What will you connect to when someone says things about the Middle East? The first word that come to my mind is "veil". In my mind, all the women in the Middle East need to use the scarf to cover their hair. For me, it is like already a symbol of all these countries in the Middle East. However, since I read poems that were written by Naomi Shihab Nye, I totally change my view to those Arab people.
Naomi Shihab Nye is an American-Arab poet who writes a lot of poems about Arab cultures and stories. Her mother is an American and her father is a Palestinian. Although she was born in America and grew up here, she till considers herself as one of the Palestinians. One of her famous books is called "19 Varieties of Gazelle". It is a collection of poems which she writes in order to be as a response to 9.11.
As we all know that 9.11 is a tragedy that happened on American people in 2001. The World Trade Center was hit by a plane that was controlled by terrorists from the Middle East. From that moment, people in the world are not only sorrowful, but also they have an impression that people from the Middle East are all terrorists. People are all scared by this big event, so they all assume that Arab people are scary, mentally insane, and they are terrorists. However, by reading Nye's poems in the book, I realize that the fact is not what people are thinking. The reason why Naomi Shihab Nye chooses this books to be as a response to 9.11 is that she wants to change people's tortile views toward Arab people. They are very friendly and very kind people. All these bad views about the Arabs people have are created by the government. People in the Middle East don't have fault. It's not their choice to have this kind of government. They don't get to make their politics. If you talk to those people, if you get chances to know them, you will be amazed and totally change your view toward Arabs.
Arab people love their family. They are hard-working. For example, in the poem called "My Father and the Fig Tree", the author's father came American when he was in the college. Although he loves his country, he has to stay in America because of the war. He loves those fig trees which are very common in Palestine. For him, it is a symbol of his culture and his country. However, he cannot find a fig tree in America. He always sits on Nye's bed and tells all these stories and folktales of Palestine about fig trees. Even sometimes, it doesn't fit; he sticks in. He tries so hard to get rid of the title of "terrorists". He writes stories and poems to show the people how the Arab people really are. The author is very proud of her father and very proud that she has such a good father.
All these things are what Naomi Shihab Nye is trying to show our people who are outside the Middle East. These Arab people are not as scary as we think and actually, they are not at all. They love their lives, their family and everything around them. They are not crazy, not insane. They hope the world is peaceful; there is no war going on. We should try to know them by ourselves instead of judging them only by an unexpectable event.
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