Is It Easier Being Green?

Schmilsson Nilsson and Eureka Dejavu at Dancing Ink Productions' windmill headquarters in the virtual world of Second Life. Is it easier being green?

My friend Larry Pintak who runs the Adham Center at the American University in Cairo has been running a fascinating project thanks to a grant from USAID and the Carnegie Corporation called the “AUC-QU Bootcamp.” 24 journalism students 12 each from the US and the Middle East are spending three weeks in the Egypt and Qatar looking at "comparative issues covering politics, religion, culture and journalism." The students are blogging about their experience here and will also be blogging about it on the Huffington Post.

Their blog, which is a group effort, has already highlighted some interesting discussion and debate within the group. In one thread, “American Express,” an American student talks about the ease with which he can enter an exit high security establishments, especially his hotel, because of his white skin. One of his fellow students, who is Arab, responds with an insightful counterpoint in her post, "Re: American Express."

[T]he situation at the hotel that he and the other non-Egyptians were staying in has been misunderstood. They were housed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel located in downtown Cairo. The Cosmopolitan has rules and policies that must be followed. One of the rules is that non-guests, regardless of nationality, cannot go upstairs. ... This presented a problem for the Egyptian students. We had each been paired up with an American student to work on a project. ... When they did notice, they stopped me, and explained the policy. ... I merely talked to the people at the front desk, in Arabic. At the end of the day, this is what we are dealing with - people with different rules and ideas than what the Americans might be used to. Sometimes, when it is appropriate, we may be able to change someone’s mind.

The students raise an interesting point that we are also exploring in our Understanding Islam project (join our Ning group to participate and contribute to the project). How do our identities as expressed in the physical or virtual world determine how others perceive us? In one of our earlier posts Eureka described an encounter we had at Second Life's virtual Hajj in which, thanks to the mediated environment of Second Life, we were able to engage in discussion around a potentially difficult topic and see it through. In the creation of my avatar, Schmilsson Nilsson, I chose to integrate a pigment not represented in the human phenotype colorwheel. I'm exploring the relationship between identity as presented and identity as lived.

In addition to the American Express post there are a number of other great reads, including an interesting blog post about a meeting with Egyptian Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi,the head of IslamOnline.net, about which we have blogged before.

The blog is a must read. Congratulations to Larry and the students for his leadership and creativity.