Worldly Views- The Man On the Bridge

If you haven't been outside of the United States, please don't tell me that the French are rude....or that Mexico is dangerous. Also don't mention that you're scared that a Muslim man will somehow randomly target your family. Could all these things happen, or be true? Obviously, case by case...where else would we get these lingering stereotypes. Do you have a better chance of being shot in Detroit or Oakland? I would think so.

I'm not trying to tell you how to understand the world, but generalizing is dangerous when it comes to gaining understanding. There is plenty of crazy white kids that shoot up schools, movie theatres, and even worse, target an all-black church, yet we don't draw conclusions about white Americans having a screw loose. My point is this: When you get to immerse yourself in a different culture, attempt to speak their language, eat their cuisine, and enjoy their norms and values, you begin to gain an understanding of what a worldly view looks like. Of course, not everyone can travel at their leisure, and I certainly am NOT saying hands on experience is the only way to understand that culture....however, it certainly helps. I'll share with you a couple of experiences that I've used to understand what has become my perception of the world.

When I was studying in Paris, France during a semester abroad through the Santa Rosa Junior College, I was lucky enough to spend more than 4 months living in a historical city with multiple options to explore all of Europe. During a week mid-semester, I declined an invitation to join a group in travelling to Ireland, and opted to go solo to Italy, and take Tren Italia through the country. After travelling from hostel to hostel, from Milan, through Rome and Venice, and ending up in Florence, an amazing encounter shook my view of my home country being the epicenter of the world ( A view I think many Americans have).

Standing on one of the many walking bridges in Florence, I spotted a middle eastern gentleman leaning on the railing. It was a Sunday morning, and the year is 2006. I had my disposable camera in tow after having my digital camera stolen in a hostel the night before. I approached the guy, and asked him, in broken Spanish (hell, what was I supposed to do), "Hey, can you take a picture of me?". His response, "Today is my Sabbath. I'd rather not". In my world, growing up with no mention of church or god, never having an understanding of what faith means, and only knowing that my grandma once told me that god told her it wasn't her time yet, I was almost offended that a simple picture was forbidden for some stupid reason (I'm being honest, that's what I thought at that point).

I asked the man an important question, which at the point I don't think I even knew why I continued the conversation: "Which church do you go to?". This began a dialogue with the man and I discussing the church in which he was a pastor (or something of that nature, I'm still bad with religious titles), and that it was a prominent place amongst Muslims in Florence. Eventually the idea of his home country, Israel, came up. That's when my dumb-American side came out.

"9/11 was a horrible day for my country". I'm not sure why I said it. Maybe I thought that I was supposed to mention 9/11 since he was from the middle-east. He promptly responded, at this point in English since he knew how to speak the language, "Bad for your country?". I don't remember much else of our conversation, to be honest. The rest of the time, I was imagining what it'd be like to be in the crosshairs of the United States, after thousands of people were attacked. I think the 9/11 report had just came out, or at least more details about the events on that day, and I at that time remember knowing that Saudi Arabia had been financially part of the equation of this act of terrorism. The expression on this man's face after 5 years of the United States ripping the middle east apart, and attacking his faith, labeling him as part of the problem, was extremely evident. You could even see in his eyes. I remember thinking for the first time, I only think about things in terms of how it effects me, and my country. For the first time, I understood how crippling it would be to be unfairly blamed for killing innocent people. I thought of it in sports terms. It was like the Patriots playing the Little Giants, and without Becky "The Lunchbox" O'Shea. The World Police, aka "Team America", who sanctions everyone, was free to attack the crap out of multiple countries at will.

I want to be clear that I'm not privy of central intelligence. I'm sure a lot of big-wigs decided, based on Intel, that there was things that needed to be handled in the Afghanistan and it's neighboring countries. After meeting this man on a bridge in Florence, Italy....and all because he didn't want to take a picture...I suddenly had my first experience of what it felt like to think about the world in terms of "Maybe the United States isn't always right..". It sounds stupid to say, like, of course everyone knows that! But it's strange how entrenched those subconscious thoughts can become. After that day, I began thinking in terms of "No one is intrinsically, humanly better than the next human". I also had my first dose of cultural empathy, and even then, I understood how important that conversation would be.