Flying To The Middle East
It’s an oddly simple equation: Depart Athens, Greece at 10am. Arrive Cairo, Egypt at 12pm. Two hours and just like that I’m whisked away from Western Europe and the Mediterranean to the epicenter of the near Middle East. Granted, it’s still traveling from chaos to chaos in many ways but seemingly everything – everything – is different. The weather, the air quality, the buildings, the roads, the people, the bargaining and yet, due to modern technology and the pioneering efforts of the Wright Brothers I can – in a matter of hours – traverse the globe and “plop” into another civilization that – for thousands of years – had no idea the civilization I just came from even existed.
I find this to be one of the most fascinating parts of travel: this idea that things “changed so fast” when in reality, they really didn’t. What’s more, that feeling of “everything is different” really only goes skin deep. Yes, the architecture is different, the clothes are different, foods are different and religions are different. Underneath. however, it’s just bricks, cotton, beans and faith.
If al this traveling has taught me anything, it’s that we are socialized from a very young age to constantly seek out, look for and identify what makes us different than everyone else. How are we unique? How are we special? Often times, how are we better? Yet if you peel away the surface, almost nothing about us is – in real terms – is any different than anyone else. Instead, it’s the way we have interpreted the same things thats different.
We eat white bread, they eat pita bread. We leave the bricks red, they paint them white. We where cotton t-shirts, they where cotton robes. At the end of the day, we’re all just human beings trying to get through life with enough food, a place to call home and a reason to live.
Naturally, this is the basis of my argument when dealing with gay rights in issues. Aren’t gays and lesbians – at the end of the day – just people too? If you start to think about social issues and equality issues through this lens – a lens of similarity rather than difference – it becomes clear that people are just people and all of a sudden that wedge of “us” vs. “them” fades away – wildly inconvenient when you’re attempting to subjugate an entire population of people.
There are of course cultural and historic factors that play a role as well, and I have no doubt the way people deal with and address homosexuality in the Middle East will be very different than the way it is treated in Europe – one more shocking realization when it comes to this continental leap. In just two hours I have jumped from a nation that offers near full equality for homosexuals to a place where the simple notion of whether or not homosexuality is real is questioned on a regular basis. I have no doubt dealing with gay issues as a gay traveler will be very different as well. Time to find out!
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Kyle Taylor
