Tea Ceremonies

One thing I will never forget of my time in the Middle East is the “tea for hospitality.”

In every meeting with a high-up official, from the Arab League in Cairo to Syria’s Minister of Higher Education, there was served an abundance of beverage and sweet hydration. The large conference tables were lined with glasses, water bottles, mango or orange juice containers along with pens and sheets of blank paper. After the meetings would start, one or two men would begin to make tinkling noises about the room as they handed out the hyper-sweetened tea in small glass cups and saucers. They were always intent upon serving all members of the meeting, no matter how awkward the seating arrangements in the often cramped rooms.

In Syria, there came a special surprise in Turkish coffee. Less than a shot of the most potent, blackest coffee ever known. I sipped it once, ignored all other times, and patiently waited for the inevitable tea. The tea was sweetened well beyond sweet, often in what tasted like a combination of both sugar and honey. Quite the treat to keep one awake during meetings.

Obama Speaks to the Muslim World

We sat in the 2511th room of Doha’s Movenpick Hotel watching Al Jazeera English as President Obama addressed the Muslim world from Cairo University. He spoke of the great contributions that Islam and the Muslim world have made to humanity, having sparked an interest and understanding of astronomy, algebra, and pen making. Spending the morning at the brand new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, I saw relics of all of these and much more. The building alone of the museum was impressive and worth a trip over. To quote Rachel, “It’s kind of a big deal.” The President pointed out that the United States and Islam share common values of justice, integrity and academia.

Pres. Obama spoke of the need to move on from negative stereotypes and the past and to strengthen relations between the Muslim World and the American West based upon mutual respect. Peaceful dialogue between the two huge multi-faceted demographics would hopefully extinguish the Western concept of Islam as a violent, barbaric religion, and acknowledge (and too eliminate) the perception of the U.S. as being a “crude empire.” To fight negative stereotypes wherever they appear is much easier said than done. As I experienced earlier in my own Dialogue, when talking about stereotypes the stereotypes themselves tend to get in the way. There are so many nuances to our different languages and hidden misconceptions within communication and culture, that I believe true understanding is nearly impossible. But respect is always possible, though extremely hard to grasp when people are seemingly forced to hold emotional biases by a faith or moral code that disables them from thinking anything other than Truth. In a way, it is hard to get to the supposed important issues when clear communication alone is difficult to manufacture.

“If we only view conflict from one side, we will be blind from the truth,” Obama said, moving on to the situation between Israel and Palestine/Arab world. Both sides have played the victim, suffered greatly, and fought in search for their dignity and homeland. This Dialogue of Civilizations has opened up the opportunity for many of us to view the conflict from a point of view that many feel is not available in the United States due our country’s affiliation with and support of Israel. A political bond that some other countries see as being so close that, as Syria Minister of Information pointed out, Israel is controlling the U.S. rather than the opposite. Professor Sullivan guided us to observe our informants with precautionary extreme prejudice, as many were clearly offering up rehearsed propaganda. Acknowledge but don’t accept or reject. This was especially true in Syria, not only during our visit to the Golan Heights. It is important to sympathize but not to blindly follow.

Obama also noted that it is important that Arab nations no longer use the Arab/Israeli conflict to distract from other problems. Classmate Lily Sussman asked of the Minister of Information, at what point does the conflict over dignity become “enough” and a need to focus on other national issues, unemployment, poverty, healthcare, comes to pass? His response was that it was the “mother of all issues.” But where will they be when they must deal with the shock that their “mother” is gone?

“Faith should bring us together,” said Barack Obama, speaking to the fact that religious freedom is integral to groups of people living together in peace. Religious tolerance not only enables peaceful dialogue but also allows for that talk to be turned into tangible service to build up and strengthen communities, cultures and nations. The Golden Rule of do onto others and you would have done to yourself, appears, in one way or another, in a plethora of different creeds and religions. The rule, Obama said, once “pulsed in the cradle of civilization.” Now more than ever, this canon should be taken to heart as a means by which to develop dialogue, respect, and peace in a world that feels to be slowly falling apart.