Reflection on Lebanon and Qatar
Reflection on Lebanon and Qatar
The presentation on Lebanon and Qatar was very interesting. I think I learned a lot about both countries that I didn’t know before. It was also very refreshing to get such a direct and realistic viewpoint from the native of the land Ibrahim M. Karkouti, who lived in both Qatar and Lebanon for periods of his life, but I was most fascinated by Qatar although I found information about Lebanon’s tourism, history, and demographics very interesting.
It was quite interesting to learn about all the tourists’ attractions in Lebanon and that it is a major source of income for the country. The media portrays Lebanon in such a negative light that I would have never thought that the country had such beautiful beaches and that the people living there were so modern. This was exhibited in the lecture thorough the American students who visited Lebanon and said that it was so different from anything that they would ever imagine. For example, the teenagers said that the media shows Lebanon in a negative light and that the media does not portray the people or the rich culture, They didn’t find Lebanon to be a war zone and one of them even said that they didn’t find Lebanon much different from America which was rather surprising! I was also surprised to learn that the Lebanese people wear all Western clothing, but historically wore Ottoman traditional clothes. I wonder why they didn’t continue on the traditional clothing even today,
Furthermore, I was also surprised to learn that France occupied Lebanon until 1943. In our history, their independence is relatively recent. The pictures of the old and progressive Lebanon when compared to pictures of it during the war were both horrifying and unbelievable. I was glad to hear that the politics in Lebanon is now stable and that all religious groups are represented in Lebanon.
In addition, it was also refreshing to learn about so many