Maktub Essay Winner - Maahd Shahzad

My First Lessons in Cultural Pluralism

By: Maahd Shahzad

The cultural smorgasbord at Education City enthralls me, to say the least. Living here is such an enlightening cultural experience, providing students with a unique and rare opportunity to experience multiculturalism in the true sense of the word. I use the term ‘unique and rare’ because Education City is, perhaps, the only academic endeavor of its type, a tangible culmination of cross-cultural pedagogies, that offers an atypical example of east meets west in the pursuit of excellence; first-class American universities functioning on a resource and culture-rich eastern land and providing youth from both ends of the world with an exclusive facility that has resulted from the convergence of the best of east and west.
Since my arrival here at the Education City two years ago, I have started viewing the diversity of cultures as a source of sustaining each other and nurturing ideas and debates that add to cultural growth and development, rather than impeding or challenging the growth of other cultures. There is beauty in miscellany and diversity that characterizes the way even students faring from the same region speak, dress up or perform religious rituals. As one gains American academic experience, lives on an Arab land, and intermingles with faculty and students from all corners of the world on this land of multiversities, misconceptions regarding other cultures and religions are greatly rectified and I have learnt to develop and sustain a pristine sense of cultural awareness, if that is not an over-statement. Sharing accommodation with an Indian roommate has, for the first time, taught me to acknowledge good qualities and positivity in someone who fares from a ‘rival state.’ Being friends with a Bangladeshi student has educated me in, yet, another worthy lesson of life, that our defeat is, often, someone else’s hard-earned triumph.

At the same time, I have also been tuned to appreciate the varied backgrounds of students who come to Doha to study, and, most notably, I am now better able to distinguish between culture and religion, a differentiation that always seemed to baffle me initially. I, now well understand that it is possible to practice any religion in a culture or vice versa, as I see students from around 70 nations perform their religious and cultural rites and practices and present perspectives with ease, here at Education City. Having experienced so much first-hand, I have now become more capable of challenging my preconceived notions and beliefs about the Arab world and the American system, in particular, a practice that has also assisted in equipping me with critical thinking and logic skills.

Furthermore, my observations and insights regarding my own culture and society have also witnessed a paradigm shift. Studying in one of the best education systems in the world and living in the richest country have together raised my awareness regarding human rights, charity and tolerance, something that could not be inculcated in me back home. I now realize that back in Pakistan, I could never appreciate poverty, lawlessness, corruption and rampant denial of basic rights, because I had never seen anything otherwise; I had never got a taste of that bohemian superfluity, orderliness or peace that typify socially developed systems around the world. I strongly believe that my exposure at Education City has lent a lot to my personal growth and has helped me become the youth who now displays much more cognizance and sensitization towards social issues, every time I visit my homeland during vacations. The low crime rate in Qatar and the rest of the Middle East, a hallmark of a truly Islamic society, in particular, spurs me to ask myself what type of a Muslim country, if at all, do I fare from? Worse still, is the painful realization that even most of the non-Muslim countries around the world boast of much better social, economic and political indicators than my homeland that was created in the name of Islam.

By implementing the American higher education system in the Middle East, the Qatar Foundation had already set the tradition of promoting interculturalism in the Middle East; the students here are only taking this model forward by incorporating the spirit of acceptance and harmony in our ways and lifestyles. Not only have we come halfway around the world to study, but the Education City has primarily extended to all of us space to build an intercultural community and explore new ways of contemplation that transcend borders and all philosophical rifts. It is only now, that I realize the importance of not only adapting existing knowledge, but also creating new ones that also have the potential to fit within contradictory cultural contexts, hence, providing different cultures with an amicable point of convergence.
Additionally, the various student exchange programs at Education City provide students with an opportunity to travel to other lands, and I hope to be a part of one of these programs to benefit further from my trans-cultural experiences at Education City. In an attempt to recreate campus traditions at Education City, the Qatar Foundation has been successful in re-enacting key elements of the home institutions in the rich indigenous environment. This has helped create a common bond between the home and Doha campuses and connects alumni from both sides, something that further fuels the spirit of multiculturalism at the Education City.