I spent last weekend in Jordan, hiking the canyons of Petra, exploring the ruins of medieval castles and savoring a break from the crowds of Cairo. I knew very little about the country before I went, but I returned enthusiastic about all Jordan had to offer.
Three nights after I got back, I learned from Google News that Amman had been bombed.
My first thoughts of the terrorist attack were, of course, thoughts of shock and horror. I had been in Amman just days before and driven past two of the hotels that were bombed. My friends and I had felt completely safe in the city, never imagining that while we were there, terrorists had been plotting its destruction.
Yet beyond these sobering thoughts, I am dismayed at the implications of the Amman attacks on the world’s perception of the Middle East.
To many in the United States, this tragic event will only reinforce existing stereotypes about the Middle East as a dangerous region, brimming with terrorists and extremists.
Many will view such events as reflections on the region’s cultural or religious makeup and fail to see the Arab people beyond that terrorist image.
Living in the Middle East, however, I have largely forgotten about the threat of terrorism.
It’s not that I am naive to the dangers that exist or that I fail to take precautions. Rather, in spending every day in the iddle East, I see so much more than the televised images of terrorist bombings that when such events do happen, I am able to see them as isolated and tragic incidents in the broader context of my daily interactions.
Being abroad has allowed me to replace the old stereotypes of the region with new images and impressions forged by my experiences.
These images consist of people – an old man who sold me coffee from a silver tea service in Amman, a boy who rides a cart and sells bread, an old woman who offered me some of her stew as she broke fast during Ramadan – living their daily lives, separate from the negative stereotypes that others may foist on them. Judging these people as terrorists would be senseless.
Sometimes we stereotype subconsciously, however. We infuse hurtful assumptions into our most well-reasoned views, not realizing that we unfairly censuring a whole group of people.
These subconscious stereotypes too often influence American views on the Middle East, yet we hold them on issues closer to home as well.
Take for example, Chris Cairns’ viewpoint in last Tuesday’s issue of The Hoya (“Solutions to Crime Found at its Source,” Nov. 8, 2005, A3).
In his discussion of the causes of Georgetown’s latest crime spree, Cairns writes that “if a young person grows up in a single-mother home and doesn’t have a father to provide discipline . they will understandably lash out in unpredictable ways.”
Cairns seems to imply that all children who grew up in single-mother families are somehow morally deficient and more likely to commit crimes. But without factual or contextual backing (if any exists to back such supporting such a sweeping assertion – and I am skeptical of this), this comment merely serves to perpetuate a stereotype and chastise children who grew up in nontraditional family structures. It does not further our understanding of the issue.
The well-researched argument of the rest of the viewpoint sugarcoats this hurtful stereotype in a guise of factuality, furthering the implication that the depravity of the single-mother family is as verifiable as the crime rate in Washington, D.C.
Cairns also writes that “though criminologists and politicians alike have for years argued for a correlative, if not causal, link between poverty and crime, to me it just seems like common sense.”
Yes, correlation can in some cases imply causation (and the presence of one merits investigation into other) but the bridge between the two must be built with fact, not a vague appeal to “common sense.”
If correlation always meant causation, then all Arabs would be terrorists, all children from non-nuclear family structures would be deviants, and – if we are to employ Cairns’ subsequent assertion that many potential criminals seek to lash out against “white people” – then all criminals would be non-white as well.
The causes of both crime and terrorism are complex and multifarious, rooted in myriad social, political and cultural factors. One column, let alone one paragraph, is not enough to contextualize them with justice.
Yet this complexity should never serve as an excuse to resort to stereotype and generalization when a neat and simple solution is not immediate.
For if we do this, we are not only getting derailed from our vital efforts to uncover and address the root causes of these pressing social problems, we are closing ourselves off from the people and places that we may judge adversely. We would be failing to see the people beyond our stereotypes and in this way restricting our view of the world, from Georgetown to Jordan and everywhere in between.
Kerry McIntosh is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. She is currently studying abroad at the American University in Cairo. She can be reached at mcintoshthehoya.com. SALAMAT appears every other Tuesday.
