I believe I am a person that has come a very far distance since I began to acknowledge things in life however, I still have a lot more to go, I believe I am still relatively naïve but less than I always have been. I also believe that I know very little about what is going on around me but I try to dive in the world I live in and have clear stances about topics I’m aware of. Growing up, I was never exposed to a lot of cultures I’m a daughter of all Egyptian parents with all Egyptian roots however, ever since a young age I’ve been admitted to a British School with teachers from an English origin, I spent all my schooling years being taught a different mentality with different point of view on life seeing that the English and the Egyptians lead very different lives.
As a result, I relate to both cultures in a way, I’ve been taught to be very empathetic, compassionate, tolerant and friendly as the Egyptians are however, daring, concise, hardworking, passionate and career driven like the English. There are several elements to my identity, I believe the way I was brought up influenced who I am, my mother was never one that was close minded, she always believed that by giving me my freedom and having faith in me and keeping me close to her I would steer clear of things that might upset her and I believe this made up a huge part of my personality. This taught me how to take responsibility for my actions without having someone on my back and to always do the right thing seeing that my conscience was my mentor whilst wanting to maintain the faith and trust my mother put in me. This also taught me to always be trustworthy and to always live up to people’s image of myself. This was a double-edged sword in my case though, as at times I was too busy being what people wanted me to be to maintain my image but I lost track of who I actually was and what I actually wanted along the way.
As a person, I believe I am very big on equality, one of the biggest pillars of my personality is treating everyone with the same intentions no matter their race, gender, religion or social class. Not only is it something I believe in but it is something I fight for as well, as a result I tend to gravitate to those who have similar morals seeing that it something I feel strongly about and I get slightly irritated if I see opposite reactions. I see my nature as one of a giver more than a taker and this is also an attribute that defines me, around those I am close to from friends to family to even strangers that are in need of my help.
Throughout the course, I’ve learned quite a lot about myself, I’ve learnt that we all have underlying and subconscious biases and that’s perfectly normal however, how we act upon it is what matters most. the act of othering has also come to my attention, beforehand I was completely unaware of the term and the consequences, I discovered that I subconsciously sometimes take part in it. I also learned the difference between othering and bias and how othering is more generalized and has bigger consequences whilst bias is a bit more personal and can be fixed. It was also brought to my attention how the media can basically make or break such an issue and how right now it is actually mostly encouraging it and it is very effective on us. One of the most essential things I’ve learned is that the meaning and purpose of the same words differ when coming from different people, I learned this through the video we watched where Trevor Noah was attacked for his joke after France won the world cup. One of the most shocking revelations to me was that our biases actually make up a part of our identity and largely affect our daily lives.
I also tried three different IAT tests and the results were mostly what I had expected. To begin with, I tried the religion test and my result was that I have a moderate preference for Islam over Judaism. I believe this was expected seeing that I consider myself a fairly religious person so I automatically favor my religion however, I do not hate or discriminate against any others. Moreover, growing up I subconsciously associated Judaism with Zionists and only recently was I educated about the difference and cleared my misconceptions. Secondly, I tried the weight test and I also found out that I have a moderate preference for thin people over fat people. I found this quite shocking seeing that I used to be overweight and I was personally a fairly fat person so I did not think I would have such a bias. Lastly, I tried the homosexuality test and the result was that I have no preference of straight or gay people. I really enjoyed this experience and I found out a lot about myself however, I really want to find out the science behind it.
I believe Egypt is a place full of biases and we are exposed to a lot of them on a daily basis and therefore it is extremely difficult to fight them at times and act differently. First of all , the most prominent one is the gender bias , I believe that Egyptians do not conform to the idea of gender equality and there is a substantial amount of bias against women in our community. The second one is a social class bias , I believe people are constantly having biases against those who they perceive are of not the same social class and live up to their standards. Lastly, I believe has a relatively big religion bias and each religion low key groups the other as different and sometimes there are several cases of othering by not wanting to interact with them especially against Judaism , this is so apparent with them as Egyptians often confuse them with Zionists and even use slurs such as “ya3am dah yahoody” when describing someone that can’t be trusted or when they are selfish and greedy. The last one is a huge one and it is against homosexual people.
I believe that I used to have one major bias which is against homosexual individuals, growing up I was taught that it’s completely prohibited, haram and is not tolerated under any circumstances. I was even raised in a country that detains those who prefer same sex relationships and interactions so I believe I had a huge bias against them but I always tried to control my actions towards it such as not making fun whilst others do or not talk in a hateful way against them. The fact that I had this in me actually bothered me a lot but I felt like I fit in and that It coincided with my religious beliefs and everything I have ever known. That was all until a couple of years ago when I decided to rid myself of that bias and be accepting however, that was easier said than done as every time I tried to dig a little deeper into the subject and educate myself about it I would be lectured and scowled at. Exactly a year ago I met an extremely amazing person and absolutely nothing stood out about him, we quickly became really close friends and he was always there for me , supportive , funny and understanding , it was only 6 months into our friendship where he came out to me as gay , and I was absolutely dumbfounded. However, this was my turning point , my friend was more than happy to educate me about the subject and all my notions towards them was gone seeing that I saw that they were no different and that religion is all about an individual’s relationship with god and that I am in no position to judge that relationship.
