Promises are Always Broken

I was completely shocked to read how different this novel was from Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery. The setting was the main reason for this.
Jassim and Salwa own a beautiful house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Jassim drives a Mercedes, and Salwa makes enough money to send large sums to help her Palestinian family in Jordan. To all outside appearances, Jassim and Salwa seem to have captured the American dream. In spite of all the outward success, they find an emptiness at the heart of their relationship. Jassim seeks “balance” through his routine of swimming at the Olympic-sized swimming pool at the Fitness Bar. Salwa goes to the mall to add to her overabundant collection of expensive lingerie. Unfulfilled in spite of the comforts and luxuries of their American life, they lie to each other and so worsen their alienation from one another.
The September 11th attacks only make matters worse in terms of Jassim’s and Salwa’s relationship. Their Arab, Muslim background seems to automatically render them suspect in the eyes of people around them. As they i become the objects of distrust and fear, the couple is forced to confront the breakdown of their material status.
Ironically, it is the very breakdown of their dreams that compels the two to seek more from their lives. Only when they move beyond the false protectiveness of their manicured homes and professional jobs do they find connections with other Americans for whom the promise of a happy ending seems equally unattainable.
Pain, loss and sorrow, Halaby suggests, are the links that bind humanity together, bridging differences across class, culture and religion. At the same time, however, she also hints that those bridges are fragile and that for some, like her protagonists, healing can only come after a return home from the seductions and false allure of the promised land. In Halaby’s novel, “wishes don’t come true for Arabs in America” (p. 184), at least not after 9/11.
In some ways, Halaby offers a bleak picture of being Arab in America in the aftermath of September 11th. Her characters seem to stagger toward their destruction, seemingly without control over lives. At times, they even appear somewhat flat, seeming to serve a functional rather than an intrinsically meaningful purpose in the narrative.

The relationship between the Middle East and the West

Before I examine the average life of a Middle Easterner in the West, I wanted to expand on the relationship between the Middle East and the West. The Middle East and the West have had a troubled history. If you follow the link I provided, it will give you an idea of how long feuds between the two societies have been going on. We are aware of the tension between the East and the West and that is where most of out focus lies. Why can't we focus on the improvements being made on the relationship between the East and West? I found a great website that shows how the conflict between the East and the West can provide us with great insight:

"The impact of 11 September on the relationship between the West and the Middle East has not been all negative. The crisis has focused Western minds on the deeply problematic and stagnated nature of politics in the region. It has encouraged some thinking towards differentiating between interpretations of Islam. It has sown doubt in Western minds about Western policies and how they are received in the non-Western world. On the part of the Middle East too, 11 September intensified debate about what Islam is and who can speak on its behalf. It also led to some debate about who 'the West' is and what its role should be in the Middle East. If these benign outcomes are not marginalised in the longer term, they may provide some light at the end of the tunnel for the relationship between the West and the Middle East, and thereby benefit the future course of world politics." (Katerina Dalacoura:The Middle East and the West: Misunderstandings and Stereotypes).

Think of the diversities Middle Easterners who live in the West are facing. They are constantly being judge; not for their actions, but for what their country represents. More precisely, for what we feel their country represents.

To get a better understanding of the Middle East in the West, I'm reading Once in a Promised Land. It's a story about a young couple, Jassim and Salwa, who leave their home in Palestine and move to Arizona. Off to a slow start but I will definitely keep you guys updated.

OUT with the Old...IN with the New

The reader sees not only the agony of the traditional revenge cycle that threatens the community, but the tensions between the monastery and the village, between the village and the “modern world” of Luxor where tourists swarm to see the ancient monuments, as well as the tensions between the old ways and the new. At the beginning of the story transportation is by horse drawn vehicle; at the end by motor car. At the beginning, both the monks and the villagers love and tolerate Bishai who’s not quite normal, but at the end he’s driven off to a mental hospital instead of being allowed to end his days in his hut on the monastery grounds, driven off at least in some dignity in the old horse drawn carriage. The monks are also no longer local men and are more serious scholars who ignore the village. Other old versus new tensions involve that between the current changing society and the ancient one that makes the area so attractive to tourists from all over the world as well as the tension between Egypt and its Arab neighbors when the Sinai is given back by Israeli as a result of a treaty negotiated by the US. There’s even the tension resulting from increasing crime.

RESPECT

While reading Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery, you begin to realize that the customs of the Middle East are greatly valued and respected by the villagers. Everyone has a purpose in the village and everyone works together to achieve harmony. Their religion and their beliefs are their motivators. Everything they do is done with respect for their fellow neighbors and relatives. They treat each other like they would treat a close family member. It seems as if everyone is born into a class, however since everyone is related in some form or another, there seems to be no vendettas or aggression amongst the classes. That is until the murder of the Bey. Yet even then Harbi is still loved and respected by most. It’s evident that pride is what holds together the village. This is how the structure is maintained. Harbi’s and the Bey’s actions took a toll of every member of the village. Fear for what would happen to the unity of the village grew apparent. Protection never seemed like an issue in the village until Faris entered the village with his men. Harbi would not enter his own town without the assistance of Faris and the guard, although he was one of the most respected men of the village. Harbi changed after his time in prison. He was not the same man that he had been when the Bey was alive. A piece of Harbi left the earth when the Bey did. But none the less, Harbi still respected his village.

Sara made a good point in class: This setting is stereotypical. Everything that has happened thus far has been expected and is what the reader is use to experience when learning about the Middle East. The women do the house work, a girl getting a full education is frowned upon, and villages are very close, and so on. Although these stereotypes aren’t negative, I haven’t really learned anything new about the Middle Eastern culture while reading this.

Islamaphobia?

Its ironic how many Americans are naive and uneducated about the Middle East however it’s Hollywood that portrays Middle Easterners as the incompetent ones. Hollywood is constantly depicting Arabs as the "villain". To many Americans, they're either invisible or terrorists. The main reason that these images are imprinted on us is due to the media's persuasion through film. However we can't blame the media completely because "Hollywood and Washington stem from the same DNA" like mentioned in the short film, Reel Bad Arabs. There are too many Americans that know absolutely nothing about the Middle East. I was never truly educated on their culture, even after 9/11. To expand of this thought, let’s focus on the women of the Middle East. When I picture an Arabian woman, I imagine either a belly dancer or a woman covered head to toe in cloth. From a young age this image has been imprinted on me. Take the movie Aladdin for instance. When Jasmine is in the comfort of her palace, she is dressed is a short top that some could say is a bra and loose pants. Her stomach is completely exposed. However what she ventures to the village, she is draped in cloth with only her face exposed. And to find all of this in a children’s movie! It seems as if Hollywood finds Middle Eastern women to be locked in the past when in reality, they are advancing. I found it interesting that the film Reel Bad Arabs showed multiple clips of Middle Eastern women as “the bad guys”. Is that how Hollywood thinks women of the Middle East are advancing? Where do we get these images from? It was mentioned in the film that we inherited these images from Europeans. But how can you inherit an image? More importantly, how can you believe something to such an intense extent when you haven’t seen it first hand? I know very little about the Middle East yet from what I have seen, I have been able to create an elaborate image of what I imagine it to be like. Maybe it’s only a matter of time until change. Yet maybe this cycle is too advanced for change.