Middel East light?

Loes Magnin

 

A few months back I travelled to the Middle East. No, I didn't travel to a country which according to our newspapers is full of bombings, Holy Wars, stonings, extreme oppression of women and Osama-bin- Laden supporters. Or at least.... not that I noticed. Let's call it Middle East light: I arrived in beautiful Jordan.

Confused as I usually get when travelling the world I was surprised to see how this country was a liberal meeting point of cultures and religions. Middle East or not, this was a modern country. We passed

by old Christian crusader's castles, we walked the old Roman cities of Kerak, listened to the calling for prayer from the mosques, saw the refugee camps for the Palestines and we stood on mount Nebo –

where Mozes saw the promised land.

 

East meets West, Christianity meets Islam, ancient times meet modernity....

 

Our tour guide for the trip was called Mahmud. He was a young, fun, good looking guy, highly educated, who spoke English well and was good at his work. He had the rare ability of seeing his country through

the eyes of visiting tourists.

Many an evening did we smoke a cigarette and talk about his favourite subject: Hollywood movies. He loved Angelina Jolie, thought I looked like an old ‘50's movie star and had watched classic movies like Lawrence of Arabia - which is set in ancient Jordan - just to prepare for the

tourists. He was well aware of world politics, and would explain to me whatever I wanted to know about things I read in the Jordan Times newspaper. He wanted to know about my life in Amsterdam, my job,

my friends and not once did he seem surprised or taken aback by cultural differences.

In short: Mahmud seemed a modern, westernized and open-minded young tour guide.

As we continued our trip we arrived at Aqaba, Jordan’s only port in the south, and everything that seemed relaxed about Jordan had faded. Women wore dark burqa's, men hissed and sissed wherever I walked, stones were thrown at me from the bus and little boys would pinch my bum.

On our journey towards this city, together with the scenery Mahmud’s character had changed. The closer we got to Aqaba, the more restrictive Mahmud’s opinions seemed. He suddenly stated how strongly opposed he was to homosexuality – he never noticed that four of the people in our group were gay. He was very much against sex before marriage – though his facebook page clearly states he loves women and I am quite sure he was sexually active... but not (yet) married.

It got me wondering. Who was adjusting to whose culture? Had Mahmud felt forced into adjusting to us, Westerners, during the trip, while actually being more comfortable in the culture of Aqaba? Or was he adjusting to Aqaba's culture while truly being the young modern guy I got to know?

 

I guess I'll never know.

 

About the author