follow up on Domiz

[spacklegeek]

(The Internet was out for much of yesterday - from about four in the afternoon til, well, til this morning at about ten. Gross.)

Patrick has posted his reflection on our visit to Domiz refugee camp on our team blog, and I highly recommend you read it. I am having a difficult time capturing what I saw and felt there, channeling it all into words,

Comments

[ext_1272297]

Wow, that's a really powerful post. Why was he putting quotes around "West"?

[spacklegeek]

We put "West" ("the West," &c) in quotes to say that it's not a literal place, but more of a geopolitical idea. "Western" countries doesn't necessarily mean "countries west of ..." somewhere, but rather countries with certain types of governments, cultures, and peoples, right? I mean, when he referred to "the West", I'm pretty sure Khalil was thinking of the United States, for example, and not Mexico, though both countries are physically west of Kurdistan.

So to highlight the artificiality of this designation, we use quotes.

Does that make sense? (I'm sort of waiting for Driscoll to jump in here and clarify/expand on what I just said......)

[ext_1272297]

Yeah, makes sense. I mean, yeah, it is kind of a silly distinction, it's just interesting to see it drawn out like that.