514 Words
Middle East - Op-Ed -
Enlarging the Global Perspective
The guy looks like a 9/11 poster-boy for a terrorist. He leans across the aisle of our Abu Dhabi bus, so he can be heard, "Nice to meet you. I'm just coming in from Cairo from flight-training school. My name is Al Haw Jamal."
I realize my smile is a little thin. But this is, after all, the guy who helped me find this Etihad Airways complimentary shuttle to my hotel for tonight. When he hands me his card for Palestinian Airlines, it seems too bizarre to be true.
My guess is Homeland Security would be giving this guy's luggage a second look.
And that, I think, would be the first mistake. Though we only talked for half an hour on that bus from the airport to the hotel, I discovered a lonely family man who couldn't wait to get home to his wife and four children. "…but I need to go wherever I can so I can send the money home."
He very matter-of-factly relates the countless doors that have been shut to him because he's from Palestine.
"But", he stresses, "I am so much luckier than most of my friends back in Gaza."
The next morning I board my Etihad Airways flight bound for Toronto. I sit beside a woman in her 50s. She is wearing a chic hounds-tooth suit. She holds a small Koran and opens it frequently to read the flowing Arabic script. She shares her trail mix from a bag in her purse, then lemon candies and wonders if I'd like her to get me an extra blanket. I ask her if she's going home to Toronto?
"Ahhh. That is an interesting question. I am now a Canadian citizen and teach in Ottawa. But I also lived for many years in Jordan and hold a Jordanian passport. But truly? I am Palestinian and I'm waiting for my home to be returned to me."
As she talks, I watch the little video screen in the seats in front of us. It shows a graphic plane flying over a simple line drawing of the Middle East. The picture disappears and a new one appears, showing another little cartoon plane and it's directional relation and distance to Mecca. As the flight progresses, the monitor screens show us getting further and further away from that black holy square.
And I wonder what that's like for the burqua-clad woman sitting with her husband one aisle over. I try not to stare when her dinner arrives. Her right black-gloved hand holds her fork while her left black-gloved hand holds her veil out and away from the tray. How can she see to feed herself? Obviously she can, because she turns slightly and begins to feed a few forkfuls from her tray to her husband. It is the classic scene of a couple sharing each other's dinner.
And it makes me realize again how much we are shaped by where we are born, our culture, the politics and the roulette of our religious beginnings.
So much is assumed, and yet…nothing should be.
Fly without assumptions: www.etihadairways.com
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