On North Africa, SW Asia, and more

A couple of observations, trivial and profound …

Feel free to address me as “Sriram.” If not, “Dr. Khé” or “Dr. Khe” will be fine. I suppose ol’ military habits die hard, which is why some students—in this class and in other classes too—address me as “sir”:-)
Whenever I come across a “sir” in an email to me, I am reminded of “To Sir with Love” and, of course, my student days in India when we had to address male teachers as “sir.” Female teachers in K-12 were “miss” whether or not they were married! I remember my kindergarten teacher who was “Higgins miss” even though she was she might have been a grandmother at that time …. Yes, the usage was “name + miss” …. Usages across cultures are interesting. For that matter, my last name has a story by itself.

As you read the essays I have for you, and watch the videos, I hope you are also watching out for such differences between what you might have been used to, versus life in other parts of the world. (Feel free to email the class about any of your personal experiences in these other parts of the world.)

There is a big difference between this course and GEOG 410. In this course, the focus is to understand the location and some of the larger common themes in certain geographic areas. Thus, we looked at Sub-Saharan Africa, and now North Africa and Southwest Asia.

The regions themselves do not have to be studied this way; for instance, after I got here to Western, I developed a new course called “The Pacific Rim”—here the idea is that countries by the Pacific, whether in the Americas or in Asia, have linkages at many levels, primarily economic and political. (Prior to 9/11, our greatest military tension was with China… A couple months before 9/11, a confrontation between our recon aircraft and the Chinese Air Force pilot that led to the recon plane being forced to land, and American personnel were held practically as prisoners ….) Anyway, there are such new ways of understanding regions, as opposed to the traditional structure we are following through not-so-traditional pedagogy.

In GEOG 410, we look at a bunch of issues that might be locational, yes, but not necessarily in contiguous regions. For instance, women in developing countries …. Because it is a senior-level course, a greater rigor will be expected from students in 410. I think I have for you in this course two readings that I normally use in 410. The amount of readings in 410 is also much more than here, which is why I wrote to you early on that 310 is like an LACC course at an upper-division level …. There are a couple of students in this class who have taken 410 (or similar courses) earlier on; again, it is like how sometimes I have ready-to-graduate seniors in my LACC class J

Ok, finally about North Africa and Southwest Asia. Do not be tempted to think these are all Arab countries. All you need to do is think about Iran, which is not an Arab country. Iran, unlike how we might stereotype here in the US, is a country with a lot of diversity. So much so that one of the problems with Iran has been its treatment of minorities. The minorities include Jews, Kurds, Azeris, Balochs ….. Iran is not simply a land of Persians.

An interesting side-story is the gulf there, which the world refers to as “Persian Gulf.” Saudi Arabia and a few other countries that do not like Iran—not just now, but for centuries—prefer to call the same gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” …

We might think that Islam is a common theme here, and it is. But, the Islam-based culture and politics of Tunisia has more in common with European sociopolitics than with, say, Egypt or Iran. And then there is the Sunni-Shia divide. (In GEOG 410 we do spend a week to understand the geography of Islam, and some of the contemporary issues including Islamism.)

From a physical geography perspective, these regions are not the lush green Willamette Valley! Harsh and arid conditions.

What else would you like me to comment on? As you were reading, did anything make you pause because you felt you did not know anything about it? That a little clarification might help? Ask questions … Anything exciting in the materials that you would like to discuss with the class?