Arab-American Dialogue in March...
Last week's Arab-American Dialogue at the German-American Institute in Tübingen didn't have any particular "content" as such. It was about charting a future course for the project as it reaches the end of it's third year. There were 17 people in attendence including several who had never been there before.
Penny and Hussein divided us up into several groups to exchange ideas about what we would like to do with the dialogue. Then we discussed the ideas in plenum.
There was some disagreement about whether small group work would be an appropriate future format. Some wanted a larger small group component. Others disagreed and didn't want to miss whatever was happening in the other groups.
The discussion of future content brought forth a number of ideas. There was general interest in discussing the media and its portrayal of the Middle East (and America, I might add). Some voiced complaints, passed on second hand, that there was too much time spent on politics. But Hussein explained that political issues always generated interest as well. I suggested that Arabs and Americans take turns describing, in detail, the neighborhoods they grew up in and the lives they had there: schools, families, geography, traditions, networks, etc. After some discussion of various ideas, something not unlike that turned out to be the plan for the next meeting. Rahim from Iran - neither Arab nor American, but interesting for all, nonetheless - volunteered to answer questions about his life in Iran.
During the meeting, I made the case that the dialogue seemed to work best for me, and there was some nodding of heads from others, when the topic was not abstract, but revolved around something concrete. I used the example of our meeting where we discussed American Thanksgiving and the Muslim Eid Al-Adha. I suggested maybe using short texts by Arab and American authors - and someone else suggested images as well - as a focus for our discussions. That didn't seem to get a lot of resonance, however.
There was a brief discussion about how to get more people - especially more Arabs - to attend the meetings. The lack of Arab participation was traced to past factors - some didn't like the frequent attendence by representatives of the American consulate - and present factors, including the declining activity and membership of the Verein arabischer Akademiker as more and more of its founding members finish their studies and move on. Americans had also supposedly been turned off by the supposed avoidance of confrontation and discussing "the hard questions." Several of those present disagreed, saying they felt the dialogue had spent a lot of energy on very difficult issues.
That was part of what made the meeting interesting for me: the discussion and assessment of how the dialogue had gone so far. Both Arabs and I expressed how we often felt in the past that the dialogue was tough in that it seemed to be about justifying ourselves. I suppose if both Arabs and Americans feel themselves on the defensive, we must be doing something right.
The next Arab-American Dialogue is at 20:00 in the German-American Institute in Tübingen (Karlsstr. 3) on 18 April, 2007.
Penny and Hussein divided us up into several groups to exchange ideas about what we would like to do with the dialogue. Then we discussed the ideas in plenum.
There was some disagreement about whether small group work would be an appropriate future format. Some wanted a larger small group component. Others disagreed and didn't want to miss whatever was happening in the other groups.
The discussion of future content brought forth a number of ideas. There was general interest in discussing the media and its portrayal of the Middle East (and America, I might add). Some voiced complaints, passed on second hand, that there was too much time spent on politics. But Hussein explained that political issues always generated interest as well. I suggested that Arabs and Americans take turns describing, in detail, the neighborhoods they grew up in and the lives they had there: schools, families, geography, traditions, networks, etc. After some discussion of various ideas, something not unlike that turned out to be the plan for the next meeting. Rahim from Iran - neither Arab nor American, but interesting for all, nonetheless - volunteered to answer questions about his life in Iran.
During the meeting, I made the case that the dialogue seemed to work best for me, and there was some nodding of heads from others, when the topic was not abstract, but revolved around something concrete. I used the example of our meeting where we discussed American Thanksgiving and the Muslim Eid Al-Adha. I suggested maybe using short texts by Arab and American authors - and someone else suggested images as well - as a focus for our discussions. That didn't seem to get a lot of resonance, however.
There was a brief discussion about how to get more people - especially more Arabs - to attend the meetings. The lack of Arab participation was traced to past factors - some didn't like the frequent attendence by representatives of the American consulate - and present factors, including the declining activity and membership of the Verein arabischer Akademiker as more and more of its founding members finish their studies and move on. Americans had also supposedly been turned off by the supposed avoidance of confrontation and discussing "the hard questions." Several of those present disagreed, saying they felt the dialogue had spent a lot of energy on very difficult issues.
That was part of what made the meeting interesting for me: the discussion and assessment of how the dialogue had gone so far. Both Arabs and I expressed how we often felt in the past that the dialogue was tough in that it seemed to be about justifying ourselves. I suppose if both Arabs and Americans feel themselves on the defensive, we must be doing something right.
The next Arab-American Dialogue is at 20:00 in the German-American Institute in Tübingen (Karlsstr. 3) on 18 April, 2007.
mhatlie - 4. Apr, 14:51 Topic: Arab-American Dialogue http://hatlie.twoday.net/stories/3526144/
