Year in U.S. shifts Muslim teens' views
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2005
WASHINGTON Bush administration efforts to improve attitudes toward the United States among Muslims around the world have met with sharp, bipartisan criticism here as inadequate, even naïve. But student-exchange programs have provided a notable exception.
The State Department-sponsored Youth Exchange and Study Program, started in response to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, appears to have had positive results.
Four students from Middle Eastern and North African countries who were among 300 participants in that program told why during a recent stop here after a year living with host families and attending American high schools. (Program officials would not allow their last names to be used, for what they called security reasons.)
The students, all of them precocious and enthusiastic, described a dramatic shattering of their own preconceptions, but also of those held by their host families and newfound American friends.
"Before, I thought the Americans were like the Europeans - no religion, no moral values, taking drugs, having sex, drinking all the time," said Sirine, an earnest 17-year-old Tunisian who stayed with an Atlanta-area family. "But my opinion changed. I found people going to church a lot, and some are really conservative. I found the people more friendly than I expected. I thought all Americans were for the war, like the government. But some people are different."
Her host mother, to her surprise, kept a scrapbook of antiwar news clippings.
Abdulrahman, a thoughtful 16-year-old from Syria who spent the year in Waters, Michigan, agreed.
"Back home in the Middle East," he said, "when we used to hear about the United States in the news and movies, they only show you what they want. Then, when I came to Michigan, I found out in the United States there are some of the nicest and most open-minded people I ever met. I didn't expect to find that."
Kaoutar, a quick-to-smile 17-year-old from Morocco, stayed with a family in Ashland, Oregon. Ashland was "such a liberal community," she said. Quite unlike anything she had imagined, the children in her host family were not allowed to watch television.
Ahmad, a tall and mature-sounding 17-year-old from Kuwait, said: "It wasn't really like the movies. People were open-minded, but a little afraid until we got to know them."
He said that where he stayed, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, "it was not Beverly Hills - it was a normal, average home."
The students said they encountered few real biases. They were struck more by American inattention to the world.
"When people first hear 'Tunisia,"' Sirine said, "they'd be like, 'Indonesia?' They'd ask me, 'Where's that?' I'd tell them, North Africa. And they'd say, 'Why aren't you black?"'
She, like the others, fielded plenty of questions about deserts and camels, she said with a laugh.
"I had to carry a map with me," Abdulrahman said, "because no one knew where Syria was. Syria was on the news a lot, but people had absolutely no idea what the people were like or what the government was like."
Mostly, the preconceptions did not bother the teenagers. But some did.
"One misconception in the United States is that Muslims are terrorists," Sirine said. "They think we're violent, that the Koran encourages us to fight."
Religion and cultural matters were often an issue, but the students approached it with élan. Abdulrahman taught his friends an Arabic greeting and explained Ramadan to them. They surprised him with signs in the classroom saying, "Happy Ramadan, Abdul!"
Ahmad launched what he called "the Ramadan challenge" - daring any fellow student to join him in the ritual fast.
"They couldn't stand it," he grinned.
The students, to their surprise, were invited to the White House to meet with President George W. Bush on June 13.
The students were impressed by the openness and diversity of American schools, but were concerned that Americans did not know more about their countries or cultures.
"Nobody in my school really knew about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Ahmad said. "People don't care about the outside world, and that's a problem."
But there are plenty of misconceptions in their own countries, all said.
Sirine said that her mother was afraid for her. "When you hear U.S., you think a lot of crimes, people kidnapping and killing," she said.
Abdulrahman added: "My parents at first refused that I come to the U.S. They thought it was dangerous. But I didn't care. I took the risk because what we're working toward is more important."
Attitudes are strongly formed by the media, Ahmad said.
"People in the Middle East have never been to the United States and only see the official figures on television saying, 'We don't like their policies, we just hate the United States,"' he said. "But when you ask people like us, I don't think it'll be negative, I think it'll be positive."
Kaoutar said that "from the movies and the music videos, I thought all girls in America were like Britney Spears." And unlike the impression created by some news media, she said, the U.S. government is "not the absolute voice of the whole country."
The students, for their part, appear to have been effective ambassadors.
Abdulrahman's sister suffered heart problems and so he says he knows, even at 16, that he wants to be a cardiologist. When doctors at the Michigan hospital where he volunteered saw his interest, they gave him books and advice. "I had five or six mentors," he said.
Kaoutar had been warned, as she was preparing to leave Oregon, to expect a surprise. Still, when she arrived at the airport for an early-morning flight, she was amazed by a group of friends waiting, in pajamas, slippers - and tears.
Next year, the exchange program will grow to add students from the troubled Pakistani border town of Peshawar."
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