Just trying to find my place in the world!
I really should be writing an essay on Women in Muslim Sects in the 15th Century (which I have to admit is a really interesting topic) but I feel I need to write a blog instead. I want to talk about change, personal and on the world level.
They say life can change in a single moment. I don't agree, I think monumental change is a collection of moments that can happen in rapid succession. I've been going through a lot of change in the past couple of months and I feel like I'm finally arriving at some kind of direction in my life. I don't know when it started but I can definitely pin point the beginning of the monumental moments to early January when, with absolutely no warning my grandfather had a heart attack and passed away. I can't tell you how devastating it was for myself and my family that a healthy, thriving, socially active man suddenly left us. I can look back on this now and tell you that if nothing else my personal tragedy has made me realize how short life is and we have to make every moment count (I realize the cliche but bear with me). Since then I've moved my life forward so quickly; I decided to go to England next year and study Development and to free myself from some personal barriers that have held me back in the past couple of years.
I won't get into the rest, but I wanted to provide some background to what I'm going to say next. I just came from a lecture in my Israeli Political Identity course that was so exhilarating it inspired this blog. I have struggled for the past few years with my choice of University degree, it never felt right. Now I realize that it has been the best preparation I could ask for. I want to spend my life studying and analyzing and developing strategies to combat conflict. I'm talking about Peace and Conflict Resolution at the international level. I realized that I love taking a problem, pulling it apart and then solving it. I thought that I would be happy doing it at a small level, but now I realize that the reason why I was so drawn to International Development was the prospect of solving problems at the world level. On one hand I see that I'm insane, that world identity clashes are never going to be solved, blah blah, but I'd like to at least be a part of the process.
So that moves me on to the next part of my blog, it'll be quick I promise. Today in class we discussed peace in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and Palestine. My professor is a leader in his field and brought up some incredible points. One of those was discussing the prospect of peace through the spread of democracy in places like Iraq. It is an inherent characteristic of this region that democracy will never be achieved in the manner of Western liberal democracy because it is in contradiction with the Islamic ideology. So maybe we should admit defeat and move on, even the US (some scholars anyways) is in realization that the future of Iraq is not going to achieve a truly democratic state or secular even. I won't get into this because its too big for me right now. What I want to talk about is change from within. In order to achieve the end of conflict between Palestine and Israel (as my professor taught us today), the two states need to become normalized. In order to become normal, there needs to be peace. In order to achieve peace there needs to be a change in Identity. Now in order for change at an Identity and an Ideological level there has to be a sort of catalyst, in France, Germany, China it was catastrophe. In some instances (ie. The Cold War) it was achieved through learning. That is what I want to study and learn and work with, the changing from within through learning. Could it be that peace could be achieved in this messed up world simply through the learning and the use of Cold War tactics?
Just a crazy thought, but wouldn't it be neat if it worked?
They say life can change in a single moment. I don't agree, I think monumental change is a collection of moments that can happen in rapid succession. I've been going through a lot of change in the past couple of months and I feel like I'm finally arriving at some kind of direction in my life. I don't know when it started but I can definitely pin point the beginning of the monumental moments to early January when, with absolutely no warning my grandfather had a heart attack and passed away. I can't tell you how devastating it was for myself and my family that a healthy, thriving, socially active man suddenly left us. I can look back on this now and tell you that if nothing else my personal tragedy has made me realize how short life is and we have to make every moment count (I realize the cliche but bear with me). Since then I've moved my life forward so quickly; I decided to go to England next year and study Development and to free myself from some personal barriers that have held me back in the past couple of years.
I won't get into the rest, but I wanted to provide some background to what I'm going to say next. I just came from a lecture in my Israeli Political Identity course that was so exhilarating it inspired this blog. I have struggled for the past few years with my choice of University degree, it never felt right. Now I realize that it has been the best preparation I could ask for. I want to spend my life studying and analyzing and developing strategies to combat conflict. I'm talking about Peace and Conflict Resolution at the international level. I realized that I love taking a problem, pulling it apart and then solving it. I thought that I would be happy doing it at a small level, but now I realize that the reason why I was so drawn to International Development was the prospect of solving problems at the world level. On one hand I see that I'm insane, that world identity clashes are never going to be solved, blah blah, but I'd like to at least be a part of the process.
So that moves me on to the next part of my blog, it'll be quick I promise. Today in class we discussed peace in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and Palestine. My professor is a leader in his field and brought up some incredible points. One of those was discussing the prospect of peace through the spread of democracy in places like Iraq. It is an inherent characteristic of this region that democracy will never be achieved in the manner of Western liberal democracy because it is in contradiction with the Islamic ideology. So maybe we should admit defeat and move on, even the US (some scholars anyways) is in realization that the future of Iraq is not going to achieve a truly democratic state or secular even. I won't get into this because its too big for me right now. What I want to talk about is change from within. In order to achieve the end of conflict between Palestine and Israel (as my professor taught us today), the two states need to become normalized. In order to become normal, there needs to be peace. In order to achieve peace there needs to be a change in Identity. Now in order for change at an Identity and an Ideological level there has to be a sort of catalyst, in France, Germany, China it was catastrophe. In some instances (ie. The Cold War) it was achieved through learning. That is what I want to study and learn and work with, the changing from within through learning. Could it be that peace could be achieved in this messed up world simply through the learning and the use of Cold War tactics?
Just a crazy thought, but wouldn't it be neat if it worked?
posted by Melanie G at
7:20 p.m.
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