When I think of Afghanistan, I don’t think of sand, oil, Sunnis or Shiites – not immediately at least. The first image that pops into my brain is the cover of the New Yorker’s December 10th, 2001 issue. It depicted a map of “New Yorkistan” broken up into smaller countries with “Middle Eastern” names like “Taxistan,” “Irate,” “Irant,” and – my personal favorite – “Youdontunderstandistan.” At 10, I understood enough about the world to know that this was supposed to be funny. At 18, it’s still funny, but it also says something about my knowledge of this part of the world – I really don’t have a damn clue about the Middle East.
In the real world I hear people about real countries like Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan and (besides thinking about what wonderful Scrabble words these would make) all I can envision is this cartoon map. What does that say about me? That I’m uninformed? Yes. That I’m ignorant? Totally. The sad truth is that I and many people, my age or older who are educated and follow news and should know about conflicts in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, just don’t, though we might not want to admit it.
The bigger question is how did we get this way? How did we – the generation of information – let ourselves become so uninformed? I blame society. I blame my schools! I blame my parents! I blame myself. If you go back to the New Yorker cover from eight years ago, I was 10 and aware that there was an issue with Afghanistan. I also understood that I was 10 and I wasn’t going to be able to understand, suffice it to say, I left it alone. Over the years, I absorbed all sorts of political jargon about Sunnis and Shiites, foreign oil and foreign blood, Osama and the Taliban. By high school I yearned to talk to my parents about politics and Afghanistan and Iraq. I had relatives stationed in Baghdad and I had to remind myself which “stan” it was the capital of. I knew I knew nothing, but I rationalized (and still do today) as it being too difficult to understand because of my lack of knowledge of the Middle East’s political, cultural and religious history. It’s near impossible to understand a countries politics if you don’t understand the culture. My schools never taught me Middle Eastern history and my parents could never explain it succinctly when I asked. Where was my personal impartial Middle East expert (and I'm not talking about a Wikipedia entry)?
The truth is that the only thing that mattered was terrorism. I knew terrorism was bad and I knew that Afghanistan had something to do with terrorism. Evidently, that seemed to be enough to know since I got away with knowing not much else for so long. I blame society the most for my lacking expertise on the Middle East. There’s always so much pressure by the media and society as a whole to have an opinion on foreign relations especially those relating to terrorism and fear, but where’s the pressure to have an informed opinion? Where is the pressure to make knowledge of foreign nations (not just the Middle Eastern ones) a higher priority?
Reader, I want you to understand that I’m not trying to avoid any blame myself; I know that when it comes down to it, I’m solely responsible for what I do or do not know. I care about having an informed opinion or at least just being informed. It’s our duty as generationals to take it upon ourselves to try to understand the world form a different lens or to put ourself in different shoes. We have to learn, without the help of society, how to prioritize and find relevance in what goes on in the world with respect to our own lives. Afghanistan aside, we’ve got to learn to care enough to ask a question and try to get some answers.
No comments:
Post a Comment