CAIRO — While studying in Ankara last summer, I lived with a Turkish family named the Özkurts. They welcomed me with incredible kindness. Before the weekend’s conclusion (I arrived on a Saturday afternoon) I had been taken to meet the family matriarch, introduced to the extended Özkurt clan, and my host mother had begun calling me can?m (“dear”). She said she considered me her newest son. I was flattered, if a bit skeptical and disbelieving.
However, I had not realized the peculiarities which come with being the Özkurt family’s temporary son. I returned from my first day of language classes to discover my room had been cleaned and my bed made.
“How sweet,” I thought, my college student mind still used to messy kitchens and unkempt bedrooms. “She made my bed.” Then I looked around the room, and a feeling of great discomfort came over me.
I had come to Turkey with a loaded rucksack and, like most study-abroad students, had been far too lazy to unpack it. Now Zeynep, as my new mother, had unpacked it for me. She had folded my pants and shirts, placing them on shelves. My underwear, knick-knacks and other accoutrements were carefully arranged in drawers.
The newly-made bed had warmed my heart. But this — my entire body was gripped with profound unease. My privacy had been violated. This troubled my American mind.
That was in June 2009. I came to terms with that unease and spent a wonderful summer with the Özkurts. Since then, I have moved on. I’ve lived in a lovely apartment with Spanish Erasmus students, and discovered why some Europeans call the Erasmus program the “Orgasmus” program. I’ve lived in a cramped Istanbul room, and learned the importance of sunlight. I’ve slept on a wide variety of couches and become aware of the luxury which is freshly-washed hair.
In that time, I’ve interacted with many nationalities: Spaniards, Dutch, Germans, Turks, and even an Albanian. Every interaction has challenged my American cultural mindset and values, just as that first weekend with Zeynep Özkurt did.
I have tried jettisoning some of these values, with varying success (my current projects: stop remembering who owes whom how much money). However, just as I have attempted to live apart from some of ingrained Americana, I have come to cherish a few beliefs more and more passionately.
Patriotism and freedom of speech sit high on my list. But highest of all stands preservation of privacy — the notion that one’s home and possessions are his own, that they cannot be searched except under a lawfully given warrant — and only then pursuant to carefully-prescribed parameters.
I mention this because a fellow student in Cairo had his privacy violated. It is not my prerogative to go into specifics. (Indeed, I refer to him in the masculine only for ease of writing, not because “he” necessarily is a he). I will merely say his apartment was searched by our program’s operators. Without his presence, permission or awareness they rifled through his possessions, and found something illegal under U.S. and Egyptian law. Then they kicked him out of the program.
I am not wise in these matters. I do not pretend to be experienced enough to discern the right decision from the wrong. Time may show the administrator’s decision to be correct.
I do know they legally were in the right. The program in Cairo, called AMIDEAST, signed the apartment’s lease though my friend paid for the whole of it himself. Leaseholders hold far greater privilege in Egypt than they do in the US.
I mention this partially because AU Abroad partners with AMIDEAST (though I assign absolutely no blame whatsoever to AU Abroad for any of this. They didn’t know, and this student wasn’t from AU). Inquiring students have the right to know AMIDEAST’s administrators take it upon themselves to search a student’s possessions without his knowledge, presence or consent. I do not mean to say AU students should not consider AMIDEAST — they do run a very organized program. But this situation is one AU students should know.
Mostly though, I mention this because I again feel the same emotion which welled up inside me when I discovered my empty rucksack. That time, I moved on, chalking up Zeynep’s privacy invasion to cultural differences.
But this time, it is my countrymen who seem to have forgotten the values of the nation they promote abroad. While promoting American culture, they no longer seem to believe in America’s basic values — individual dignity, individual privacy and the due process of judgement. Instead, aiming for expediency, they have, in my mind, shamed the nation whose flag they honor.
Once again, I am gripped with profound unease.
You can reach this columnist at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
