We were nineteen Arabs, inside an American Limousine. It was at that time, a warm night in San Francisco (Ca). We had had a special night tour of the city and its remarkable sites.
Tarek Chenti spoke in one of his articles about cultural clash. When I was in the United States, I was a witness of the difference of ideologies and beliefs. In fact, one of the Zahra, an Arab Israeli, faced problems with her own Palestinians because she introduced herself as an Israeli during our first official meeting with officials from the US Department of State. She was criticized by many of us, but not me. She was coming to the States as Israeli, she was sent by the Us Embassy in Tel Aviv, she has an Israeli citizenship, an Israeli passport and an Israeli identity, she speaks hebrew and she lives with Israelis. But zahra was smart and she decided to introduce herself during the following meetings as " a Palestinian living in Israel" or "an Arab Israeli". The group showed the different points of view and the clash of civilisations and of opportunities.
Another girl of the group from Morocco. Sanaa is not an rab. She is a berber/amazighite. She emphasized, during the whole meetings about her identity as berber. In Morocco, she is fighting to defend the amazighites rights.
The third girl, Samar from Bahrain. She is not Muslim. She is bahaai. New religion.
But what I liked, is that each one of us respect the other's beliefs. even if some do not like some facts, they asked forgiveness after that.
I believe that we have to be more tolerent towards the other. We should open the doors not close them.
