Black and White and Blurry

In the classroom we watched a very intriguing and revealing video called Persepolis to gain another view of Iran through the youth of the revolution.  We have been reading Children of Jihad as well, which gives a modern perception of the youth and Iranian culture; however, the author's discoveries are not as potent as the direct experiences of an Iranian youth in multi-media form.  Therefore, my own perception of Iran--its government, history, culture, and people--has been monumentally changed by the simple experience of a classroom-projected movie. 
          I feel that I would consider an unreliable government (or at least one that is exceedingly ureliable and dangerous) almost normal if I were the protagonist of Persepolis.  I would have to learn the tricks of dodgeing nonjudicious punishment and the trades of the black market, possessing no scale of innocence often associated with childhood or adolescence in the Western world.  However, the most pungent difference from how my own Western life has been would be the knowledge that I would not have the liberty to protest any abhorrent restrictions in the present or future at the possible risk of my life.  I, already shy and anxious at the very thought of failing expectations, would be completely governed by fear--no need for the revolutionary guard that I know would be there to catch me in any stray move.  Personally, I love rules (for the most part) in my own reality simply because I need something black and white to help base my own guidelines off of.  In Iran just after the revolution (especially during the eighties), my current role of rules would be totally misplaced.  I cannot imagine neither bending over backwards to obey Iranian law nor escaping the law "by the skin of my teeth" to exercise the rights that I believe should be government protected.  Nor could I imagine holding even more pessimistic opinions when it comes to politics :). 
          From chador to segregation, I think I could manage the social restrictions through childhood.  It would only be when I became aware of my miniscule allowances as a woman that I would discover how psychologically crippling the suffocation of freedom can be. 

My Short-sided View

For my amazing, four-person class of Africa and the Middle East, I was asked to post what my view is of the Middle East and how my background has influenced that view.  This request is impossible to fulfill without confronting extreme bias often and rather truthfully stereotyped to United States citizens.  When is this more obvious or heart-wrenching than just after 9/11?
           Looking across the wide expanse of American ideals too often taken for granted (and of course the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and the Mediterranean), I see revolution, religion, and rage pervading from what presently seems to be the world's center of international conflict.  Riddled pasts of dictatorship, greatly divided classes of wealth, and the over-publicized terrorism skunk up the ocean breeze on United States coasts, but lately I have been doubting my nose.  The true definition of a weed is simply an unwanted plant.  While I may see a cultivation of strange flowers and crops from afar, how differently must the planters see their garden.  So as I crane my neck and stretch my eyes, I never expect to see the perfect image of Middle Eastern society with all the experiences of love, life, and government.  Instead I fill my queries with second- or third-hand reports of terror, extreme wealth and poverty, unstable government, and more developing questions of whether or not the news feeds even resemble the truth. 
          While the world and news of it is such that I feel I can not have any opinions that truly reflect my own beliefs, I will take a guess at the hidden truths behind all things perceived from this hazy region.  The Middle East clearly has its own strong foundation of religion and culture at total odds with the Western world.  I think that the Middle East is an enigma to Western Society because they are the first successful and sustaining threat to core Western beliefs.  The culture there is becoming more and more modern, but in a completely different way than Western powers can predict.  Middle Eastern culture grows and develops into democratic government in a completely threatening environment, with many "helping" countrys' cultures clashing and influencing the Middle Eastern culture in potentially negative ways.  Any perceived "attack" will undoubtedly provoke an impressive counter attack when the whole of society lives on the defensive side at all times.  I experience this all the time with an overreacting sister who feels that her unfortunate position as "baby of the family" is constantly being threatened or accused.  In the case of Middle Eastern countries, their reactions to defend entire ways of life are appropriately exponential in this silly comparison. 
          So how exactly do I interpret the Middle East?  I see the region, knowing that I slant my views even to group these different countries into one subject, as an adolescent revolution where people are expressing their voices, holding onto the fundamental beliefs of their "childhood," and adapting into what will soon be powerfully influential countries of unique and prominent culture. 
AGUAMAN!!