Said

I've always been taught about struggles and controversies in the Middle East. I have been told they occur, that they are serious and life threatening, and even affect countries neighboring the one's fighting. But never in any class I've been in, have I experienced what these conflicts the Palestinians are actually facing. Edward Saids’ article, "States," really brought up these points that I have never been shown before. They left my kind of shocked because of the mere fact that all of it was new instances, nothing I've heard of before. Take for example the quote I found in the article, “The colors of the Palestinian flag are outlawed by Israeli military law." To get arrested for merely having a Palestinian flag raised in your yard, or on your mailbox, left me thinking that these people really were trying to erase an entire population of people merely because their thoughts, beliefs, and traditions were conflicting. I don't feel this is the way to resolve culture conflicts, to merely erase it and make it illegal to represent it. I found the man who spoke at the conference in America who was kicked out of multiple countries already and is now exiled from his residing country to be almost too farfetched to believe, but in fact is true and just makes it that much harder to believe. The fact that these instances really do happen and occur makes me wonder why I have not heard of these instances earlier in my life. I am extremely happy to know that the reason, I feel, Said wrote this was to teach all of us that haven't been exposed to it about it. Although I know about what is now happening, I’m afraid to say, I still cannot think of a good way to solve the problem. Maybe it one that never really will be solved.