Waltz With Bashir

Wow, this movie was so amazing!  I loved that this film had the qualities of a documentary where we were hearing someone's personal account and also the excitement of an animated film where we get to see the characters as they move through the events that they are describing to us.  Even though the events that we were seeing were animated, it seemed as though the animation was a channel through which the viewer  could create their own reality.  The real-life clips at the end proved the fact that what we were seeing was the real deal, the actual story of a man who attributed to the Palestinian suffering.  It builds up the story and breaks your heart with its results.

I enjoyed that in this film we got to see the opposite side of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  We saw the mechanics of the fight from the Palestinian side in Paradise Now and were able to see the struggles that they have to endure.  In Waltz With Bashir we get to see the Israeli side of the story, and I found that where I had previously not been able to sympathize with the Israeli side this opened my mind to the different struggles and suffering that people of both sides were subject to.  

The movie was all around moving, I am very glad that we were able to watch it. 

Does My Head Look Big In This?

During my freshman orientation here at Western as we were walking the campus we passed a Muslim woman.  Having always lived in Kalamazoo and having ben on campus many times starting back when I was just a toddler, this was not my first time seeing a Muslim woman on campus, and I had learned early in my life that this was a part of someone's lifestyle and I should be respectful.   This woman was completely covered up in a pale pink scarf, with matching long sleeved shirt and pants made of this flowing material.  All you could see of her were her eyes.  I remember thinking that she was beautiful...

And then one of the boys in my group yelled out to her "What the hell?!  It's summer, what are you wearing? "  Our group leader told him to be quiet, and he proceeded to whisper to all of us, "she looks like a clown."  

God, just telling this story still makes my blood boil.  I told you this story because it shows the horrible lack of respect and understanding that many American teens and adults have for Muslim women.  I felt that in reading Does My Head look Big In This we got our first good look at the ignorance of many westernized people towards those women who choose to wear the veil, and got our first inside look at a woman (or girl) under the veil while living in western society.  I loved seeing the normalcy and humanity of Amal, the way that she felt so passionate about wearing the veil and the pride she held in knowing that it was more than a fashion statement, it was a symbol of devotion to her God.  It makes me wonder if the woman what the woman we saw on campus that summer was thinking.  I had assumed she would be embarrassed and sad, and who could blame her?  But now I wonder if on top of that she might have experienced a moment of pride for representing her faith and enduring the torment of those who do not understand it.

I really enjoyed this book, it was kind of a rest for our brains and I have a soft spot for the drama of teen literature.  I think that even though the material was not as heavy as what we had previously read, it effectively took us into the mind of a modern Muslim girl and gave us a priceless view of the ignorance that many westernized people posses when it comes to Middle Eastern religion and culture.  To me this novel really communicated that, yup, there is a human being under that veil, and they are very much the same as you and me.

Arranged

While I can't say that the film "Arranged" was my favorite that we have watched, I thought that it did the job of introducing us to the East in the West section very well.  It was a relief, actually, to see some Middle Eastern culture in a different and more familiar setting.  A lot of what we discuss in this class deals with Middle Eastern tensions, this was similar except that the tensions that we were able to see in this film were easier to relate to because it was in a familiar setting and, for me at least, it was possible to relate the characters in this film to everyday life as it is lived here in the US.  

I like the way that the film showed  these two women living their lives not only faithful to their religions but to their cultural backgrounds; even in the midst of our fast paced American society, they were true to their own religions and respectful of what their families wanted for them because of their heritage.  I appreciated the film for how it showed these women living out their religions while still integrating and successfully interacting with modern Americans, and being able to connect with each other across religions, whether that be between themselves or with the students that they were teaching.  

My big problem with the film was that everything was resolved so easily.  Both woman found their happy ending, which is good, but I was left wondering what the chances of this really happening were.  Can it be that simple for women of Middle Eastern religion to assimilate into our American world?  Something tells me that it is not, and that is a major flaw in the film's message.  It feels like the film took the easy way out.

Readings From The Square Moon

I really loved reading these stories.  I love supernatural type stories so reading these two was a lot of fun for me.  I especially enjoyed The Metallic Crocodile, which succeeded in creeping me out as I walked to my class in the dark right after reading it!

I think that the first story said a lot about the integration of East into West.  I enjoyed seeing the way that Abdul integrated his cultural mindset into his life in France and into his romantic life, and the contrast between the two.  The way that he viewed his options for marriage were interesting.  He could have Nadine, who was a free spirit, or a wife chosen for him who would obey his every whim, be the cat who he could behead when it misbehaved.  In one way it made sense for him to choose the young wife who would follow his whims, but on the other hand it would clash with the French culture into which he had integrated himself.  I found the ending of this story satisfying.  That he did not make a final decision made sense to me, because the options for a wife presented to him both clashed with his lifestyle in some way, either through his native culture or through the culture of France where he was residing.  And I have to admit, I agree with Katie in the sense that I found Nadine to be almost too much of a feminist for my taste.

The second story was intriguing for seeing the way that Middle Eastern people went through the process of gaining citizenship in a westernized country.  It was pretty horrifying to see the fear of these people and the treatment that they were receiving from this more "civilized" culture.  It was an eye-opener to me to see citizens of the more modernized French culture act this way toward citizens from another, foreign culture. But I think the supernatural events of the story were the worst part for me, they were just strange and really made me frightened after reading.  But I also enjoyed the stories because of this aspect, they were some of the more entertaining short stories that we have read in this class.

Two Women

I loved watching this movie.  Seeing these two Middle Eastern women in a setting that is so common to us, a university, was something that I had been waiting to see in one of these films for a long time.  It seems that so far in the media we have encountered we saw women only mentioned in the background as being educated or uneducated, so seeing these women actively attending a university was refreshing.  It helped me make a deeper connection to these women.   The whole film was so powerful.  To see this beautiful and intelligent woman being brought to her knees by the cruelty of men was terrible, but it was interesting to think that the same things are being done in our own country.  Domestic violence here plays a similar role in demeaning women in the US.  

What I felt was the most shocking thing to observe in this film was the way that simple rights taken away from Fereshtah were what dehumanized her the most.  Not being able to use a telephone, attend school, answer the door when the doorbell rings, or even leave your property for a few moments is so damaging to the human spirit.  All of these little things add up to the horrible power that Fereshtah's husband had over her.

The end of the film was the most powerful part for me.  Seeing that Fereshtah been so strongly under the influence of her husband's control that once he had died she did not know how to move on with her freedom brought tears to my eyes.  It made me think, if I had relied so strongly on someone all that time, would I know what to do with my freedom?  I think I would be just as lost and terrified about moving on.  What else would I know to do?

Best film we have watched in this class, great pick group!

Year of the Elephant

I was exited to start this novel because I have really been enjoying our section on Middle Eastern women, but after I had finished the whole thing I just didn't feel that it was what I was hoping for.  I liked the main woman in the story; she had a good presence the novel.  In fact I admired all of the female characters of the novel for their dedication to their country and the strength that they showed protecting it.  I think that the novel had a lot to say politically and did a good job of doing this from a woman's point of view, but did not say enough to us about  Middle Eastern women in general, at least not things that we didn't already know.  

So the story that we experienced in this novel didn't particularly inspire me or make me ask any critical questions.  I think we've been experiencing this cycle in the class where we have different topics that we are supposed to be discussing but we always come back to the same things, and it makes it so that we exhaust the discussions of these books before we have even begun them.  This showed during our discussion of this book I think, we just seemed to fade out before the discussion could go anywhere.  I think the group did fine picking a novel that was interesting and a good portrayal of Middle Eastern women, I just don't think the novel was beneficial to out class at this point.  Had we read it earlier in the semester when much of this was still new information, we might have had a lot more to say about it.

  

Guest Speakers

I really enjoyed hearing from our guest speakers on Tuesday.  To get a firsthand account from women who practice Islam and can understand the way that Islam is applied to woman and Middle Eastern society is a treat, and I particularly enjoyed hearing from two different women of varying ages, from different regions and with different methods of practicing Islam.  I though that the presentation that was given yo us was very useful in helping us to understand the place that women have in Islam and that, much like our ideals in Christianity, women are to be treated with respect and it is acknowledged that woman are created from men and are to be considered equals with them.  I like how she made the distinction between what Islam says about female treatment and what is actually practiced.  There is a discrepancy there, but this is the kind of pattern that one would find in any society, under any religion.  We tend to associate violence against women with a problem concerning Islam, but she made it clear to us that this was not the case; rather it is caused by a problem with society not obeying the laws of Islam.  I found this presentation very helpful in understanding divisions between religious and societal standards in the Middle East.  

Hearing from two different speakers made the conversation much more interesting.  I wish we could have had some more time hearing from our second speaker because I enjoyed that she had a more modern take on Islamic life and applied some useful real life examples for us.  I was especially appreciative that she said she had many friends who were not religious at all, and yet she was accepted by them while practicing her faith.  This sort of made me wonder, if the people of Islam can accept all types of practices within their faith, why must Americans still generalize that all Islamic men look down on women and all Islamic women must veil themselves to be loved?  Again, it is misunderstanding between religion and culture.