Mike's Essential Question Response

Essential Question Response
Since the emergence of the Middle East as a group of countries engulfed in conflict and hate, the western world has played a part in the slow deterioration of this barren region. It all began before World War 1, when the Ottoman Turks had control over the whole of the Middle East. When the war to end all wars began the British and French war machines encouraged the people of the Middle East to rise up and help cripple the already weakening Ottoman Empire with the promise of being allowed to unite as one Arab Nation. Upon hearing this proposition many Arab leaders joined forces and began inciting riots and organized a series of guerilla attacks on Ottoman supply lines. When the Turks were finally defeated and the war ended, the Arab leaders were not given their promised land due to the land interests of the French and British governments. Instead it was split between the victorious nations. The Arab leaders were left the very infertile and arid lands that now make up Saudi Arabia (only 2% is considered suitable for cultivation). Since then the western nations of the world have used treaties and empty promises that have led to the separation of the Arab people into different warring and unorganized states. But now they are doing something about it and they see us as a viable target. Or at least that’s what we are to believe. Do they really hate us? Or do we just think they do?
To answer this question a group of my fellow class mates and I went to Boston, the closest major city to our school in rural New Hampshire. Our first stop was in Harvard Square where we searched for printed media regarding the Middle East. There were a few posters and bumper stickers but most of the media we found regarding our subject was found in a local bookstore. The opinions, from what we could tell, varied from book to book. This concentration of information was not distributed publicly but it’s there if one wanted to learn about the Middle East.
Our next stop was the Islamic Society of Boston to watch a prayer and have a basic overview of Islamic beliefs and practices. Our guide gave us a tour of the building and showed us how before prayer they have a ritual washing where they cleanse themselves before opening up to god. Afterwards we watched an afternoon prayer, which consisted of submitting oneself to god. Once this was over we had a very informative question and answer session. I learned that Islam itself does not actually support the killing of innocent people, but it is actually the extremist leaders that misinterpret the basic message. This disproves the stereotypes of Muslim-Americans that we have today. They in fact do not hate freedom and do not want to kill innocent people. The truth is they just disagree with some of our western practices such as dressing in a revealing manor or drinking. Our guide also said that Mr. Bush’s description of terrorists “hating freedom” was to simplistic and out of place in the deeply philosophical realm of religious belief.
The next day we went to the American Friends Service Committee to meet with Joseph Gerson, an influential speaker and member of this activist organization. The majority of this meeting was taken up by a very extensive and informative lecture about the history of the Middle East from the Crusades to modern times. His overall point was that we should not be surprised with discontent coming from the Middle East considering the long history of violence caused by the Western World. Even Mr. Gerson was becoming very infuriated at our own “ignorance” about the middle eastern world and began delving into our psychological inability to see the terrible situations in this region. From his very “enthusiastic”, for lack of a better word, speech I was able to understand the reasons for hate and disgust directed towards the West from the Muslim world in a historical sense. Unfortunately I was still not entirely sure what the average Muslim in the Middle East thought of the United States because Mr. Gerson spent all his time presenting reasons why they should hate us but none about why they do hate us.
After a few minutes on the subway we were in the Boston Commons. Here David Tanos and I conducted a survey regarding the Iraq War. For an hour or two we wandered asking random people a list of questions we had put together beforehand. Overall we were able to decide that the majority of Bostonians in this area do not support the war and think everyone in Iraq hates us. There were also a few other replies to our questions that we did not write down because that answer was not an option. For instance a very odd looking man we asked immediately said, before I could finish my question, that the war in Iraq does not exist and then hurried in the opposite direction like he was trying to avoid someone.
Our final meeting was with a former soldier that served in Iraq until February. He explained to us how the locals, where he was stationed, reacted to the US presence. And quite surprisingly, many of them loved America. They would cheer and gave them presents when they were on patrol because it was these brave men and that had lifted the veil of tyranny from their country. The only discontent was from the middle aged male insurgents who were attacking them. He also reassured us that despite Saddam not having weapons of mass destruction he did have enough explosives to have a 2-5 ton explosion every day for the next few years (each ton of explosives can move about a ton of dirt or an 18 wheeler). From this I was able to finalize my research and formulate my final opinion.
Now that we had covered all possible points of view with the time allotted to us (keep in mind I do not consider myself an expert on this subject and I’m just going with what I have) I decided that they many don’t hate us as in you and me, yet they do not appreciate our government and our exploitation of their land. They were appreciative of our presence in Iraq but are becoming weary of the constant attacks, as any one would. Those that do hate us are being led by extremists and fake prophets. So a better question that we could have asked ourselves is who hates who?