Global Eyes: Middle East Edition

A Middle East 201 recap, preview, and reading list

We had a good discussion in our Middle East 201 group on Sunday. For those of you who couldn’t make it—and those who missed the first part—the video is below, and so is the audio, if you’d prefer just to listen to it. (It’s in two parts because I lost my internet connection for a moment midway through.)

There is so much news coming out of the Middle East right now—news of such breathtaking significance—that I can barely type quickly enough to keep pace with it. But I have to warn you that journalists are also publishing an impressive amount of nonsense. I wish they—and everyone else, for that matter—understood that they don’t need to have a strong opinion about Syria. If they know nothing about it, silence is perfectly acceptable. Desirable, even.

Social media is even worse. You’d be better off reading nothing at all than reading a sample of public opinion on Twitter. (For fun, I invite ME201 students to submit, in the comments, the most egregiously misinformed comment they’ve thus far seen on social media.)

The following reading list, however, meets with my approval. Try to get through as much of it as you can before Sunday—and keep an eye on the news for updates.

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NB: For those of you in Middle East 201, here are some good sites for Syria updates: