When contemplating study abroad, domed-roofs and spinnerets may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But as an American student in 2012, maybe they should be.
The College of International Studies is offering a new study abroad opportunity, “Journey to the Middle East,” which will take students through Turkey and Israel, The Daily reported Monday.
Programs like this one provide important benefits of studying abroad, while also giving students a chance to learn about a region that is central to U.S. foreign policy and the nation’s place in an increasingly global world culture.
Let’s face it: Even well-educated college students can fall prey to societally enforced misconceptions. In the current political situation, many of those misconceptions — certainly the most dangerous ones — have to do with Arab or Muslim culture.
Many of these would be easily corrected with just a little exposure to the people, nations and beliefs they distort. Here are a few of the most basic (and yet still widely held) misconceptions about the Arab world:
The Arab world, the Middle East and the Islamic world are the same.
The Arab world includes those nations that speak the Arabic language. It stretches from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, including the Middle East, northern Africa and a few countries in other regions. “Arab” is a cultural term.
“Muslim” is a religious term. There are Muslim-majority countries outside the Middle East. There also are significant Muslim populations in countries all over the world, and populations of other religions within Muslim-majority countries. The most populous Muslim nation in the world is Indonesia.
The Middle East is a geographic region, comprised of the nations between Asia, Europe and Africa. There are many Muslim-majority and Arab nations outside this region, and the most populous Muslim countries in the Middle East — Turkey and Iran — are not Arab countries.
All Arab people are Muslims.
Arabs are religiously diverse: Significant numbers of Arab Christians live in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq. According to a 2009 study by the Pew Institute, 61.9 percent of the world’s Muslim population lives outside the Middle East, in the Asia-Pacific region, which includes many non-Arabic nations.
All Muslim-majority nations suppress women.
The three most populous Muslim-majority countries — Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia — have had women as either president or prime minister.
Some Muslim-majority countries require women to wear a veil, face-covering or other modesty-ensuring dress. But others, such as Turkey, Tunisia and Tajikistan, have banned this practice in universities, school and government buildings. As with any region, the issue of women’s rights varies vastly by country and has been progressing across the board in recent decades.
So, when it comes time to study abroad, don’t consider only the cafés of Paris or the steep streets of Arezzo, Italy. Think about getting more out of your experience abroad. And if you don’t plan to study abroad, you can take a class or two in Middle Eastern studies through the Department of International & Area Studies.
Consider learning not just about another culture, but about another culture often in conflict with the U.S. — and just as often misunderstood.
