Are people so different?

Our time on the coast is sadly coming to an end which has sparked countless conversations among Rob and I about what we’ve learned and experienced. Our work ending also means that we’ve had other visitors here from Technoserve during the past few days and we’ve all spent a lot of time discussing issues about living and working in Africa, our differences, our similarities, and how it all fits together.

Rob and I have worked among and with people who are Muslim all summer long. Maybe it’s also because we’ve been reading a book, “Three Cups of Tea” and maybe because there is so much going on in the Middle East, that we’ve also been preoccupied with discussions about how it’s possible for all of us to work together, yet how it’s impossible for these worlds to get along.

Muslims are portrayed in the Western media in some sense as people who want time to stand still, who are religious fanatics, who reject Western values and cultures, and who despise Americans. None of this could be further from the truth and the world is simply not this black and white. As with the Christian religion, some are devout Muslims and some visit the mosque twice a year. So many of them own cell-phones, watch American television, and wear Western-style clothes. They also appreciate the assistance that we provide – whether it’s through a cattle-program sponsored by a US NGO, or another program sponsored by Technoserve. They are eager to talk and learn more.

But they do reject the interference of the American government in Muslim countries. They don’t believe that the entire world should be a democracy like America. They can’t stand our one-sided support for Israel. I think these are fair complaints. I don’t believe that America would appreciate another government telling it how our country should be governed.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that most Americans have an understanding of the causes for September 11th. Five years later, we’ve still got people saying things like, “We need to just bomb the crap out of them.” This is so sad. Terrorism is the result of ignorance and poverty and some of this ignorance is unfortunately caused by our actions. There is no excuse for September 11th, but there is also no excuse for the U.S. government not to call for a halt to the war between Lebanon and Israel for weeks in hopes of Israel first destroying Hesbollah. Being here makes me realize further how mistaken we are with our Middle East policies.

I think we need is more conversation and more discussions between people of different cultures and religions. It’s a difficult road that requires patience and lots of failures along the way, but our current strategy is not a sound alternative. We need exchange programs, capacity building, diplomacy talks and more. But the world is not black and white and I’m not smart enough to understand all this – it just seems to me that if more Americans could meet some of the wonderful people we worked with all summer, they too would want bombs to stop falling on innocent civilians in Beirut.