I had a rough day the other day. I have two Facebook accounts, one for friends and family, and one for my Turkish students. I was looking through the homepage of my student Facebook account and saw a Youtube video titled "Americans are Bloody Idiots!" The video (which you can watch below) was both funny and painful. Basically, some British guys interviewed a bunch of Americans on the street and asked them some basic political and geography questions that people weren't able to answer (such as "Name a country that begins with the letter "U"...as in, the United States...or "What religion are most Israelis?"...some people answered "Islam").
If they'd just posted the video, it would have been fine. But the comments that followed were really hard to read: several of my students writing (in English): "Yeah, Americans think they're so great, but they're really a bunch of idiots" and "I totally agree with you, but what can we do?" and "I agree with my brothers," etc. All from MY students...and ones I was close to, at that.
It really upset me, for several reasons. One of them is that it's easy to take a video and only post the responses that make Americans look bad. And the responses were pretty bad, I must say. But I didn't want my students to make conclusions about Americans based on that video when there are so many intelligent, thoughtful, geographically aware Americans out there.
Secondly, it was painful because some of the stereotypes people all over the world have about us are true: many of us don't have a really good sense of geography and aren't very aware of global politics. Time after time, I hear this from people I've met who spent time with traveling Americans--they were very kind, very friendly, and really misinformed and uneducated about the rest of the world.
But mostly, it was hard because I'm entering my ninth month in Turkey tomorrow, and I'm starting to see the reality of Turkish beliefs towards Americans. And to be quite frank, they're really not good. A lot of it is a result of Turkey's increasingly strong ties with conservative Islamic nations such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. Some of it is backlash from the war in Iraq and Bush's policies.
But the point is, it's hard to be the only American your students have ever met, and learn how negatively your nation is viewed. I understand their frustrations, but at the same time, I want them to remember that there are so many GOOD people out there and that you can't confuse a nation's government with its people.
I decided to confront my students about it. They were horrified that I'd read their post and then commented on it. One of them--the one I'm closest to--took me out to dinner and drove me and my groceries home so I didn't have to take the bus. But I'm still haunted by all the comments I hear that my colleagues and students are letting slip more often these days...it makes me wonder how the U.S. and Turkey will mend these broken ties and build a new relationship again.
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