The Reasons for the Cultural Misconceptions

As promised in my last blog, I will discuss the reasons for the cultural misconceptions like the ones i  I mentioned in my last blog post that was in the form of questions and answers. These misconceptions are due to the image that the West has of us Arabs of the Middle East. I’ll talk specifically on Egypt, of course since I am an Egyptian.

I will start with the cultural misconceptions that the west have about us regarding the culture and the country itself, I’ll leave aside any religious or terrorism related misconceptions, because this is a whole other story and will need a post of its own.

One of the main reasons is the media, and I’m not talking about the govt. or the news, I’m talking about simpler media, movies and shows. All the movies show the Middle East or especially Egypt as this huge desert that has the Pyramids and the Sphinx in the middle of it, which nomads living in tents riding camels. This, as discussed in the last post is false. The first movie that comes on the top of my head is Transformers 2, I have nothing against the movie, I am a big fan of Optimus Prime, I am just talking about how they viewed Egypt, all what they showed is a desert with palm trees. So this is a pretty good example of why the West thinks that got is just a big desert. Another movie is Jumper, when he was jumping to different places, Paris, they brought the Eiffel tower, Italy the coliseum, and of course when it came time for Egypt, a huge desert with the Sphinx standing the middle.

So it is no mystery why Western people see Egypt this way, it is what the media gives them, as for the reason behind this, I doubt that it is because the movie creators don’t have the knowledge that Egypt is a civilized country with more than a desert. It can be probably this is the image that western people have, so they don’t want to change it, I don’t know. But the media should start to show the Middle East and Egypt in a more truthful point of view. So I don’t really blame the Western people about having these cultural misconceptions, but I certainly blame the media for delivering this picture to the viewers in the West. But this is the case for most countries; it is a known fact that the media is the basic source of stereotyping anywhere, whether is cultural or religious stereotyping, in our case, Arabs of the Middle east, it is both.

But as for the religious and terrorism related misconceptions, it is not only movies, it’s the whole political system and news system of the West, but as I said it is a whole other story, so tune in on the next blog. I will discuss these misconceptions, the reasons behind them alongside the real facts behind these misconceptions.

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