5 Years of My Life

In the assigned reading that we had from the memoir Five Years of My Life, there was a lot of detail of the abuse that was suffered by a young man who spent five years of his life under the suspicion on the American government that he was a terrorist. I believe three of those years he spent at the U.S. Naval Guantanamo camp where he was put through the most brutal abuse. Just from the small section of the memoir that we read for class, I was appalled of the harsh treatment that this young man was put through.

"I didn't recognize the man. He was hanging as I was from the
ceiling I couldn't tell whether he was dead or alive. His body
was mostly swollen and blue, although in some places it was pale and
white. I could see a lot of blood in his face, dark streams of it

I have read little bits and pieces about Guantanamo, but never researched on the tourture methods till now. I am disgusted about the brutality and it makes me sick hear about it. Many of these men are innocent and do not present any danger to our country. I understand detaining suspicious individuals, but I do not understand why there would be a need to torture them. It makes me sad that the US is in an economic downfall, yet we still continue to spend money on things like Guantanamo Bay. Even with Obamas's promise to shut it down, they just received more funding to upgrade the security there. Which makes you ask yourself why would they need to upgrade the security if the plan is to shut it down? Obviously the shut down of Guantanamo Bay is not going to happen anytime in the near future.

Waltz with Bashir

I thought the movie, Waltz with Bashir, was the best film that we have viewed so far. It had the most powerful message and was very interesting to watch. I enjoyed that it was a graphic film and not an actual documentary because I think it would have been way to hard to sit through it and watch if it was real. The last 2-3 minutes of the film was the most powerful part of the film, which made the rest of it seem real. I did not even know about this massacre until this film.

One powerful message of the film was the songs that were played in it. They all talked about the war almost as if they were making fun of it or they were turning killing into a lighter topic. This is because the film was anti-war and the songs were designed to show how pointless war actually is.

I loved the main character of the film, when he was younger he reminded me of a graphic version of Edward Norton(who is one of my favorite actors). How he did not remember what happened to him during the war and went and interviewed all of these people to figure out what was occuring in his nightmares. It seemed that everyone who he went and talked to had there own struggles with the war and recalling things that happened. This did not surprise me because that is common for someone suffering from PTSD. They block images from their brain because they do not wish to remember them happening. They commonly relive these tragic events through nightmares and hallucinations. This was demonstrated in the main character and also the character at the beginning who was having recurring thoughts about the 26 dogs that he shot during the massacre.

Overall I thought that this movie was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time and would not mind watching it again to get an even better understanding of the message that it was trying to portray.

Does my head look big in this?

The story Does My Head Look Big in This? is a young adult novel that takes place in Austrailia. The main character in the novel addresses many issues that we have talked about in class already. To wear the hijab or not to wear the hijab? After taking a long four days to think about whether or not to wear it she finally decides to wear it. The main character Amal seems to hold a high level of respect for her religion for being such a young age. She wants to follow it closely and respect it. After her crush tries to kiss her she pulls away and gets in a fight with him, which shows how strongly she believes in her faith, because most girls her age would be dying for a kiss from their crush.

I feel like her friends in the novel were particularly written that way just for the purpose of the novel. She has the one friend who is Asian and has to deal with racial issues. She has another who is constantly dieting and is very insecure about her weight. She also has another friend whose parents are strict and constantly pressuring her to do school work; they are always trying to find a suitor to set her up with. Each of these girls is very interesting, but it seems unlikely that they would be friends in a typical high school setting. However not all high schools are cliché like people think that they are.

I enjoyed reading this novel because it was very easy to read and predict. It told a story of a girl in high school struggling with her religion. I would recommend this story to young adults in high school, it gave a good message overall.

Arranged

The film arranged was about two women in America that were of different ethnicities that are teachers in an elementary school. It shows the struggles that the two women go through being from eastern countries living in America.

I thought the movie did a good job of showing the relationships between the two different women that were living in America under the rules of their families. How both of them had to go through arranged marriages, and their families were the ones to pick out their suitors. The one family was a lot more accepting of their friendship and allowed the two women to hang out and make school plans together. The other family was not accepting of them being friends and did not allow them to hang out together in the house. The mother mentioned to her daughter when she came over that it was not appropriate for her to be there and that she needed to ask her father for permission. She also stated that people would see her over their and would talk gossip about it.

One part of the film that I found interesting was how they portrayed Americans. For example the showed the role of the American principle who believed in all of the stereotypes and seemed completely ignorant and uneducated about any other culture. Another was when the two teachers were talking and the American boy asked why they were talking to each other, and if they wanted to kill one another. The most interesting part was when they were going around in a circle and the principle asked them to share one interesting/juicy thing about them. Both of the Eastern women talked about their culture as something that was interesting about them. The American woman mentioned how she went topless at the beach over the summer and felt liberated. The film seemed to show the struggles of eastern people in America, but at the same time sterotyped the Americans.

MSA Dinner

On Friday the 20th I dragged my roommate to the Muslim Student Association dinner. Both of us did not really know what to expect. The name of the dinner was called From Original Sin to the Color of Skin: Gender, Class, and Racial Equality in Islam. Upon arriving we were sent to check in. We were given name tags where we would writed our name in English and then one of the students from the association would write your name in arabic underneath it. We got there a few minutes early so we walked around and looked at the exhibits they had. There were a couple prayer areas and people were actually praying at them! It was very interesting I recognized what was happening because of our visit to the mosque, but my roommate seemed as if she had just discovered a completly different world. Next they sat us down at our table and we snacked on pita and hummus while we waited for the speaker to present, yum! After that one of the imans did a few recitings from the quran and after they were translated to english. Then the speaker came out and gave a very interesting lecture which was followed by a question and answer session. Unfortunately it was getting late and we had to leave early so we did not get to enjoy the dinner that smelled amazing. Overall I had a good time at the lecture and I felt like I understood what was being discussed because of the education I have recieved from this class!

Year of the Elephant/Women in Middle East

We finished the 'Women in the Middle East' with the book Year of the Elephant. We have discovered so much in this section about the struggles that women of the Middle East go through.

What I think is interesting is the comparison of how women in the Middle East are judged vs. how women in America are judged. In America unfortunately most women are judged based on their appearance and how they look. In the Middle East it seems like beauty is not the number one characteristic for judgement. Women are judged more based on their status with their family and community. For example the woman in Year of the Elephant was divorced and the community all judged her based upon that. The woman in the film 'Two Women' was seen as dishonoring the family after her cousin was injured, and she was judged off of that. Most women in America strive to have a decent appearance because they believe that they will be liked more by their communities and peers this way. Women in the Middle East strive to obey their families and act honorable in order for their community to accept them. However all the lead women we have watched and read about have been strong women that go against the norms of society.

I think that this section told us a lot about how women are expected to act in the Middle East, compared to what they actually want to be doing with their lives. Many of these women are strong and independent and just want what any citizen in the world wants, which is to have freedom and be treated respectfully.

Two Women

The film that we watched in class for the 'Women in Islam' group titled Two Women. This film told a powerful story of a woman who had a passion for getting an education. She started off going to college and then discovered that she had a stalker. The stalker complicated her life and put her in a situation which seemed as if she had dishonored the family. In order to regain her honor back into the family she had to marry someone. Her family and one of her male suitors arranged for her to get married to him. She did not want to marry him she wanted to continue on with her education and not be distracted. However her family felt so strongly about her marrying him in order to salvage the family honor that she was forced to. Her husband bribed her into marrying him by promising her she could go back to school. After the marriage things were very different she was not allowed to go to school or do simple everyday things like use the telephone to call her friends. The rest of the movie carried on to show how painful and hard her life was as an Islamic woman that was being manipulated by her over controlling husband. I thought this film was very good, but also very sad. It showed how woman in the Middle East sometimes in marriages are just seen as objects or property of the male. They have no choice or say in the marriage or in who they marry. Islamic customs of marriage are definately different then American customs. I also took into consideration that this film was made a few years back and marriage customs and the treatment of women have changed slightly since then. I know that today women in the Middle East have more rights then they used to.

Women's Rights in the Middle East