Impressions of a Young Arab Generation

by Abdullah Mulhim

My first stop when traveling back from the U.S to Jerusalem was Amman, Jordan, the most Americanized city in the Arab world and the most pro-Western country in the Middle East. I stayed with my twenty year old cousin, a college student who lives by himself. Like most young Jordanians, he is generally disinterested in politics; his interests range from girls, to cars, to the most popular new movie or song. However, at night when we sat down to watch TV his first choice was not Showtime or Melody (the MTV of the Arab world), but instead Al-Jazeera; right then he was more interested and concerned about what was happening in Gaza, as the Israelis were in the middle of their three week bombing campaign. He was worried about how many Palestinians lives had been lost, in how many had been injured. We watched bodies being pulled from the rubble, and saw people who had lost their legs arms and eyes talk about the horror they were experiencing. When I visited my other cousins that night, all of whom all are in their twenties, the topics of conversation included what is new with school or work, who is dating who, what is the new hot style in clothes, and . . . Gaza.

Gaza was the topic that started and ended each conversation. The next day my cousin drove me to the center of the city to pick up a taxi to drive me to the borders of the West Bank so I could continue on to Jerusalem. On the way there my cousin was telling me about this girl he had met at a relief effort for Gaza. I was not interested in the girl but with the relief campaign. He explained how a warehouse on the airport road was transformed into a collection spot for food and clothes that individuals and companies were donating for the people of Gaza, and that he and most of his college friends participated in the relief effort by volunteering to collect those donations. It was a simple job, having nothing to do with money, or getting recognition, or improving a resume. It was their only way to help their Palestinian brothers and sisters. It was not a political statement and no parties or government agencies were involved in the effort. The students acted like any human beings with morals would react when seeing the killing and bleeding in Gaza, which no government in the world would do anything about. He then asked me if I had joined his group that he formed on Facebook to boycott the buying or selling of any American products. More than 1500 users had already joined. It was their only way to support Palestine, no rallies, no violence, and no screaming death to America.

My cousins as well as most of the young Arab generation are the most pro-Western capitalistic people in the world; they keep in touch with the American fads more than Americans themselves. They aren’t religious fanatics or people driven by irrational hatred. They rarely pray and don’t go to the Mosque, but they do live in the Middle East, and they see the bombing and killings and bloodshed of the Israeli occupation. They are witnesses to the more than 1500 Palestinians who have lost their lives to American-supplied Israeli bombs in recent weeks. They have seen the more than 6000 individuals injured without any country even morally questioning what is happening to these people. They see their own Arab governments support the US and Israel in blaming Palestinians for resisting occupation. They see the Egyptian government participate in Israel’s aggression by enforcing the cruel blockade of one the poorest, most miserable strips of land on earth.

The US government had a plan eight years ago after the 9-11 atrocity to be more active in Americanizing the Arab world, to have more influence on the culture and education of the Arab generations, in order to make the Arabs love America. It’s a plan that has worked as far as changing the style and the culture of those young generations, but it did not change the hate and dislike of Arabs to U.S government policy. The plan forgot one thing: we live in a daily routine of attacks on our rights as human beings. We don’t need books, movies, television channels, or media outlets to tell us what is happening on the ground. The U.S government can keep on saying words and spending money on “Public Diplomacy” to make the Arab world more pro-Western, but changing the music we listen to and the clothes we wear won’t change our opinion of the US government. Until the reality in which we live changes, and the bombing and killing of our Arab brothers and sisters ends, we will never support the US and Israel in their wars of aggression.

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