Dancing for Their Lives had a hook that really painted the scene as to who, what, and where we should be focusing on. I also found that the title immediately grabbed my attention. Why are they dancing for their lives? How could that be? etc., were questions that circulated in my mind upon reading the title. It also embedded a significant meeting in something we often don’t even think twice about dancing. Despite us finding out later what the real significance of the “dancing” means, the prompt of suggesting that dancing could save the lives of these people is something that makes us think.

 

The paragraph that captured the women lined up in the ladies’ room and applying eyeliner together completely tugged at my heart strings. Again, an image or idea we have used before or know from experience used in an entirely different context with significantly greater meaning makes it much more shocking to read. Something you do with your girlfriends for fun or at a sleepover (applying makeup) for this woman is a matter of survival. It’s a juxtaposition that conveys the severity of the situation. The line, “They were preparing to live off their bodies,” is such a jaw-dropping summary and line for this paragraph of information. That is precisely what they are doing, and they recognize it themselves.

 

“Women accused of prostitution were rounded up and publicly beheaded in Baghdad and other cities. The executioners carried out their work with swords. The severed heads of the condemned women left on the doorsteps of their homes.” This part of the text left me jaw-dropped. The hypocritical nature of this system was absurd to read. For these women to go into prostitution to survive only then become beheaded because of the system that deemed it condemnable seemed absurd. How is one to live? It also makes me wonder if the woman depicted in the lead feared having her identity released. 2000 and 2001 are not all too long ago. It makes me question what risks women engaging in prostitution during modern-day time are subjected to.

 

The article, Tales of the Trash, did a great job of capturing just how unstable Egypt is. Especially the line that read, “Since we moved into the apartment, the country has cycled through three constitutions, three Presidents, four Prime Ministers, and more than seven hundred members of parliament.” To compare the idea that the United States has had the same constitution during our lifetimes and has a standard presidential term of four years and the idea of having had three constitutions in the time of moving into a new apartment stresses the ridiculousness of the situation. I found the part of the article that detailed the lives of the people whose trash Sayyid collected incredibly interesting. The work until that point to paint the scene and build up to the eventual discussion of others’ trash and what it means was successful. For so many of these disastrous situations depicted in the text, their recentness was incredibly shocking to m. Especially the idea of the swine flu epidemic. To be slaughtering 300,000 pigs and throwing organic waste in the streets in 2011 is crazy to think that in reality that was only really 13 years ago.

 

I also found the quote emphasizing the relationship between “women and garbage” super strange. Many of the key ideas and themes embedded throughout this piece were unconventional and seemed odd in one way or another, adding a level of depth. “He explained that by law, Wahiba needed her husband’s permission to work.”  To think that so many of these ideas are recent and aren’t from that long ago is one of the most concerning aspects of this text. To have only been posted in 2014 and to talk about these legal laws and regulations that restrict women in such ways makes me think about how so many different parts of the world are living in entirely different world that are no where near as progressive as the United States.

 

In the New Yorker piece, A Spy in Flight, I found the idea of lineage and the emphasis on preparing youth for positions interesting. In the text, this is emphasized when it reads, “But, in the late nineties, as Assad’s health was failing, he became devoted to the task of preparing his ruthless world for his son.” This reminded me of the other piece, Tales of the Trash, and how fathers would prep their daughters for marriage. There is a specific emphasis placed on tradition in these cultures that distracts from the idea that progression and change are less probable in tradition.  Not only that, but the idea of progression and change is discouraged and suppressed given those in power want to stay in power.

 

Another piece of this article that reminded me of my discussion with two  immigrants I talked to on Friday in New York City, along with my profile subject, is the idea of a controlling government and the threat they pose to individuals. When the text elaborated on this in Syria, it reminded me extensively of what I’ve learned from others when talking about their own experiences with their home countries and governments. “They jailed activists who spoke to foreign news outlets and targeted for arrested people whose phones contained songs that were “rather offensive to Mr. President.” This reminded me of how my profile subject would talk about the Cuban government and speak about not being able to say anything, given that it would be used against them. They would instead suggest that they were saying something offensive to the Cuban government. Individuals would be at risk for imprisonment, similar to the Syrian government. Not only that, but the idea of political persecution and threats was also something that the immigrant couple that I talked to in New York emphasized as the reason why they had to leave. They couldn’t go back to Columbia, given gangs of people were after them, and they faced political persecution. I feel as though at this point of the semester I can connect a lot of ideas to conversations and articles I’ve read, painting a clearer picture of the larger issues at hand in not just one country or situation, but in most.

I found that the chapter assigned from After the Last Boarder also provided a significant amount of historical information that really helped paint a clearer perspective of the time period outlined and U.S. refugee resettlement. Outlining laws, pacts, relationships, and historical time periods added to my overall understanding of how these things have come to be and what they mean on a broader scale.

All of the articles this week really made me think deeply about the current state of the world and my thoughts revolving around the election. I found that every article conjured some level of emotion and really made me think critically about the situations and discussions prompted.