“Is it as bad as I hear?”

“Eating and talking.” That is how I described my two-week vacation in the United States to any who asked what I did with my time off from school. “Eating and talking.” In the last blog entry (admittedly the most self-indulgent of any of the 50 or so blog entries yet!) I waxed on and on about the eating part of the vacation—the comfort foods that re-connected me to loved ones. I could easily write several entries about the wonderful conversations I enjoyed while visiting Cincinnati and New York.

But in these two weeks after I left the United States to return to Jordan, there are two conversations that stand in high relief from all the great catch-ups and questions of my meeting points of eating and talking. One of the conversations was a fairly brief one in church a couple days after I landed in my hometown. Oh but first—one of our family’s dear friends at church had just asked that my dad and I stop by her house later that week so she could “ask every question under the sun! I want to know so many things about what you’re doing and what it’s like.” Moments after that invitation a woman I have known for over 30 years stopped me and asked, “So, how is it? Is it as bad as I hear??”

Ummm…I smiled and muttered, “It depends on what you hear.” I didn’t really know how to answer her. Just after that promise from the irrepressible Billie Sue that she wanted to “ask every question under the sun” (and by the way she would—I believe the “interview” was an engaging 90 minutes before we got to dessert! My dad said, “I learned so much coming with you tonight.”) this other church woman stopped me in my tracks. “So, how is it? Is it as bad as I hear? Are you going back?” Oh my. Obviously she hasn’t found my blog yet.

She was being polite and friendly to the man who had come back from the Middle East. I know that. She wanted to welcome me home, and she wasn’t quite sure how to ask or what to ask. So her default question was the scary thought, “Is it as bad as I hear??” I just smiled and gave her that kind of oh, how nice to see you this Sunday before Christmas-hug! But her query has stuck in my mind through all the important eating and talking I tackled during my vacation. So many friends and family asked provocative, meaningful questions, but this woman’s wonderment has not left me.

It depends on what you hear. It depends on what you read. It depends on what you imagine it to be. It depends on whom you know, trust, or meet.

As a historian this visit from the Middle East back to my home turf in the United States reminds me how hard it is to be a historian—and how fun—what with contradictory reports, and an understanding that it all depends on what you have heard.

Surveying the scene at the end of my first six months in the Middle East, I am struck by two contradictory trends: yes, the prevalence of severe violence by a small group of actors—mostly governments, and their security forces and a few terrorists—alongside the vast majority of citizens in this region who live peaceful lives, and daily practice non-violent political, cultural, religious and social accommodation and tolerance in their villages and neighborhoods.

The decency and humanity of the ordinary Jordanian (or even more broadly, Middle Eastern) citizens are routinely overshadowed by the more spectacular drama of the organized violence of a very small band of violators. But given our media coverage, we hardly know what to make of it, and how to distinguish among the variety of conflicts. It is very hard to know more than what our images show us, and in the light of 60-second stories on the news, very hard to hear anything clear rising out of the cacophony.

Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Kenya all mirror different local and regional dynamics. Some of their brutality is the consequence of local warlords and incoherent statehood, whereby armed elements seize power in the absence of a credible, efficient government or state. Other cases are the direct consequence of invading foreign armies practicing a form of neocolonialism. So it is not surprising these days to witness, simultaneously, American troops killing Iraqis in Iraq, Israeli troops killing Palestinians in Palestine, someone or other killing many Lebanese in Lebanon, Osama bin Laden and his types killing all nationalities, all over the world, and assorted Sudanese, Somalis, Pakistanis, Afghans and Algerians killing each other. The nature and culprits of political violence in the Arab-Asian world are very diverse, not monolithic.

So maybe she is not so far off—“Is it as bad as I hear??” It is January yet, and the world over, people raise a billion prayers for the New Year. The start of a new calendar year
will not change the ways of the bombers, killers and generals who orchestrate the violence that defiles our societies, whether they are holed up in a mountain cave in central Asia or a local military base, comfortable in an Arab presidential palace or an American-European capital, or strutting around a ministry of defense. We can, however, start a fresh year by deciding to analyze and understand the cycle of violence more comprehensively and accurately.

Ending or reducing rampant violence requires understanding its full cause-and-effect cycle, especially its root causes, so that they can be addressed with all legitimate political, military, judicial, social and economic means. Sermons and double standards and double speak and bravado are not the answer: they are among the core of the problems.

The overwhelming majority of the one billion people—mostly Muslims—in the Arab-Asian world did not bomb a restaurant, assassinate a politician, or attack an army post in 2007. As I have witnessed, most Arabs congratulated their neighbors for the religious feasts of the day, shared a greeting and kiss, and probably a celebratory meal, tea, or sweet, sent their children to school, and prayed hard. They especially continue to pray for sensible leaders, in their own capitals and abroad, who would summon elusive wisdom and humility.

President George W. Bush has just ended an historic 8-day trip to the Middle East. Obviously, I paid more attention to it than I might have years before. In one of his first speeches in the region, he noted how deeply he hopes to address the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and even used the words that Palestine is “Occupied Territory.” You wouldn’t believe the rush of hope and excitement that washed over my Arab neighbors. People said, “Did you hear the words he used? He actually called Palestine, Occupied.” As I read the text of his speech, it was as if President Bush had attended the lesson in diplomacy His Majesty had offered at KA back in November. Our headmaster said the other day, “Bush is now talking the talk.” President Bush was not likely to have been remembered as the savior of the Middle East—but this last week several people at school called President Bush “Mr. Palestine.” Certainly President Bush cannot bring an independent Palestine into being at a stroke or through a speech, but it creates a beginning of hope for 2008. It reminded me of what it must have felt like in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson, so angered at the violence in Selma, Alabama, that he promised on national television, “we shall overcome.” It is amazing how a few words can inspire or defeat.

A day or two before I left the United States, my friend and host Anne had contracted a computer specialist to come to her house and help her with some of the woes that the over-12 year-olds need to understand the technological revolutions going on. I wasn’t in on the tutorial, but when I came back in the room, her specialist, an older Korean-American man named Mr. Lee, shook my hand vigorously, and said, “Anne was just telling me what you are doing in Jordan. Please know, please know, from the bottom of my heart, you are doing terribly important work there. I hope you know that.” He felt compelled to tell me some of his story, as an immigrant in the 1950s, of his love for the American way of life and Dream, and of his disillusionment in the last few years with how the world views the United States. “You are not just teaching them history. You are showing them a face. You are showing the possibilities of what America and Americans can do. You are giving us hope of getting along in this world.” And he re-iterated several more times as he shook my hand, “Please know, you are doing terribly important work there.”

I thanked Mr. Lee, a man I had known for about 30 minutes, and filed this remarkable conversation in my brain with all the other moments to relish from two weeks in my homeland. I take out now the questions from the lady at church, the gratitude from Mr. Lee, the hopes of my Jordanian colleagues, and the photo-ops of President Bush in the Middle East, and I ask again for that elusive wisdom and humility, for a Change. Instead of only aggravating the global maelstrom, maybe we can coax out some of the good things, the soulful things, the transformative things that can heal us.