Journal Entry 2
Ananya Vasudev
Carnegie Mellon University – Arabic Studies
Abstract: The following essay discusses some of the insights I gleaned from a series of video conferences conducted by my class over the course of the Spring 2019 semester for the Arab Culture Through Film and Literature course. These interactions were conducted with groups of students at King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia, the American University in Cairo, and Al Akhawayn University in Morocco. During these interactions, we discussed and exchanged our opinions on topics such as politics, education, religion, and culture. While the students’ opinions in relation to certain topics corresponded more or less to what I had expected prior to the meetings, this was not always the case, and I found a few recognizable differences between the attitudes of the different student groups, primarily with respect to politics. I also noted that the Moroccan and Egyptian students were quite knowledgeable of and interested in issues relating to the current political climate within the US. Lastly, the discussions exposed me to a number of fascinating insights on culture and language fluency within Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
This semester, I had the opportunity to engage in a series of virtual exchanges with students at King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia, the American University in Cairo, and Al Akhawayn University in Morocco. The exchanges provided me with much valuable insight into the lives and perspectives of Arab youth, and also showcased to me that cultural and political beliefs across Arab countries are not always homogenous.
The three groups seemed to more or less adhere to what I had expected prior to our meetings, regarding matters such as religion, politics within the US, and the use of social media. There were a few exceptions to this however. For example, in the case of the Saudi students, I had expected their answers to our questions on family to reflect a greater amount of prioritization of familial relationships. However, most students did not seem to value family as intensely as I had expected they would, with some students saying that important decisions related to career and education were made either with none or only some amount of influence from their parents. In my view, this is likely due to shifts in traditional norms and ways of thinking, leading to more emphasis on one’s own needs rather than one’s family’s needs. In addition to this, I was also a little surprised to see that the Moroccan students didn’t hold consistent views over censorship, with some believing it was detrimental to free speech, some believing it was necessary at a certain level, and a few even being neutral over the matter.
With regard to attitudes towards change, while the Saudi Arabian students didn’t explicitly declare a desire for political or social change (likely due to constraints placed on what they could or could not discuss during the meeting), both the Moroccan and Egyptian students were explicit about wanting change in certain areas. For the Egyptian students, this desire for change related to aspects such as reducing censorship and lessening the role of religion within politics. Furthermore, the students’ mostly positive attitudes towards the 2011 Revolution (with the exception of a few students who were more neutral over the subject) highlighted their views of change as being something beneficial for the country. The Moroccan students also seemed to hold positive attitudes towards change, expressing their wish for social and political change in certain areas. The most interesting aspect of this was in their discussion of inheritance laws in Morocco, under which male children receive priority over female children in inheriting land or wealth from their family. Many students strongly believed that the inheritance laws are outdated, and no longer fit within the context of modern times.
One difference that set apart the Saudi Arabian students from the Moroccan and Egyptian students was the extent to which they could discuss political issues. While the Moroccan and Egyptian students were able to more freely provide criticism of current political structures, the Saudi Arabian students were unable to engage too much with a similar conversation. Furthermore, while the Egyptian and Moroccan students were similar in that they both discussed and gave criticism of their countries’ political structures to some extent (discussing negative actions of the government related to censorship and economic growth), it seemed that the Egyptian students were more vehement in voicing their critical opinions of the government, as well as the problems that had arisen under the government.
I feel that I related most to the group of Moroccan students, especially with regard to their discussion on the Moroccan education system. Some of the students discussed how Moroccan youth who receive good educations tend to go abroad to search for more lucrative career opportunities rather than apply their skills within Morocco, a phenomenon which tends to create an ‘intellectual vacuum’ in the country. Having received my high school education in India and having come to the US for a university education (and potentially a career), as well as witnessing many peers of mine do the same, I felt that I could relate strongly to this trend.
It was interesting that most of the Moroccan and Egyptian students’ questions to us related mostly to current or political issues within the US. For example, one of the Egyptian students asked a question about the extent to which we thought Al-sisi and Trump were similar, and whether we believed Trump exhibited the qualities and actions of a dictator. The Moroccan students seemed to be especially interested to know more about the gun law issues currently affecting the US. Most of these questions made it clear that the Egyptian and Moroccan students are well-aware of the rather controversial political climate within the US, and did not come across as surprising to me given the overwhelming presence of American political matters within most global media outlets. As for the Saudi Arabian students, while they did not venture too much into politics, they made a few interesting observations regarding their views of American society. One student mentioned that his views of the US were likely influenced primarily by American entertainment such as films and TV shows, and I feel that to a large extent the same can be said of American students’ perceptions of Saudi Arabians. Furthermore, it was also made clear that some or most of the Saudi Arabians students had expectations of most Americans as being racist towards their culture, and this was evidenced by the experiences (or in some cases the expected experiences) of a few of the Saudi students within the US.
The topic of discussion that I enjoyed most was that which we had on culture with the Moroccan students. Prior to the discussion, I hadn’t realized the heavy influence had by Spanish and French culture upon certain aspects of and region-specific practices within Moroccan culture. It was also very interesting for me to learn that there was some amount of Western/American influence at play in contemporary Moroccan culture, in relation to the celebration of festivals such as Christmas and Halloween in a non-religious manner. In addition to this, seeing how many of the Moroccan students were fluent in three to four languages caused me to be struck by the fact that most American youth (albeit some with non-American heritage) tend to only be primarily fluent in English. This was something I realized not only in our discussions with the Moroccan students but also in our discussions with the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian students, who spoke to us fluently in English despite their primary languages of choice (in most cases) not being English. This suggested to me not only a greater willingness to embrace external cultures on part of the Saudi, Moroccan, and Egyptian students as compared to American youth, but also that we as Americans are not as strongly encouraged to learn secondary or tertiary languages when young, nor attain a high degree of fluency in them. I feel that this is a factor that may potentially contribute to a lesser amount of empathy and open-mindedness towards other cultures, and give way to rather skewed perspectives.