Friday, November 20, 2009

A Test Interview: An Australian Cabin Crew

I have been wanting to interview people, regular people that are still only concerned with partying and having a good time and nothing else—just like a lot of the anti-Jihad bloggers were before 9/11—to see what their thoughts on Islam are and how they respond to questions about politics and whether they realize that the world is in a mess because of Islam or not.

In the interest of my crazy idea to interview random people, I thought I would first try to interview one of my colleagues. Now, some of you might be thinking, “How does that count? Your colleagues are not “random” people!” Well, the truth is, my colleagues are as random as meeting someone on the street that I have never met before. Whenever I fly, I fly with a different set of crew and rarely do I get to fly with the same people I have flown with before.

What I have in mind, of course, isn’t like your typical interview—I ask a question, the other person replies and then I put that down on paper in a question/answer layout. It is a very casual sort of interview (if you can call it that) and whenever I do something like this, it will accompany my commentary (sorry, no escaping my loathsome writing skills).

Anywho…onto the interview.

About The Interviewee:

This 20-something girl’s from Australia; she is tired of Dubai and wants to go back home. She misses Australia and is actually proud to be an Australian. She says she has a good life in Australia and she just came to Dubai to work for this airline because she wanted to see the world. Now that she has seen enough, there is nothing else left for her to do in Dubai. She will resign in a month or so and move back, not really knowing what lies ahead.

The Interview (39,000 ft above ground level):


In my hotel room before I left for the flight I had scribbled a set of questions to ask on a piece of paper. I safely put the paper in my suitcase and left for the flight…not realizing that I won’t be able to get a hold of those questions during the flight as they were put away in a very cold place called the “cargo hole”.

“Crap!” I thought to myself and then followed that by, “Oh well…” and proceeded to think of questions in my head. To begin with, I asked her if she knew anything about politics in general. Her very quick response was, “I know enough about politics.” The girl wasn’t rude but for some reason her reply sounded more like, “what the heck’s the matter with you?!” I prepared myself to run to the nearest exit in case she looked like she was about to blow up…she didn’t blow up and I mustered up enough courage to proceed with the interview.

Catch-22:

I wanted to know if there was anything about her government’s policies that she was specifically not happy with. That was a stupid question for me to ask; not because it was a bad question but because the girl was confused. At first she said she was fine with all the government policies, then she told me she wasn’t happy with the strict immigration laws of Australia, then she went ahead and said that she supports the immigration policy to some extent because it preserves their heritage and she is proud of that.

At this point, I started searching for my non-existent Magnum .44 to shoot my brains out but the fake journalist inside of me slapped me and brought me to my senses. I asked her to elaborate and she said, “The immigration policies are not good in the sense that a lot of poor people go through a lot of dangers to get to Australia to have a better life and when they do get to the borders alive, they are arrested and put in detention centers. However, what’s good about the strict immigration policies is that it keeps Australia safe and preserves the culture. So to me it’s sort of a catch-22 situation. I want these illegal immigrants to have a good life but I also want Australia to be safer.”

She started to make sense; I almost saw a light bulb go off above her head (but my sources cannot confirm that report just yet).

Islam:

I wanted to know what she thought about Islam (because I don’t give a rat’s butt whether she is proud of her heritage or not, I don’t even know what her heritage is…I bet she doesn’t even know). I asked her what she knew about Islam. She was honest and told me, “I have minimal knowledge of Islam; it’s mostly based on what I have heard and seen. Before I came to Dubai, I had a negative impression of Islam. There is a lot of stereotyping of Muslims in Australia.”

I asked her, “Has your perception of Islam changed since you have come to Dubai…do you see Islam in a more positive light now?” Her answer was a straight, “Yes.” I thought, “We’re onto something here.” So I asked her (in these exact words) to tell me specifically what she thought was negative about Islam that had now come and bitten her in the butt in a positive way. She thought for a moment and said, “I can’t tell you anything specifically, I can’t put my finger on anything.” And then followed the nervous laughter. It was awkward; mission accomplished.

I decided to move on. I asked her to tell me the first thing that comes to her mind when I say, “Shariah law.” She said, “terrorists!” I thought, “yay!” and asked her why she said what she said. She told me, “This perception of mine is only based on what I’ve seen around me and in the newspapers. It is not based on any research or any facts. That is just the first thing I think of. I have never had any personal problem with either the Shariah law or Islam. Even though there are a lot of Muslims in Australia, we live with them peacefully.” She wasn’t making me happy but then it was what she thought and how she thought was what I was after anyway.

What If:

I asked her, “Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Let’s say Australia imposes Shariah law on all its citizens. What would you do? 1. Convert to Islam 2. Accept it and live as a second class citizen 3. Not accept it and rebel quietly 4 Band up with other rebels and overthrow the government?” She said, “I will accept it…um, I will not accept it and rebel quietly. I will not overthrow the government. I might convert, I don’t know. I just don’t think it is ever going to happen. Australia has never done anything against Muslim countries so they will never bring Shariah to Australia.”

At this point, she had stopped making sense, the light bulb had burst! I gave her a huge lecture on Islam and Jihad after the interview but I won’t include that here because that’s not the point of all of this. I should mention, however, that she added, “I think the terrorists have hijacked Islam. Islam is a religion of peace. Terrorists just twist Quranic verses.” This was coming from a girl that had just told me less than half an hour ago that she knew next to nothing about Islam and had never read the Quran.

To finish the interview, I asked her if she would like to say something to her fellow Australians. She said, “Read up on Islam to form an informed opinion.” I loved her advice. I thanked her for the interview and we shook hands.

Conclusion:

What I wanted to get from this interview was the view of a lay person. A person that doesn’t constantly eat, breathe and drink anti-Jihad. The reason being, when the time comes and the world goes completely crazy, we are not only going to have to know Islam and Muslims like the back of our hands but we are going to have to know what to expect from our neighbors who never cared about all of this. These sort of interviews, I think, will also give us an idea about how surprised the regular populace will be when faced with another attack from Islam, what their first perception will be and how close they are to understanding the threat of Islam among other things.

I understand that interviewing a cabin crew is probably not the best thing and putting one person’s opinions up does not give a fair representation of the majority of the population but this was just a test interview. I am going to Australia in a couple of days and I will try to interview people on the streets if at all possible. So, I would really appreciate feedback on this. Just let me know what you thought about it. I could use a lot of constructive criticism because, in all honesty, I am not really a journalist. I don’t even know how to spell “journalist”. I know I am doing a lot of things wrong and if you can tell me what they are, I’d really appreciate it.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought you did a good job.

I couldnt do it im to confrontational and opinionated to keep it together and just ask the questions to see where it went.

Pastorius said...

Great job, AA.

Reminds me that I have to start doing this.

Anonymous said...

This type of 'interview' could prove productive anectodally. How many times have you confronted your own preconceived perceptions differently when attempting to vocalize them? -to a hostile or agenda driven audience? Effectively articulating your beliefs to specific, perhaps hostile audiences is a gift. Impromptu interviews like the one AA posted, tests the best of us in such a situation.
Well done AA.

revereridesagain said...

Excellent idea, AA. I've been trying to think of a way to approach this subject with people that will actually be useful to both parties (and won't set off my short fuse of a temper). Sounds like you've hit on it. It gives the interviewer information about the level of knowledge out there and it gives the interviewee something to think about or at least we can hope so. Thanks!

revereridesagain said...

abdooss

Could Kafir Zimmi mean those who have submitted and are paying the jizya...

While Kafir Harbi means people like us?

When I was a little girl and my best friend and I became the first two Christians/gentiles to join the local YMHA/YWHA because all the rest of our friends were there, we wound up in a club called, if I remember correctly, the "kafira harbi girls". So I started early. We won a booth decorating prize at the Purim Carnival one year using chicken wire and about a dozen boxes of pink tissues.

And I still consider myself a Kafir Harbi girl, abdooss...

Elisabeth said...

Your interview was excellent, AA. I would like to read more of the kind.

I start my education of people in much the same way. However, Generation iPod is too busy to fight. They are noticing all right, that there is a problem, but too busy vying for more material things.

Sad. It almost makes me wish for the big bang. And when it's happened, forgive me if I won't be jumping up and down when you come knocking on my door, whining, "Why didn't you tell us? We would have... blah blah." Sorry, lads, there is no excuse. You know that our civilization, our way of life, is under fire. Get up and do something.

An iPod ain't gonna save us.

Pastorius said...

Elisabeth,
Well put.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the comments and encouraging words everybody (except abdoss, I will write a whole other comment for you).

I managed to have a couple of more interviews or conversations with some older people (avoided the ipod generation this time around ;-)). I will be putting those up soon.

Anonymous said...

Abdoss,

First off, I don't know where you came up with this division because there are different kinds of kafirs. the two most important divisions are:

1) Kafir Assly: One who is originally a non-Muslim or infidel according to Islam.

2) Kafir Murtad: One who is an apostate from Islam.

As for the terms that you used, they only refer to two kinds of people. One who submits to Islamic supremacy (dhimmi) and pays the Jizya and hence is a second class citizen (it is like paying protection money to the mafia, only worse)and a Harbi kafir would be one that does not bow down to Islam and hence is at war with Islam.

I am sure you are aware of the phrases, Beit Al Islam (or Beit Al Salam) and Beit Al Harb. House of peace and house of war. Harbi comes from Harb.

Anyway, I could keep going on and on. My point in all of this is: Who the heck are you trying to fool here?

Anonymous said...

Sorry, That was House of Islam or house of peace**