the majority (or the tyranny of the rich minority). Why, then, doesn't America step in and help protect Palestinians against the abuses of the Israelis? Yes, as the world's leading democracy, America has an imperative to protect and defend other democracies, but is Israel really a democracy? And what about Palestinians' attempts to establish democractic rule that are so roundly and routinely crushed by Israel and her allies? Besides, if America so loudly declares that Jordan and Egypt are so-called democratic states, then shouldn't America be supportive of their attempts to help their Palestinian brothers achieve freedom and democracy and self-determination?

Herself an Egyptian Christian, she also talked at length about how much she would like to go to the holy sites in Jerusalem, to see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and walk the Stations of the Cross. As an Arab, however, she can't. Few Americans realize, as they talk about the Jewish state and Islamic parties, how many Arab Christians are caught in the middle. As Palestinian Christians like to say, they were the first Christians, and there are still many of them trapped in the West Bank and Gaza. Still others, like this Egyptian woman, can't travel to see the sites in Israel/Palestine that are holy to them, because they are concerned that their Arab neighbors will accuse them of supporting Israeli occupation with their tourist shekels. I wonder if the Christian Right takes this into account when they declare that it is their moral obligation as Christians to support the establishment of a Jewish State in Israel and drive the Palestinians out of the Holy Land.

She, like me, was heartened by President Barack Obama's first press interview as president, on no less than the Qatari satellite TV station Al-Arabiya, vowing to listen to Muslim and Arab as well as Israeli concerns. At the same time, I fear that Arabs may be pinning too much hope on Pres. Obama. Yes, he is the head of one of the most powerful nations in the world, the so-called "Leader of the Free World," but he's just a man. Just one man with a dedicated Republican opposition and serious domestic concerns that also compete for his attention. He's done a great deal of good on domestic issues in his first 100 days, but already Americans are pillorying the man for not doing enough. What happens when we get to his first State of the Union address, the end of his first year in office, and he hasn't yet solved the economic mess or brought peace to the Middle East? Idealism is all well and good, but as Pres. Obama himself is quickly learning in his new job, one's idealism must be tempered by realism.

"no like america"

Amman, Jordan

My colleagues and I were, as usual, sharing a taxi back from work this evening, and chatting about some harmless subject related to our teaching. I had given the directions to the cab driver in Arabic, though he insisted on speaking to us in his very broken English. About half way into Amman, he asked, "You American?"
Before I could reply, John jumped right in. "No, no. British. Well, British and American. Two British, one American."
The cab driver said, "No like America." He had to say it twice before we understood it. There was a moment of silence before John turned to Martha and continued whatever innocuous conversation we'd been having. I don't know how they felt, but I felt extremely awkward.

What's a girl to say? I ask this as a rhetorical question, but it's not really rhetorical. What is a girl supposed to say to that? I'm not going to say, "I don't like America, either," even though that's how my Nana thinks I feel. I do like America. I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, George Washington and the two-term presidency, Ralph Waldo Emerson and "The American Scholar," Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dream, John F. Kennedy and the Peace Corps, and the other noble ideals with which the United States of America has been built. I wouldn't want to have been born anywhere else, because being an American opens doors to me that aren't open to so many other people around the world.

But I sympathize with America's detractors. A friend asked me today why my G-chat status message read "Maryah can fly her country's flag again with a clear conscience." I've never been a great fan of patriotic gestures, but since 9/11 and the dictatorial, damn-the-consequences cowboy diplomacy of the Bush Administration, I've shuddered every time I've seen an ostentatious show of American patriotism. For the last seven years, the United States hasn't had a government I could be proud of, or that I even really wanted to be associated with.

But today on BBC I've seen clips of President Obama's appearance on Al-Arabiya television network, saying that too often America dictates what other countries should do without knowing all the relevant factors, and that this new administration is prepared to listen first, and not make decisions until all the factions have been consulted. (Much has been made of the fact that he still won't talk to Hamas, but he does support Egypt's talks with Hamas, and we can't expect too much so soon.) I can't tell you how impressed I am that our new president, despite the pressing domestic issues like economic crisis, health care, lobbying reform and transparency reform, has taken the time out of his very first week in office to address the Arab people directly, and in such self-effacing tones. In addition, I've been listening to the Secretary of the Arab League and other regional spokespersons express their delight at the appointment of George Mitchell as the Obama Administration's Middle East Envoy, and praise him as someone who listens. Finally, the United States has leadership that I can believe in, that I am comfortable being associated with.