University

It has been almost a month since my last post, and I don't really know where to begin to catch up, so I will begin with today and work from there. Today I went to Bethlehem University to meet up with a friend of mine. She is studying English Literature, and I was fortunate enough to attend a class with her. It was so nice to be back in a University setting...it made me realize that I really do miss the school environment. While I don't miss the homework and research papers that come with school, I do miss the social aspect of school and also the academic aspect of being surrounded by people who are eager to learn and to have conversations about random things. During this particular class, the students were discussing Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker, an African American writer. I have never read this before, but the professor brought up interesting topics and parallels between the problems African Americans in the US faced and continue to face and the problems that Palestinians face. In both situations there is a problem of oppression and discrimination. She also brought up the point of how the oppressed sometimes become the oppressors. As a particular example, she mentioned that after the Oslo Accords (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords) she would walk through the streets of Palestine and not be able to distinguish between the Palestinian Authority soldiers and the Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians, for some reason or other, had chosen to dress themselves in an almost identical manner as their oppressors. I have noticed this as well and have many times had to look twice to identify a soldier as either Palestinian or Israeli. One student in the class brought up the point that maybe it is because this is all they know. In any case, it is interesting to think about.