It is in our nature to be curious and inquire about other cultures, but, as put by one of my peers, when do these questions go too far? Where is the line between curiosity and plain ignorance? Should some questions be deemed inappropriate regardless of intent?

At NYUAD, we enter a landscape of national, gender, ethnic and economic diversity unlike anywhere else, and, under the guise of dialogue, we excuse ignorance. Ignorant, disrespectful and unnecessary questions create a power dynamic and a false hegemony as we are assumed to represent our social groups and forced to explain our existence to another. Engaging with questions like “What do Emiratis look like?” simply results in the stereotyping of Emiratis.The assumption at play here is that all Emiratis look alike. We can trace the roots of these issues to Orientalism — we stereotype people, artifacts and traits symbolic of the Orient (or really anywhere other than the West). It places the West as a standard of credibility to which the rest of the world is to be compared, enforcing the aforementioned power dynamic. We cannot be so reductive of identity, culture and heritage.

What does it mean to be called “Global Citizens''? Do we become delegates of our nationalities? University is a space for us to learn, grow and develop our interests. Justifying our identity is not a pressure we need to introduce into our lives. The university has enabled this pressure to exist; by promoting the idea of free discourse, we neglect the dissuasion of bad discourse. There is a crucial difference between asking appropriate questions and being disrespectful: an appropriate question seeks enlightenment, and encourages new understandings, but a stupid one imposes our preconcieved assumptions onto the receiver.

During a discussion with the student behind these posters, they mentioned that the short film, “This is NYUAD,” brings up some of these “stupid” questions. The film acknowledges the biases present in the perception of the UAE to showcase how NYUAD is working to shatter these misguided notions. The inherent “wrongness” of these questions lies in the fact that they are based on assumptions arising from ignorance and rumors. We need to popularize the notion that commonplace environments, like dinner table discussions or after class walks are not the most appropriate places for this type of discourse.

It should be noted that barriers of ignorance are only broken through education and deeper understanding. However, it is paramount that we are wary of how we facilitate this understanding. It is your responsibility to be respectful and aware of the cultures of your peers, especially in an environment like NYUAD. It is up to us to ensure that we do not view this country, our peers or anyone for that matter through the lens of Orientalism. We need to realize that Orientalism may also seep into the questions being asked. Discourse originates in credibility, discussions result in an exchange of information.

We would be lying if we said the world is so simple, that there is a single formula by which we can exist. Thus, we must begin the process of un-labelling things and practice the virtue of seeking questions befitting a response if we wish to make tomorrow one of mutual understanding and respect.