Wrap Up of the Class

Before this class, the only prior knowledge I had of the material we learned was from my World History class last semester, which I also took with Metcalf. However in World History, the material was only slightly touched on since there were so many other countries to learn about. In high school, I never learned about the Middle East. I feel fortunate that I took this class this semester because I have learned so much in such a small amount of time. I have learned that the United States is not what I have believed it to be since I was old enough to form an opinion on my country. I have learned about events in history that seem so important that I had never even heard of before this class. For example, I had never learned about the Armenian massacre until I read Forgotten Fire. After finishing the memoir, it seemed impossible that such a huge event was never touched upon in high school or any other previous classes. In the history of the Modern Middle East, I learned more about the state that our world is in today. The class touched on two of the most important events going on in our world today: the Arab-Isaeli conflict and the war on terrorism. Personally I have always been for the most part uninterested in politics, which made me ignorant of events taking place in our world today. I always wanted to change this about myself but could never conjure up the enthusiasm to become more interested in politics. This class has finally made me interested in world affairs and politics. I think that every American should learn the material that we learned about in this class.

Conclusion of My Guantanamo Diary

This class is my third class that I have taken with Professor Metcalf. Needless to say, there has been a whole lot of reading within these three classes, but I must say that I have learned the most information in My Guantanamo Diary. This is a book that I feel all Americans should be required to read. It is an eye opening book into the corruption of the American government that most people do not even know about. The book made me understand why so many people in this world hate our country.

The book is also so important because it is a highly detailed account of something that is going on right now at this very second. Right now there are innocent people being held in Guantanamo that will probably never see a fair trial for the rest of their lives. The book made me understand what it means to be a human being. For example, I learned that it is not possible to stay sane without any contact from your family when you were originally so close to them. Based on the accounts in this book, innocent people are going insane from not seeing their families for years and staring at concrete walls for twenty two hours a day. This book puts the United States to shame, and I feel completely embarassed for our country. It is such a shame that such a powerful country feels the need to detain innocent prisoners without giving them the right to a fair trial. This book helped me realize that the United States and its justice system are not even close to what I have grown up believing them to be. My Guantanamo Diary truly made me realize that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you really do know about the world.

Guantanamo Diaries

For out last source analysis, we have been reading My Guantanamo Diaries. This has been one of my favorite books that we have been reading. Out of all of the books that we have read, this book has opened my eyes the most. Based on what we hear on the TV, radio, or in the newspapers, I have always believed that the detainees in Guantanamo are the most evil criminals out there. I was always happy to hear that people were being held there because I thought that they were a threat to America's safety and needed to be locked up. However, My Guantanamo Diaries has made me believe otherwise.

The account that touched me the most was the first account that the author has with a man named Ali Shah Mousovi. He broke a common stereotype that Americans have of people in the Middle East: that all men have more than one wife and a lot of children. However, Mousovi only has one wife and two children. Hearing about how he was tortured made me believe even more that he is completely innocent. His account made me truly believe that the United States is making a horrible mistake keeping so many people in Guantanamo without the right to a fair trial. I understand that our country is at war right now with the Middle East and that we need to take extra precautionary measures to keep the country safe, but this book has proved that we have pushed it too far. Innocent people are being taken from their families, tortured, and isolated from other people. This book has opened my eyes to not trusting everything that you hear in the media. I feel that every person living in the United States needs to read this book to gain a better understanding of Guantanamo or "Gitmo."

Arab-Israeli Conflict

Lately in class, we have been discussing the conflict over in the Middle East regarding Arabs and Jews. This conflict began in the 1840s, and it arose because Jews were trying to push Arabs off of land that they had settled on first. It was hard for Jews to do this because one of the Arab advantages was demography. For example, the Jewish population in Palestine did not exceed 5% in 1850. A key factor into this conflict is Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism. It is because of Zionism that the Jewish population in Palestine finally began to increase. It went from 5%-10%.This topic is particularly interesting to me because I have never learned very much about the conflict prior to this class.

I always learned about the Holocaust when millions of Jews were killed because of their religion; I always learned that many people sympathize with Jews after the Holocaust. However, once we began learning about the Arab-Israeli conflict, I began to realize that Jews have also killed millions of people that were Arab. It is interesting to see how some people sympathize with Jews and how people can also be against Jews because of their actions in this conflict.

Connections to Other Classes

I am taking a class called "Modern Ireland:1601-Present." I have recently began making connections between our class with Professor Metcalf and this class about Ireland. In nineteenth century Ireland and the years before it, the Irish were persecuted by the British because the Irish were Catholic and the British were Protestant. For years, Catholics in Ireland fought for their religious freedom and the right to hold positions in Parliament. To me, this is similar to the Ottoman Empire's struggles with the janissaries.

The British enforced laws in Ireland in the seventeenth century that shed them of basic rights, such as the right to bear arms and the right to hold positions in government. The British wanted the Irish to convert their religion and become Protestant. Similarly, the Ottoman Empire also wanted the janissaries to become more European. For example, they repeatedly changed their uniforms to look more like the French, and they adopted weapons that were as modern as the Europeans' weapons were.

Irish Catholics and the janissaries wanted to maintain their identity and not become assimilated to other European ways. Catholics in Ireland wanted to maintain their Catholic identity and be able to hold positions in Parliament without becoming Protestant. Similarly, the janissaries in the Ottoman Empire wanted to maintain their Turkish appearance and not take on a European appearance.

Forgotten Fire

For our latest paper, we had to read a book called Forgotten Fire. This book has been my favorite book that we have read so far. From the moment I started reading it, I could not put it down. I think it was a good book as an introduction to the Armenian massacre because I had never heard about this massacre before in any other class I have taken even before college. I was even more shocked when I read that it was based on a true story. The things that humans are capable of doing to each other are unreal. This book was also a good portrayal of defensive developmentalism, which is what the bulk of my paper was about. The Ottomans wanted to strengthen their empire in order to keep the Europeans out. Since there were many laws in Turkey banning Armenians from basic rights such as the right to bear arms, Russians were becoming sympathetic with the Armenians in Turkey. Because of this, the Ottomans were afraid that the Russians would conspire with the Armenians and intervene in the empire. The Turks thought that the best solution to their fears was to wipe out the entire Armenian population.

Although I consider what happened to the Armenians to be a genocide, we learned in a DVD that we watched today that the Turks only consider it a Civil War and that the number of murdered Armenians is exaggerated. I cannot understand how they can say that those numbers are exaggerated when there are tons of pictures and videos that show countless bodies stacked on top of each other. This book makes it seem completely unfathomable that people would deny that such a massacre was as bad as it was. I think that this book was an excellent source in understanding the Armenian massacre.

My Opinion of the Janissary Tree

I have finally finished The Janissary Tree. Although I was liking this book when I first started reading it, I did not really enjoy it once I finished it. I felt that the book jumped around too much and had way too much detail. I feel that the author could have omitted many parts of the book such as the scenes where he goes into detail about what Yashim is cooking. The book jumped around so much that I began losing track of the plot and which characters played what role.

Although I did not like The Janissary Tree as a novel, I do believe it is a reliable source in learning about the Tanzimat. Jason Goodwin's scenes with the Janissaries rebelling match up perfectly to what we learned in class and what is in the textbook. For example, we had learned in class that the Janissaries turned their cauldrons upside down when they were rallying together to rebel. In the novel, Yashim connects the cauldrons with the dead bodies in them to the fact that Janissaries would turn their cauldrons upside down and bang on them when they wanted to rebel with violence. Although I did not enjoy the actual storyline of the book, I do feel that the author made excellent connections to historical fact and really made me understand this important time of the restructuring of the Ottoman Empire.

Another part that I enjoyed about the novel was when the author discussed Napoleon's invasion into Egypt. When we learned about this in class, I was fascinated because I had never known that the French at one time were in Egypt. Naturally, I was drawn into the book when the author spoke about it because it was a fact that was foreign to me. I did not enjoy The Janissary Tree as a novel, but I do feel that it is a good source in learning about the Janissaries in the Ottoman Empire and their eventual end.