A few weeks ago the following conversation took place between my friend, who had been to USA for a short while, and me:
X: When I was in USA everybody kept asking me "Do you have kids?"
Me: And what did you answer them?
X: I just answered "No, I'm not married yet"
Me: According to their culture, marriage has nothing to do with having kids.
X: 2e7na ma3andenash el kalam da (our culture is different).
Me: yes I know, but your answer did not make sense to anyone who asked u this question.
X: ana 2olt ely shofto sa7 we 7'alas (I just said what I thought is right).
This short conversation made me think for a while why we don't accept the others' cultures, beliefs and opinions if they are differnt from what we think is right. If I were in X's shoes I would give a simple "No" as an answer. Someone asked me a simple question and I should give a simple and relevant answer. It's not a debate about different cultures where I need to point out that WE are better than YOU because we have our customs and traditions that forbid having children outside marriage.
These thoughts revisited me after watching some random episodes from the Egyptian soap opera "Nostalgia- 7anan we 7aneen". I did not like the show anyway, but what really drew my attention is the idea of comparison between the American and Egyptian societies. The first few episodes started in USA where an Egyptian family of a man, his wife, his daughter and his brother in law moved to the USA twenty years ago. Througout these few episodes, the show makers did everything they could to show how terrible the American society is; how people only care about money and don't care about their families. It's been shown that it was not safe to have walk in the streets as the daughter and her friend were attacked by two guys who tried to rape them and they were saved by the cops who arrived in the last moment. The idea that life in the USA is terrible was summed up when the mother died when a bomb exploded in her restaurant (this happened shortly after she had given up her Egyptian nationality!!!!!!!).
After this accident the father takes his daughter and returns back to Egypt where life is totally different; people are so loving, nice and welcoming that their neighbours brought them "saneyet basboosa" (oriental desert) as a nice gesture on their arrival. All the following episodes kept exploring the fact that life in Egypt is much more safe, nice and full of deep meanings.
I am totally against the concept of generalization; that all other foriegn socities are bad and that our society is the best ever. I also think that this show is not real, for example these days if I moved to a new building, none of the neighbours will bring me a desert and to be honest if we got some new neighbours my mom will not bring them a desert. Many people say it is a romantic show which brings back some nice feelings and I say it is a fake show, anything that does not reflect reality , unless labeled "fiction", is fake for me.
I guess what really our TV shows should address is how to respect the others, how to accept them and how to learn from them what makes them succeed and excel instead of wasting our time crticizing the others and bragging that we are the best ever.
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10 comments:
I think that to suggest in anyway that the culture in Middle east is in any way better than its counterpart in developed countries is making ONE assumption and ignoring everything else:
This assumption is: "culture = sexual relation" nothing more, nothign less.
If this assumption is true, then I might argue that indeed this is the case.
The problem is that this culture values only this one aspect.
Can someone argue for example that mid east culture is any better than barbaric culture when it comes to:
* Treating elders in the society
* Honesty vs. Lying as the dominant way of life
* Cheating as a norm of life
* Stealing (in whatever other word you call it )
* Respect to other people's beliefs if they are different
* Respecting Time
* Valuing hard work, creativity, innovation as opposed to using bribery/cheating lying
* etc. etc. etc.
I dont know why people keep limiting culture to only ONE single aspect and Ignore everything else.
Moreover, there is no scientific data that suggest that people are less obessed with this one aspect in life in the middle east. In fact, According to Google's published trends of keywords by people in different areas, It turned out that highest rate of people looking for porn online is in one city in the heart of the mid east.
Even when it comes to this aspect, we need to consider that one major difference is that people in mideast have hypocrisy as a second nature and they preach the opposite of what they do.
@ emad, this is the first comment I get since I created this blog, I'll keep this in mind when I get hundreds of comments :).
"This assumption is: "culture = sexual relation" nothing more, nothing less."
I totally agree with you, but even if this is the only aspect upon which we are comparing our culture to others', we're not any better. The Others have premarital sex and we do have "Gawaz 3orfy" (informal marriage) which in my opinion is far worse than premarital sex.
I can't claim that our society nowadays is better than barbaric culture when it comes to any of
the points you listed, but I still have hope that things might change one day.
cool post sue ....keep em rolling.
love your blog.
I agree with you. I didn't imply that mid eastern culture is always superior when it comes to sex. I think that sad reality is that mid easterns think so only because of the rampant hypocrisy. In other words, they may be obsessed with this subject but they will claim otherwise. When It comes to westerners, they will simply say the truth and will not try to preach others about virtues they don't practice.
Take a look at this link to see who is obsessed with this on the internet
http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex
zerocool, thanx a lot. Glad u liked my blog (dy shahada ana 2a3taz beeha).
Have u told ur mother the Hend 3alam's joke?
tx :D.....she said it's a lie and nadia other than nour had the best tamsilya....she's delusional LOL.
Look at this
A divorce every 6 minutes in Egypt
I was not surprised by the number :S.
Something caught my attention the other day: I was boarding a plane, while walking on the tube leading to the plane, there was a young lady walking next to me and in front of us there was a old woman who was struggling to carry her bags.
The young lady next to me- who is obviously European- went ahead and offered to help the old woman.
This very simple thing made me think: I was watching that old woman too but it just didn't occur to me that I can/should help. Am i just the product of a bad culture and this European young lady also the product of her culture?
Emad, I'm afraid u are a bad product of this culture. But is it right that we keep blaming all our flwas on a bad culture without trying to make any change? Is it right that we keep identifying and denying all the bad stuff in our culture and when we are given the chance to prove we are different we simply don't?
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