I enjoyed the reading that Dr. Webb assigned for class this week ("The 'Middle East'? Or ... / Arabic Literature and the Postcolonial Prediciament" by Magda M. Al-Nowaihi (p. 282-303)).  I thought the author was exactly right when he said he could not write such a short essay over the “Middle East.”  I think that is an important concept we often forget: the “Middle East” is such a vague concept, and comprises many countries.  Each area of the Middle East that contains a few “similar” countries is different, each  individual country is different, and even each area within each country is different. 

This also reminds me of our talking about stereotypes in the last couple of classes.  Before we disregard every stereotype that we have about the Middle East (there I go using the same term), I think we should realize that some may be partly true.  But even if some of our stereotypes have some truth in them, they often come from only one small area in the Middle East.  Even if a specific stereotype, such as oppression of women, is true, it may only be true in a specific area. 

This is an important concept because many people want to condemn all stereotypes, especially students belonging to a “new” generation.  Students are prone to defy information inherited from previous generations, wishing to discover “new” information never before discovered.  (I know I may be going on a tangent, but it is something that I have been contemplating for a long time, even before this class.)  The desire to discover new information is not inherently bad, because it is what encourages new inventions to be made, etc; but we also must realize that we use the information gained from previous generations (that once was considered “new” as well) to be able to discover what is “new” today.

            So anyway, the purpose of that tangent was to get all of us to think even more deeply about stereotypes we have inherited, and the “information” (some true, some false) by which they were conceived, and to reconsider (again) the entire Orientalist view.