There's got to be a better name than the Middle East...

[fraser_by_proxy]

Some of you may recall that I helped out at an event called Pangea Day up here in Auckland a wee while ago. I was reminded today of a film I had intended to link to. At the time, I was feeling a bit emotional about it and so decided to leave it for a while. I just rewatched it and still felt like crying, so I guess I'm not quite over it yet, but

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[xullrae]

When I was teaching in Cyprus ('91-'93) there were students from all over the Middle East - they made up about 20% of the students (the rest were Cypriots and mainland Turks). The students from Palestine were very wary of the teachers from the UK and US, though once they got to know us they were some of the most welcoming people I've ever known. But they had a strange sort of desperation as well, and seemed to have a need to convince us that they were decent people (which of course we could see, but they thought that every Westerner hated them and was pro-Israel to the extent of being utterly biased). It's terribly sad that so much of that whole region is now a no-go area, especially if you have blond hair and blue eyes :-(

[fraser_by_proxy]

I have hope that it won't always be that way.