Day 5 May 26 – 8.34 PM – Who’s Right When Everybodys Wrong?
So I know this is long but I'm doing this for a summer school grade.
This morning before I went to sleep at around 1AM I had a long, interesting conversation with Mrs. ElGhobashy. We discussed youths in Egypt, Islam, and Israel. Later, I left the ElGhobashy home and drove along the edge of the eastern desert and into the Nile delta to get to The World Fish Centre.
The discussion I had with Mrs. ElGhashy began when I asked her about the call to prayer being played over the loudspeaker outside. She was telling me how she doesn’t have to worry about her kids who were still out at 1AM because Egypt is so safe. She was saying that she knows that they won’t do anything bad because they are such devout Muslims. She told me how proud of her daughter she was because she never had to tell her (or ask her) to wear the scarf covering her hair and neck. The daughter even wore it in the U.S. when society did not require it.
I asked Mrs. ElGhobashy about many of the problems American youths face and discovered they practically don’t exist there. Being a Muslim nation Egypt does not have much alcohol so youth drinking and alcoholism are very small problems. Also, when asked about other drugs she could only name weed and heroine. Off the top of my head I can name nine different hard drugs. Mrs. ElGhobashy said she didn’t know anyone who did any of these drugs, even weed. While the overwhelming majority of the people that I know, my age, have does weed or drink regularly.
Mrs. ElGhobashy contributes the lack of these youth issues to their religion, family structure, and the way they live. Their religion forbids followers to drink alcohol, which in a family as devout as the ElGhobashy’s, is the final word. The family structure also greatly influences the children’s desire to follow the strait and narrow. The family is very close; they always know where each other are. A parent always stays up until both of their kids come home, so the kids could not get away with much. The way the family lives also contributes to the kids avoidance of destructive habits. Because all of the family members live in tight quarters the children would have a hard time hiding anything.
The heart of the conversation and the part that I found amazing was the views of an average Egyptian on Israel. Growing up in America I was always taught that Israel is the “good guy.” We hear Israel was attacked with rockets but never the other side of the story. We never hear of the thousands of Palestinians who lived there before the Allies gave away their land. It is foolish to believe that Israel is the perfect country, a nation that bears no part of the blame for the current situation. I am not choosing a side, only showing that we were never given all of the facts. We were never given the information to make a correct, informed decision on who is right and who is wrong.
The information that we take as fact, things we read in our history books comes into question when you get both sides of the story. For example when Mrs. ElGhobashy was explaining the history of Israel to me she mention when Egypt won the Yom Kippur war. She told me that even the Israelis admit, that nobody disputes, that Egypt won the Yom Kippur war. I, on the other hand, have never head anyone say that Israel lost the Yom Kippur war. Well, I do not believe two opposing sides can both win the same war. Each side blames the other for starting the war, but how is anyone to discover the truth when not everyone know the truth? When the Arabs and the Jews each have their own version of history how can they find any common ground? When both sides see the other as the source of the problem, agreeing on concessions would be difficult.
The realization that our version of historical facts are not seen as fact everywhere astounded me. While I know that there are always disagreements with regards to history, who won a war is a pretty major discrepancy. As seen in the lead up to the Iraq war we completely at the mercy of the story our news stations tell us. Those news stations are equally helpless to the information their governments provide them. When a government says "our satellites or out spies discovered these FACTS", we have no way to discover if those claims are false. If the Egyptian Government told the people that the Israeli army invaded their country first, how would an everyday Egyptian know if this was false? How would anyone if the Israeli army only attacked because Israeli ships were barred from passing through the Suez Canal? The truth is that we don’t know whose facts are correct. I have found it interesting to watch Al Jazeera, the dominant Arab news station. By watching the way Al Jazeera casts a negative light on Israel, I was able to see the way our news only shines a positive light on Israel.
After a few hours of sleep I rode with Dr. ElGhobashy to the World Fish Centre. To get there we drove for about an hour in a pickup truck. It took us about 20 minutes to get out the city. Then we drove along a highway for about 30 minutes through the outer edges of the city. This part of the trip was interesting because the highway is the border between the city and the desert. I’m talking about the kind of desert you see in movies, barren, sand dunes, as far as you can see. Then for the remainder of the trip we passed through the Nile delta, it was obvious when we entered the delta because it was much, much more green.
Dr. ElGhobasy then introduced me to the director of The Central Lab for Aquaculture Research Dr. Ahmed Said. The director then set up a quick tour of the hatchery. Mostly I just went around and meet people, I feel bad because I can’t keep anyone's name straight. Too many people with too weird names for me to remember.
They took me to my room and it is freaking awesome. Two bedrooms, AC, fridge, washing machine, shower, and satellite tv!! Only problem is I can’t get the damn WiFi internet to work.
Well everything seems great here, seems like I’m gonna get to do and see everything! Only problem I can see is they are acting like I am some important guest, which means I get the best people showing me around. But I feel bad because they focus on me so much they don’t really get to do their own work.
Random Stuff
Arabs believe that US news is run by Jews, that is why public opinion and news leans toward Israeli versions of news.
