In my ASTU class, we recently talked about how pieces of history, such as photographs or writings, are still inspiring in the present day. For example, we talked about the well-known “Falling Man” picture, a photograph of a man free falling after jumping off the World Trade Center during the September 11 Attacks. I find it interesting that seeing an image that I have seen countless of times before can still tug at my heartstrings. This has inspired me to read up on other photographs that are similar in the sense that they can inspire certain emotions and actions, leading me to the popular “Tank Man” photo and its results in the present day.

The “Tank Man” is a protester during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 that when the Chinese government ordered tanks to disperse the protesters, the “Tank Man” stood in front of the tanks, stopping them. After having the tanks stop, the brave protesters was taken away by people within the crowd, but it led to other people beginning to stand in front of the military vehicles. The “Tank Man” inspired the resistance against the Chinese government’s brutal actions towards the protesters. It shows that this piece of history, at the time, was able to galvanize and inspire emotions to the people during that time.

Much like the “Falling Man” or W. H. Auden’s poem, “September 1, 1939”, the “Tank Man” photograph inspires the same emotions in the present day as it did in 1989. In recent movements and protest, similar peaceful resistance from protesters against authorities have been a common occurrence.

For example, on July 11, 2016, Lesha Evans stood in front of moving riot police during a Black Lives Matter protest in a calm and peaceful manner. The actions of Lesha Evans can be seen as very similar to those of the “Tank Man”, where both stood up against authorities for their movement and beliefs while acting in a fashion that was both respectful and nonviolent. I find that it is amazing that a piece of history is able to fuel the same actions some years later.

I cannot say that I remember the events that occurred on September 11th 2001, considering I was 3 years old at the time, but I can recall the aftermath and effects of particular day. Growing up in the Middle East, I watched as the region’s culture and society changed; the views of the Arab people altered. Furthermore, I got to see the rest of the world rapidly transform when treating and observing Arabs, unfortunately for the worse. Through my experiences, I can give an account of what it feels like being an Arab suffering from prejudice and stereotypes.

My earliest memory of the 9/11 attacks aftermath is when I was 5 years old and I asked my mother why we were not traveling to Taiwan regularly again and she told me that “we just couldn’t”. Everyone talks about how the United States tightened up airport security checks, but they were not the only ones. I found out much later that the reason why we could not visit Taiwan to see my other relatives was because Jordan’s airport security became extremely strict in order to maintain the good relations between the Jordanian and American governments. After a few years passed since 2001, my family decided to travel to Taiwan, hoping that the atmosphere was a bit calmer, but that was wrong. When entering Taiwan’s airport security and my parents handed the passport check officer our Jordanian passports, we immediately got some odd looks. (except my mother who had passed through with her Taiwanese passport). My father had to be taken for an additional security check because of his passport and his “distinct character”. In that moment, I immediately knew there was a barrier separating Arabians and everyone else.

In my teenage years, I was able to start comprehending what was exactly going on in the world and, especially, in the Middle East. Not only did the rest of the world begin to treat Arabs with contempt, but so did we. If you asked anyone from the Middle East who is the most hated person, the immediate response would be: “Bush.”. President George H.W. Bush is regarded as the man who started the global dislike towards anyone from the Middle Eastern region. The vendetta against him developed into a detestment towards the United States. Even when Barrack Obama won the 2008 election, the damage was already done and the hate towards Americans stayed. In response to this tension, I remember watching as the American Embassy in Jordan built talls walls around itself and had Jordanian soldiers patrolling the outside everyday at all times. The American Embassy was no special case, every other embassy did the same, including the Canadian Embassy. It was very apparent that the relationship between Arabian states and other states were rough.
It is sad to see the world regard the Arabs in an aggressive and discriminatory manner. I hope to see the tensions decrease, but since recent President Donald Trump opened the idea of a ban on people entering the United States from certain Middle Eastern countries, I can only be pessimistic.

A recurring theme in my ASTU class is the importance of the perspective of others. Considering the choices of readings and discussion topics in this course, there is a clear emphasis on learning about how people view events. Personally, I am a big fan of discovering the viewpoints of the individual, because they tell a whole different story than the ones history books tell us. This is why I am enjoying reading about the narratives of others in “Safe Area Gozarde”, a graphic narrative on the Bosnian War, and discussing the infamous “War on Terror”, a campaign that affects me deeply as an Arab, with my classmates.

“Safe Area Gozarde” is a graphic narrative or a journalistic comic book, written by Joe Sacco that describes the Bosnian War and the author’s experience in Gozarde. Sacco delivers to us his conversations he had with Bosniak civilians trapped in the area. These talks show us the views, trauma, stories, and tragedies of multiple interviewees about the Bosnian War that history books cannot compare to. I believe that this type of individual focused storytelling about major events truly give the essence, emotion, and reality to what the world can be like. It is easy to read an excerpt from a history book on World War 2 and to learn about the death tolls, but to plunge into the dark and traumatic experiences of a single person can really hit you hard. This is the exact reason why I found Joe Sacco’s work to be an eye opener to how cruel the world can be through his delivery of another human’s life—a life no different than mine, but one altered by a war.

The topic of the “War on Terror” was one brought up today, a conversation that most people usually would not want to have casually. However, I do not regret having this discussion, because my classmates along with myself were able to speak out on how events like the September 11th terrorist attacks and Charlie Hebdo attacks meant to us as both as human beings and as citizens of different nations. It was interesting to hear about how because we were a younger generation that could only vaguely remember what happened on September 11th attacks, we found more recent terrorist attacks as more impactful to us. It is definitely resourceful to learn more about the way people view the current “War on Terror”, because I was only able to learn about one way of seeing it since I lived in the Middle East all my life—the place where the war seemed to be concentrated in.
To conclude, I cannot deliver the horrors the Bosnian War and the War on Terror has had justice, but I can say that my ASTU class has allowed me to explore these two topics on a different plane that really does hold the idea of university being a melting pot of various opinions true.

It’s that time of the semester where every paper assignment and exam seems to be due at the same time and every student is stressing out over finishing and preparing everything. Furthermore, the weather is getting really gloomy, the sun never seems to come out, and it keeps on raining. A combination of bad weather, stress over that upcoming paper, and finding out you have a midterm right around the corner is beginning to bring down a lot of people’s morale and moods that it is starting to affect their mental health.  

Mental health is an important aspect of our lives; it can have an enormous effect on our actions and emotions. In this case where students are beginning to feel down in the dumps due to papers, exams, and the weather, mental health is at a low point where people are starting to find it difficult to get through their day without feeling unmotivated and sad. I can see the results of this dilemma when I go to my lectures and find that half of my class is absent or when I talk to a classmate and they seem exhausted and sluggish. In the worst case scenario, when one’s mental health reaches an all-time low, dangerous consequences such as depression may occur. Emma’s story about her conflict with depression and how it influenced her anxiety about people’s perception truly outlines how frightening depression can be and how the effects can impact one’s life deeply.

The dire effects of a poor mental health are the reason why I want to emphasize that we need to stay optimistic during these tough times and to look for help when we feel like we’re backed up against a wall. I am thankful that UBC campus has so many services that looks out for its students and staffs by providing them with aid such as the UBC Counselling Services or the AMS Speakeasy that allows them to vent their problems and seek professional help, because I am no exception to the heavy stress during this period.

I’d like to end off with a quote I mentioned previously from Dr. Moberely Luger that I believe can be very encouraging during these tough times:

“Things may seem difficult, but it’s going to be okay.”

Throughout my high school senior year, my teachers kept iterating the phrase “University is going to be difficult, so start preparing for all the stress”. College students also describe their experience as “staying up late at night to either finish a paper or study for a midterm”. Currently, I have been studying at UBC for the past two months, and I’m not gonna lie, I have spent a couple late nights writing up a paper or studying for an upcoming exam. At this point, all I can ask is: why is the academia so stressful?

There are a few stigmas about why university life is so stressful. Some people say that universities are irksome because they are trying to separate the students that procrastinate and fool around, and those that study hard and put all their effort into studying. On the other hand, others say that university is nerve-wracking because it is preparing you for the also aggravating and time consuming life of having a full-time job. Basically, university is seen as a filter for bad and good apples or a boot-camp that is supposed to toughen you up for future careers.

Recently, I have learned that the university is made to be a struggle sometimes for a good reason. Dr. Christopher Erickson mentioned during one of his political science lecture that exams are built to test your method of preparing for a situation. The tests that every student sweats over is made to provide feedback on your style of getting ready for an exam, so you can reassess whether you are taking the right approach to the dilemma or not. Dr. Moberley Luger also said, “Things may seem difficult, but it’s going to be okay.” in response to her students worrying about her upcoming exam. Furthermore, Dr. Kerry Greer assured her students after they received their exam results that, “Your grades are only going to go up from here.”. In essence, we’re being taught to slowly solve our conditions and dilemmas, not being filtered or hardened.

Despite the obstacles UBC has set up for me, I believe that I am actually learning something new everyday. My professors are teaching me more than their field of expertise, but life lessons and ways of evaluating predicaments, which I would argue are just as important as my studies. Am I enrolled in university just for the education from my lectures discussions? I would say that I am learning so much more from the different people I have met here.

Recently, I’ve started reading Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje, a set of memoirs about the author’s return back to his homeland, Sri Lanka, after staying away for so many years in Canada. One of the larger themes in the book is identity, especially when there’s a disparity. As person who has three different citizenships, identity became a huge struggle and conflict growing up.

In Running in the Family, Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan, Dutch, Canadian, had to deal with the problem of going back to Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as he calls it, despite not having lived there in so long. This caused him to be treated like a foreigner, despite the country being his homeland. Furthermore, some aspects of the land and his family seemed different to him, giving Michael this alienated feeling that made him wonder if he can be considered to be from Sri Lanka.

It was as if he was this odd black sheep in a herd of white sheep. This perception of estrangement is one that I can deeply relate to considering my background.

Growing up as a Jordanian-Taiwanese-Canadian, I found it pretty difficult trying to learn and develop in Jordan or Taiwan. Despite living in both countries for years, most people treated me like a foreigner because I didn’t have the aura or act the social norms of either of those places.

A big part of how I view myself is both of Arabian and Far Eastern, because I have taken on the cultures of both areas. Even though I could speak Arabic or Mandarin and knew how Jordan and Taiwan functioned, people saw me as a peculiar alien. Although I may be an outlier to the locals of Jordan or Taiwan, I still believe that my roots lie in both places and proudly take on both nations as my identity.

I feel like I can trace back to Michael Ondaatje’s emotions of all the new changes in Sri Lanka after coming back, because I’m experiencing that anxiety as well. When I finally travel back to Jordan and Taiwan, the places where I spent most of my life, after a year in Canada, will the country be any different? Will I still be able to understand how the culture works? What new changes will there be and will I be ready to see them? Will I be able to see Jordan or Taiwan the same way again with the newfound knowledge I’ve gained through university? Most importantly, will I still be able to identity myself as Jordan and Taiwanese? These are the questions I have been pondering as I read through Running in the Family, a book that truly tugs at my heartstrings.

“What do you want to major in?”

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that question during my senior year in high school, I’d be a millionaire. The excitement about heading off to university in a few months caused quite a blowout with students trying to find other classmates who were gonna study in the same field. I remember that I would nervously force myself to reply in a seemingly silent tone: Political Science.

Political Science – A stereotype

Political science was a rare major for students to pursue at my high school, with me being the only one from my graduating class to go down that line. The common stigma that people have about politics is that you have to come from a family that is either rich, powerful, or both to actually end up as a politician.

Therefore, if you weren’t a Clinton, like me, my previous classmates assumed that you would be working in Starbucks or a small office job with your Bachelors of Arts in Political Science framed and hung on a cubicle wall. In short, if your surname didn’t happen to be “Kennedy”, chances are you’re gonna be working a part-time shift making coffee.

Why is political science so important then?

In the few weeks that I have spent at the University of British Columbia, my courses have taught me that politics is more than a newspaper headline or a corruption scandal, but a broad study of how humans, the state, and ideologies interact and influence internal and external entities. It’s an analysis of why events like wars happen, how does it affect the people, what should the governance do about it, and when should certain resources be allocated.

For example, in the famous book ‘Persepolis’ by Marjane Satrapi, a graphic narrative of Marjane’s accounts of Iran during the 1980s and later, the Islamic Revolution, a political coup d’etat, brought about new religious leaders to the state and imposed a cultural requirement that women must cover themselves up by wearing a burqa and a veil. On a sociological point of view, this statewide issue of altering the culture can be viewed differently by using a method called “sociological imagination”, a term coined by Charles Wright Mills. Sociological imagination is to alter one’s perspective of a milieu, therefore we can see the requirement to wear a burqa and veil as something restrictive to Marjane Satrapi during her childhood in Iran, because her personality was to be rebellious and free, instead of caged and closed in. Politics is able to influence the sociological and psychological aspects of a nation.

As for me?

I have learned that there’s nothing limiting or shameful about being a political science major. Though it may be an undesirable and uncertain path to many, those who do decided to walk down this paved road will find that political science is an examination of humans that is closely related to how society functions and what individuals will feel – a true social science.

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