VISIT FROM A FRIEND
At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that I applied last fall for a Fulbright grant to write a book in Egypt (about musical life), and that one of the purposes of the grant program is to promote cross-cultural understanding. I have several friends from Middle Eastern countries, one of my best friends in college was from Iraq. Anyway, to summarize, he was possibly the kindest man I have ever met, and yet, when I would tell people where he was from, inevitably there would be a comment about him being a "terrorist" or a reference to that movie "Not without my daughter." Not only did this make me indignant, but I always took these opportunities to talk about what a peaceful and loving human being my friend Fares is, and how generalizing about any group, is called predjudice. My relationship with him was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Egypt in the first place, to understand, to write about it, to put a human face on the people of Islam.
Anyway, I wrote something about a friend who visited me last week from Lebanon. Here's the text of it:
So last weekend I drove to Toronto to pick up my friend who was in Canada for a conference on Middle East Politics and International Affairs. He's a journalist and he lives in Beirut, Lebanon. Anyway, he was scheduled to go from Montreal to Washington DC (where he had set up some interviews with people in the Pentagon and State Dept) and I suggested he come through here first, so we could meet for a few days. He also had a professor friend who lives here he wanted to meet as well.
We stayed overnight in TO, both of us exhausted and cranky, and of course, since someone is visiting me, I am sick too. Sore throat, stuffed nose, coughing, etc. And he's a big baby about the cold. So we hardly ended up doing much of anything in TO.
We drove back yesterday and stopped at the Falls on the Canadian side (see photo blog for details), and took a few shots, etc. Then I said, "Well, we better stop somewhere to eat and so I can go to the bathroom before we cross the bridge, I think we'll be at the border for awhile." So we did that. Good thing.
I think we were there for about two and a half hours. They questioned him by himself three times, and then they made me go out to my car and searched my entire car, and every single thing inside, including in all of our luggage. I had to stand on the sidewalk and watch them, and as they rummaged through his backpack full of articles, and books from his conference (on Middle Eastern Affairs and International Relations), and stuff in Arabic.
While we were still at the hotel he was going to throw away this magazine and newspaper in Arabic but I asked for it, to keep it. I don't know why, but I just wanted to keep it. So I put it in my suitcase. So of course they found that stuff in my suitcase, and when they pulled it out, they asked me if I could read Arabic or speak it, and I said "no" of course, and then they asked if I had read his articles. I told them I had read and also edited some of his articles in English. In fact, I edited his presentation for the conference he had just attended.
I felt so incredibly sad standing there in the rain, watching them take apart his luggage, turning over his CD's, and all my stuff too. I wasn't mad at that point, just very very sad.
It's one of the reasons I wrote that grant to go to Egypt. The point of the Fulbright program is to build better understanding across cultures. I know why they are doing what they are doing, but it still hurt to watch it. He's harmless. A bit pushy, maybe arrogant, and even annoying. But he's not a bad man. I mean, in the sense that they were searching his things.
Sigh.
Of course they asked me how I met him, and WHEN I met him. I told the absolute truth, which was a bit embarressing. But I added, after she talked to me about it (I explained my interest in the Middle East, being in graduate school and applying to study over there, etc. as being how we ended up corresponding with each other), that even if it didn't matter what I thought, I trusted him, or I would never have brought him to the border in the first place.
When I said that, her face softened.
Anyway, I didn't cry. But got mad later as we sat there and they took his bag in and started reading all the stuff in it, inside the building.
They let him come in, as I assumed they eventually would. The worst would have been he just would have had to fly to DC from Canada, instead of from Buffalo today.
I know everyone thinks I am crazy. I refuse to distrust someone based on his religion or country of origin. That's all there is to it.
At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that I applied last fall for a Fulbright grant to write a book in Egypt (about musical life), and that one of the purposes of the grant program is to promote cross-cultural understanding. I have several friends from Middle Eastern countries, one of my best friends in college was from Iraq. Anyway, to summarize, he was possibly the kindest man I have ever met, and yet, when I would tell people where he was from, inevitably there would be a comment about him being a "terrorist" or a reference to that movie "Not without my daughter." Not only did this make me indignant, but I always took these opportunities to talk about what a peaceful and loving human being my friend Fares is, and how generalizing about any group, is called predjudice. My relationship with him was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Egypt in the first place, to understand, to write about it, to put a human face on the people of Islam.
Anyway, I wrote something about a friend who visited me last week from Lebanon. Here's the text of it:
So last weekend I drove to Toronto to pick up my friend who was in Canada for a conference on Middle East Politics and International Affairs. He's a journalist and he lives in Beirut, Lebanon. Anyway, he was scheduled to go from Montreal to Washington DC (where he had set up some interviews with people in the Pentagon and State Dept) and I suggested he come through here first, so we could meet for a few days. He also had a professor friend who lives here he wanted to meet as well.
We stayed overnight in TO, both of us exhausted and cranky, and of course, since someone is visiting me, I am sick too. Sore throat, stuffed nose, coughing, etc. And he's a big baby about the cold. So we hardly ended up doing much of anything in TO.
We drove back yesterday and stopped at the Falls on the Canadian side (see photo blog for details), and took a few shots, etc. Then I said, "Well, we better stop somewhere to eat and so I can go to the bathroom before we cross the bridge, I think we'll be at the border for awhile." So we did that. Good thing.
I think we were there for about two and a half hours. They questioned him by himself three times, and then they made me go out to my car and searched my entire car, and every single thing inside, including in all of our luggage. I had to stand on the sidewalk and watch them, and as they rummaged through his backpack full of articles, and books from his conference (on Middle Eastern Affairs and International Relations), and stuff in Arabic.
While we were still at the hotel he was going to throw away this magazine and newspaper in Arabic but I asked for it, to keep it. I don't know why, but I just wanted to keep it. So I put it in my suitcase. So of course they found that stuff in my suitcase, and when they pulled it out, they asked me if I could read Arabic or speak it, and I said "no" of course, and then they asked if I had read his articles. I told them I had read and also edited some of his articles in English. In fact, I edited his presentation for the conference he had just attended.
I felt so incredibly sad standing there in the rain, watching them take apart his luggage, turning over his CD's, and all my stuff too. I wasn't mad at that point, just very very sad.
It's one of the reasons I wrote that grant to go to Egypt. The point of the Fulbright program is to build better understanding across cultures. I know why they are doing what they are doing, but it still hurt to watch it. He's harmless. A bit pushy, maybe arrogant, and even annoying. But he's not a bad man. I mean, in the sense that they were searching his things.
Sigh.
Of course they asked me how I met him, and WHEN I met him. I told the absolute truth, which was a bit embarressing. But I added, after she talked to me about it (I explained my interest in the Middle East, being in graduate school and applying to study over there, etc. as being how we ended up corresponding with each other), that even if it didn't matter what I thought, I trusted him, or I would never have brought him to the border in the first place.
When I said that, her face softened.
Anyway, I didn't cry. But got mad later as we sat there and they took his bag in and started reading all the stuff in it, inside the building.
They let him come in, as I assumed they eventually would. The worst would have been he just would have had to fly to DC from Canada, instead of from Buffalo today.
I know everyone thinks I am crazy. I refuse to distrust someone based on his religion or country of origin. That's all there is to it.
