Now obviously I neither have the expertise nor observational scope to answer the question asked in the subject line: Is Extremism in the Middle East Rising or Falling? Nevertheless, it is certainly an issue that people here are genuinely concerned about. I know that English newspapers in non-English speaking countries (like the Korea Herald in South Korea and the Arab News newspaper here) are not exactly the barometer of the public. Such publications are catered towards the Western expat community as well as rich, highly educated, and economically-conservative nationals. It's worth pointing out though that the Op/Ed pages in the paper I bought yesterday were completely dedicated to the issue of Middle East Extremism.
One article called Middle East's cycle of violence, written by a former US department official, was about "Sectarianism" and how regional and ethnic compound identities such as Sunni Iraq, Alawite Syrian, etc. were contributing to widespread division within Arab states and weakening the authority of those states and their leaders.
The other called It's Time to Fight Extermism, written by a Saudi Arabian women was not so much a concern about terrorism inside Saudi Arabia as much a reaction against what she saw as the boorish behavior of certain religious leaders in their interpretation of the Koran as well as the number of young Saudi men who are leaving the country to fight in illegal wars elsewhere (although she also unconvincingly draws a connection between these kinds of extremism and the "extremism" of a group of workers for the unction to protest their boss's plans for relocation).
With the issue of extremism throughout the Middle East (rising or falling...who really knows?) and of the restrictive society in general, it is easy for the outsider to fall into a kind of paranoia that can lead to false assumptions about what it is that is actually happening. I myself was not immune to this.
As I was out and about one morning, I felt a tad bit uneasy thinking about my potential deviance: when and where was it appropriate to cross streets (where American crosswalk red lights have countdowns from 10-20, Saudi crosswalks have countdowns from about 50), when exactly was prayer time and what I was supposed to do during how far I had to walk away from women, and if I should even be walking around at all. What added to this anxiety was the fact that there were people looking and gesturing at me, cars honking around me, and what looked like a police officer backing up his vehicle and seeming to follow my footsteps.
I stopped: what was the consequence of crossing a street improperly? Would I deported? Or worse still, have a toe or foot cut off?
But then I took a second look: the guys who were honking were mainly taxi drivers, some of the people looking at gesturing me were just saying hello (pedestrians along the road were few and far between, let alone a Westerner), and the police officer that was backing up was actually pursuing a certain parking spot.
What is most indicative of this gap between my perception and the reality was what transpired following a group of guys who pulled over their vehicle and slowly rolled their window down. I thought, were these undercover police officers or cadets about to interrogate me about having too close a proximity to the family entrance (as opposed to the single man entrance) of the McDonald's right in front of me. It turned out to be two kids, first greeting me in Arabic (Salam Allaykum), and then trying to make conversation with me about where I was from and if I liked to exercise. They concluded by saying "Thank You" and drove off.
Yup....just like Korea.
#CautiousButConsiderate
One article called Middle East's cycle of violence, written by a former US department official, was about "Sectarianism" and how regional and ethnic compound identities such as Sunni Iraq, Alawite Syrian, etc. were contributing to widespread division within Arab states and weakening the authority of those states and their leaders.
The other called It's Time to Fight Extermism, written by a Saudi Arabian women was not so much a concern about terrorism inside Saudi Arabia as much a reaction against what she saw as the boorish behavior of certain religious leaders in their interpretation of the Koran as well as the number of young Saudi men who are leaving the country to fight in illegal wars elsewhere (although she also unconvincingly draws a connection between these kinds of extremism and the "extremism" of a group of workers for the unction to protest their boss's plans for relocation).
With the issue of extremism throughout the Middle East (rising or falling...who really knows?) and of the restrictive society in general, it is easy for the outsider to fall into a kind of paranoia that can lead to false assumptions about what it is that is actually happening. I myself was not immune to this.
As I was out and about one morning, I felt a tad bit uneasy thinking about my potential deviance: when and where was it appropriate to cross streets (where American crosswalk red lights have countdowns from 10-20, Saudi crosswalks have countdowns from about 50), when exactly was prayer time and what I was supposed to do during how far I had to walk away from women, and if I should even be walking around at all. What added to this anxiety was the fact that there were people looking and gesturing at me, cars honking around me, and what looked like a police officer backing up his vehicle and seeming to follow my footsteps.
I stopped: what was the consequence of crossing a street improperly? Would I deported? Or worse still, have a toe or foot cut off?
But then I took a second look: the guys who were honking were mainly taxi drivers, some of the people looking at gesturing me were just saying hello (pedestrians along the road were few and far between, let alone a Westerner), and the police officer that was backing up was actually pursuing a certain parking spot.
What is most indicative of this gap between my perception and the reality was what transpired following a group of guys who pulled over their vehicle and slowly rolled their window down. I thought, were these undercover police officers or cadets about to interrogate me about having too close a proximity to the family entrance (as opposed to the single man entrance) of the McDonald's right in front of me. It turned out to be two kids, first greeting me in Arabic (Salam Allaykum), and then trying to make conversation with me about where I was from and if I liked to exercise. They concluded by saying "Thank You" and drove off.
Yup....just like Korea.
#CautiousButConsiderate
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