Make the global local: community engagement makes a difference

Only Charcoal to Defend: Bowdoin Middle East studies dismal

In April 2007, the Orient’s editorial board called upon Bowdoin to “find and hire professors who will be able to give students the instruction in Middle Eastern culture and language that they both want and need.” At the time, only one Bowdoin professor, Shelley Deane, specialized in the Middle East.
The following year, a group of students dissatisfied with the lack of Arabic instruction organized informal Arabic classes taught by fellow student Jamil Wyne ’08.
In 2008, the College responded to the growing demand for Middle Eastern studies classes by hiring Russell Hopley as a lecturer in Arabic and Robert Morrison as a religion professor. According to Professor of Religion Jorunn Buckley, hiring Morrison finally satisfied the religion department’s request for specialists in Islam and Judaism that stretched back two decades.But despite the progress, Bowdoin continues to suffer from a deficiency of classes focusing on the Middle East.

Only Charcoal to Defend: White American hasbara and a new look at the NAS report

Hasbara is a Hebrew word that means “explanation;” it is also a euphemism for Israeli propaganda. It frames the actions and history of Israel from the Zionist perspective—fixating on technological achievements and terrorism while excusing or ignoring human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing.
So I was not surprised to learn that the National Academy of Scholars (NAS) supports Israel, and frequently features stories and blog-posts that vilify Palestinian activists, effectively playing on fears of terrorism under the guise of academid scholarship.
It is a shame that after so much research—359 pages of information and analysis—the NAS report came to such a hollow conclusion: that Bowdoin has a misplaced interest in diversity and global thought, and that the College is somehow “antithetical to the American experiment.”

Only Charcoal to Defend

Make the global local: community engagement makes a difference

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

September 12, 2013

My mind is still readjusting to Bowdoin. Soon the thoughts and concerns of summer will no longer feel so relevant, and before I am aware of it, I will be consumed with school life. I will have to solidify a major and satisfy requirements.

Events happening in faraway places will lose their immediacy when the leaves begin to change and when the lampposts glint like golden stars while I walk across campus late at night. But, if I lift my eyes from the microscope of one week to the next, what I see distracts me.

The world feels like it is changing dramatically. Civil wars, coup d’états, and social unrest permeate the Middle East; from the Occupy Movement to demonstrations against genetically modified food, people around the world are making their anger and dissatisfaction with current conditions apparent.

With the wave of revelations about unwarranted spying and an unchecked security state, the citizens of the United States—along with most of the world, have reached a low in their trust of the U.S. government. All this is happening at a time when global ecosystems are on the verge of collapse on account of human consumption. And if somehow we don’t wreak havoc upon our ecosystem, the human population will continue to grow on a planet with increasingly limited resources. In short, I believe that things will change so much within the next 20 years that we cannot even imagine how the skills we are learning will become useful in the future.

Wondering about what lies ahead can be unsettling. Sometimes I wish that I lived in another time, spending years absorbed by classes and lighthearted relationships, where the stresses of Bowdoin would be my biggest preoccupations. But in the words of J.R.R Tolkein, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

With such an uncertain and foreboding future, it seems silly to worry about the day-to-day obligations of college. How, then, can I reconcile a daunting future with the privilege of my relatively easy and carefree time at Bowdoin? There is no easy answer. Academically, I have no idea how what I am learning will affect me in the future. It also feels as if I am powerless to influence the events that determine our future. But attending college—living in a town—is to be a presence in a community, and contributing to community organizations is a way to regain a sense of empowerment and self-determination.

Change can be done in your own community, the one that you know better and are connected to. The goods you buy, the companies your college does business with, and your daily dealings all impact the power dynamics of the world. There is no reason why an organized group of students could not change something substantial about the community it lives in.

If there is one skill that will serve a purpose in a turbulent world, it is the ability to organize and be a part of an organized group of humans.

As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in “The Sirens of Titan,” “There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.”

Participating in or establishing new organizations on campus is a chance to do what you want to do while benefitting from receiving an education. Extracurricular clubs and organizations ranging from the Bowdoin Organic Garden to the Yellow Bike Club are managed by students and break free from academics, athletics and social lethargy to create some positive change on campus.

Bowdoin Student Government allows you to create funded campus groups for whatever reason you can argue is important. Most importantly, the relationships that you make with other people and the sense of community here enrich the time that you spend at Bowdoin.

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