As I was finishing Children of Jihad today, this quote just really resonated with me, I don't know why. Maybe because my faith in this idea in general is what makes me do what I do, or maybe because I think anyone wants the idea to be true. Otherwise, what hope we would ever have that the world would get better?


"The post-9/11 years have no been easy for Middle Eastern youth. To most of the rest of the world, the Middle East seems caught in a perpetual cycle of violence, sectarian conflict, and fanaticism. On TV, we watch both Shi'a and Sunni insurgencies mounting in Iraq; mujahideen fighters trying to revive Taliban-style rule in Afghanistan; and Hezbollah and the IDF fihting a war in Lebanon. In the newspapers, we read about the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an offensive light, sparking massive riots in Europe; the president of Iran calling for the destruction of Israel; and terrorists in Britain conspiring to blow up ten commercial airplanes with liquid explosives. The images and rhetoric we see on the news lead us to believe that the world is on an inevitable path to catastrophe, even apocalypse.

And that's wrong.

My journeys have taken me from wild underground parties in the Islamic Republic of Iran to the military headquarters of some of the most dangerous Palestinian camps in all of Lebanon to the emotionally shattered villages of Syria and finally to the worn-torn streets of Iraq. As an American Jew traveling in the Middle East during this age of terror, I should have been unwelcome, I should have felt unsafe, and it should have been impossible for me to engage on any level with people who I'd been told hated my country and my religion. But I found that the easy, monolithic characterization of "us versus them" fails to take into account the humanity and the individuality of all of the people who make up "us" and "them." And the "them" I met - the young men and women of the Middle East - should make all of us very hopeful for the future."

A droplet of hope...

Happy New Year ( a few days late... )! I would put my new year's resolutions down, but as my friend and I decided, the only people who make New Year's resolutions ( i.e. deciding to do something just because it's New Year's ) don't really intend to keep them, because people never do. So instead, here goes my random thoughts on the New Year.

I feel like this year is going to be a year of change, both good and bad, but also a year of progress, learning, and moving forward. I'm excited because the classes I'm taking, the things I'm doing, they're all pointing me in the direction I want to be going, and the direction I've been wanting to go for so long. After high school, all I wanted to do was get out, go save the world, help people, but I needed to go to school. Finally, I feel like what I'm doing is indeed leading me in the right direction, giving me the tools to do what I want to, and become the person I want to be. That yearning to just do may finally become a reality, the itch I've been wanting to scratch finally in reach. I want to make a difference in the world, no matter how small. Because, something that starts small, if successful, will inevitably grow into something huge and beyond where even my imagination can go. This year will bring me to so many new places, both academically and experientially, that I can't wait for it to start. I may not go out and create some world-saving program, but I have to start somewhere, right?

Going home, if nothing else, reminded me where my heart lies. Not with me, really. I feel the pain of suppression, violence, poverty, and desperation of thousands when I open the newspaper and read about their lives, see it in their eyes in photographs, or hear stories of their tragedies on the radio. There's no way I can ever truly understand any of what they're feeling, but just being exposed to it allows me to have hope. That may sound backwards, but every problem in the world is a calling for someone to fix it. There will always be problems, but with enough dedication and compassion, we can lessen them, lessen people's pain, and at least make the world a little bit brighter. This is where my heart lies, in hope. Hope not in the sense that if something happened, it sure would be nice, but an active sense of the word. That my hope and belief in my and other's abililty to change the world can move us all to, as Gandhi said, "be the change you wish to see in the world."