The following newspaper article struck me that the stereotypes that are painted of people in the middle east are often false. As the article points out, people there can differentiate between the desires of the people for peace and the the rhetoric of our governments for war. Can we?
Americans in a Muslim Land
by Judith Fein
for the Santa Fe New Mexican Newspaper
December 15, 2002
As my husband, Paul, and I were recently packing our bags to go to the North African country of Tunisia, we received emails with helpful travel advice.
"Do not wear white sneakers. They give away your identity as Americans," one said.
"I am a security specialist. Have an evacuation plan worked out --preferably by sea," said a second.
"Do not speak in public," another one informed us. "Do nothing to stand out. Blend in to the best of your ability."
Even though the war sabers were rattling and images of unshaven terrorists glowered from our television screen, we boarded a plane for this Arabic-and French-speaking Muslim country.
Paul and I, who have backgrounds in film making, had been hired to shoot an English-language documentary about the country that would be sold and distributed in Anglophonic countries worldwide. And, Lord help me, my most comfortable tennis shoes bore the same blue as my passport and a whole lot of white.
I speak French fluently, so I figured I could fake another nationality. But Paul could only say hors d'oeuvre and bonjour, so we thought he needed another cover. He decided to indicate he was Canadian, from Edmonton, which would explain why he didn't speak French.
But there was one more problem: Not only were we U.S. citizens, we were Jewish Americans traveling to a Muslim country.
Shortly after we landed in the capital city of Tunis, we were whisked away to meet our Tunisian film crew. Before Paul could do his Canada riff, the crewmembers were trying out their limited English, asking us where we lived in America, and pumping our hands. And no one in the street seemed to notice my sneakers.
But something else odd happened. Paul and I were walking along Avenue Bourguiba, the main shopping-café-theater-cinema street in Tunis, planning the next day's shoot, talking in English. A gaggle of young girls passed by, and one of them called out, "Hello!" I turned around and smiled, calling back, " Hello, how are you?" The girls began hugging and kissing us. Then they broke into song–an Arabic ditty about America. The only word we understood was hamburger.
The main tourist attractions we filmed in the Tunis area were the museum and ruins of Carthage (legendary enemy of Rome and home of the great general Hannibal) and the Bardo Museum, which houses what are arguably the finest Roman mosaics in the world. At the Carthage museum, where the artifacts give visitors a glimpse into the life and art and customs of the time, I entered after the crew. A guard stopped me.
"I have seen you before," he said scrutinizing me.
I blanched.
"Were you here before?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied in French. "This is my third visit to Tunisia."
"You speak French, but are you American?"
My gulp gave me away.
"I knew it!" he said."I remember you. Welcome back to Tunisia, Americans!"
At the Bardo, Paul and I were standing with the crew in front of a huge, breathtaking mosaic of Ulysses, tied to the mast to resist the call of the Sirens, which are dipicted with birds' feet. We were trying to figure out the correct lighting when a young Arab man approached our camera guy.
"Americans?" he asked, jerking his head in our direction.
The cameraman nodded. I cringed.
The man then came up to us, looked into our eyes.
"Eminem," he said. "Cool."
We spent weeks covering the country, looking for exotica to film and for a cross-section of people to interview who could provide an idea of the complex fabric of modern-day Tunisia.
In the Sahara desert, we found a small village of about 35 families who make adobe bricks. Horses pull wooden carts filled with dead palm fronds to a huge horno where they are burned as fuel. One man mixes clay and water in an outdoor vat, his hands doing a sensuous ballet of swirls and sweeps. Another shapes the adobe bricks inside a mold, and a third sets them out to dry.
"Omigod!" we exclaimed. "This is how they build back home."
"Back home?" the mold man asked. " Where is that?"
Pause. Decision. "Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA." Paul said.
The men gathered around as we told them about our adobe hometown. They were fascinated. But we were mesmerized when they told us the origins of adobe–from Mesopotamia to Northern Africa with the Moors who accompanied the Spanish colonizers to the New World.
In Matmata, where a lunar landscape is home to troglodytes, we visited a woman who lives in a cave. She was crushing barley with a grinding stone, and her elderly, tattoed mother was weaving at a loom. The only income the daughter receives comes when tourists arrive from abroad, fascinated by the ancient culture, and make contributions in exchange for the right to visit the cave and photograph.
"We have visitors from France, Germany, England, Russia, Japan...and even America." When she said America, she grinned. Her grin widened when we told her we were Americians.
In beautiful coastal Tabarka, we were filming on a championship golf course overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, and our host talked to us about President Bush and his policies. Like many other Tunisians we met, he disliked Bush, thought he was anti-Arab, but did not confuse the American government with the American people, who he said he likes.
This theme was repeated throughout our travels–from a rug merchant in the sacred Muslim city of Kerouan (where the spectacular mosque is the third most important in Islam, and affordable, hand-loomed carpets have a worldwide reputation) to a bus boy in Monastir (the city where Gabib Bourguiba, the father of modern Tunisia, the man who removed the veil from women and banned polygamy, is buried in a vast marble-clad mausoleum open to the public).
Still in Monastir, climbing the steps of the ancient ribat or fortress whose construction was begun in 796 and which served as a backdrop in Zeferelli's Jesus of Nazareth and Monty Python's Life of Brian, I asked a Tunisian family what they though about America's plan to invade Iraq.
"We are people of peace," said the father. "We do not want our children to grow up in a world with wars. We do not understand why your government wants war and wants to kill innocent people. We cannot believe that American mothers and fathers want anything different from what we do."
When we went into the fascinating and labyrinthine souks (markets) in Sfax, where vendors sell everything from jebbas (robes) to hand-embroidered vests to savory spices, a round-faced man heard us speaking English and pulled us into a stall. But instead of high-pressure salesmanship, amid rows of hanging pants, he burst into song, serenading us with local folk melodies. For skeptics back home, we filmed it.
We spent six and a half weeks in Tunisia, visiting with date pickers in the desert, wandering through the Star Wars set (it was filmed in Tunisia, and some of the names, such as Tatouine, are the names of real Tunisian towns) filming traditional brides, belly dancers, and a female race car driver. We exchanged e-mail addresses with Moktar, the camel driver, and learned to sip and evaluate olive oil with the official taster at Sfax Huile. We sneaked into the fabulous Roman ruins of Cougga and Bulla Regia after hours, assisted by the guard who understood the nature of our film and wanted to help. We drank herb tea at the luxurious thalassotherapy (sea water) spas in Mammamet, walked along the beaches of Sousse and Mahdia, hung out with architectural students in the gorgeous seaside village of Side Bou Said, which is a favorite with celebrities and artists. We met thousands of people. And never once did we hear a hostile word about the American people.
Part of the reason Paul and I received those emails expressing concern about our trip was the fact we are Jewish.
Obviously, I do not have to explain why people thought it could be problematic to visit a Muslim country in these day of woe and bloodshed. It could have been problematic, but it wasn't.
We didn't go around declaring our religion or humming Hebrew melodies in the street, but we did ask any people what they though about Jews and about Israel. And only once did we hear any anti-Semitic comments. A woman who brought clean towels to our hotel room said Jews were out to destroy the Palestinians, and thus she didn't like them.
Tunisia is, amazingly, home to what may be the oldest Jewish community in the world, on the island of Djerba.
According to their oral history, Jesus went there after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., and some of the local scholars and historians believe the first settlers came at the time of Kings David and Solomon, almost 3,000 years ago. Tourists of every denomination visit the famed Ghriba synagogue, and when al-Qaida attacked it last April, all Tunisia mourned–Muslim and Christians and Jews alike. The synagogue is named after a legendary female saint (her name was La Ghriba) and the place is holy to Muslims as well as Jews.
Prior to 1948, when Israel was founded, more that 100,000 Jews lived in Tunisia, but many emmigrated to Israel and France.
Today, only 2,000 Jews remain. The ones who live in Djerba are indistinguishable from their Muslim neighbors–except for one detail.
Informed visitors look for the black band on the bottom of the pantaloons of the older Jewish men. It signifies mourning for the destruction of the ancient Temple of Jerusalem.
In the commercial heart of Djerba is the village of Houmt Souk, where captivated toruists watch a daily live fish auction, shop for everything from brilliantly glazed ceramics to T-shirts and comment that Muslim and Jewish shops side-by-side. The Jews are famous for their jewelry - marvelous tribal pieces, Judaica and filigree work in gold and silver and their best customers are Muslims. As we filmed local and visitors, more that one person remarked that the way the Arabs and Jews live together is a model for how things should be in the world.
When I mentioned to Tunisians that I was impressed by their tolerance of their Jewish population, they shrugged and said it was nothing remarkable.
One said he disliked the word tolerance, because it suggested condescension rather that equality. "They are the same as us," many people told us. "They are Tunisians. We're all Tunisians. We grew up together. We ate in each other's houses. It's no big deal."
Almost every Tunisian we spoke to supports the Palestinian cause and condemned the Israel occupation. But just as they didn't confuse Americans and the American government, they separated Tunisian Jews from Israelis.
"We read a lot. We watch TV. We know what is going on in the world," our cameraman explained to us. "We're perfectly capable of nuance in our responses to events. We don't see the world in black and white."
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