AUA― Michael Newman.mov

REPRESENTING AMERICA IN THE MUSLIM WORLD:
I grew up in an International high school, so I never thought it was strange that I had friends from Kuwait, Pakistan, Bangladesh-- all in the same room together. I studied International Relations in college and it was at that point when I began to realize the importance of the middle east to America-- I'd always had friends from around the world, but it was in college when I began meeting American expats-- people from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Turkmenistan. They lived and traveled abroad for a wide variety of reasons, but what was most interesting was how different their stories could be from the mainstream impression; so often we were given a description of the Muslim world as barren, bleak, dead. The firsthand accounts were different-- people who lived it pointed out that it was always lively, often colorful and much more focused on humanity than we'd been led to believe. I learned that family is treasured, community is paramount and religion- whether or not it is practiced- is evident in almost every aspect of culture. The Muslim World has many differences from the West, and we would be well served to explore the variations in our respective cultures, if for no other reason than to identify that there are actually places where we're not so different. Through cultivating mutual respect and understanding between the Middle East and the West, we might begin a new era of history, wherein we can use diplomacy to resolve conflicts, witness better governance and help with economic reforms. Westerners can help the Middle East to grow by becoming more educated about its problems, and seeking to understand before casting judgment. For these reasons and more I've been very interested in the work of AUA: because every American volunteer serving in the middle east really is representing the United States to the world, and we want the world to see that we can relate to them. No modern nation state can live in isolation, and the problems of the world, left unattended, will soon be our own. Thanks for looking at my video montage, which I created from several other public videos and documentaries found on www.archive.org.

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