Part I: My Intellectual Journey Through Our Course

Intellectually, this course has provided a powerful new set of “lenses” for understanding difficult topics. I’ve learned that concepts like identity, bias, and trauma aren’t just abstract theories; they are lived realities with serious consequences. Four key experiences were central to this:

1. The “Spent” and “BBC Syrian Refugees” Games
   • These two games, “Spent” and “BBC Syrian Refugees,” surprised me and made me think. They taught me about the illusion of choice. While playing “Spent,” I survived the month, but I had to make heartbreaking sacrifices, like telling my son “no” to ice cream, which made me feel like a “terrible father.” This taught me that poverty isn’t just a lack of money; it’s the crushing weight of impossible choices and the loss of the freedom to be human.
   • The “BBC Syrian Refugees” game was even more intense. It made me feel anxious and hopeless as every choice led to more danger. I ended up in a camp, and when I discussed it with a friend, I realized I had failed where he had survived. This hit me hard: in real life, people don’t get a second chance to learn from their mistakes. These games helped me understand how quickly life can change and how hard it is to make the right choices.

1. Reading the article: “How African is Northern Africa“
   • This reading directly challenged how I think about identity. The Tunisian joke that people only feel “African” during the Africa Cup of Nations felt incredibly true. It helped me understand that identity is a complex mix of culture, language, and religion, not just a place on a map. It deconstructed the simple question “Where are you from?” and showed me that it’s often a “stereotyping” question. This connected perfectly to a recent Soliya session where our facilitator asked, “What is home to you?” I realized that home, for me, isn’t just geography; it’s a place where I feel a sense of belonging and appreciation. This course gave me the intellectual tools to have that deeper realization.

1. The video: “The Danger of a Single Story“
   • This video provided the foundational concept for the entire course. It taught me that stereotypes and bias aren’t always born from malice. Instead, they come from incomplete, single stories repeated over and over. This was a crucial intellectual takeaway because it explains the mechanism of “othering” and why it’s so powerful. It gave me a framework for understanding why the media, and even we, often flatten complex human beings (like refugees in the BBC game or those in poverty in “Spent”) into one simple narrative.

1. Language and Trauma: The Lina Mounzer Article
   • This essay was perhaps the most profound intellectual experience. It taught me three main things:
     1. Words hold feelings. The author explained how her Arabic “war words” (like qazeefeh) were “heavy” with fear, but the English word “shell” felt light and useless which showed me how much meaning can be lost when we translate words.
     2. The power of a word’s root. The connection between the Arabic root شهد (witness) and the words for “martyr” (shaheed) and “to be martyred” (استشه ا د) was amazing. The idea that “to be martyred” can mean “to have been witnessed” was totally new to me.
     3. Victims are not simple. The example of smuggling chocolates as an act of “living, not just surviving” changed my own “single story” of victims. It taught me to see that people in hard times still look for joy, and that is a way to resist.

My remaining questions are less about “what” and more about “how.”:  How can I, in a real conversation, help someone see beyond their “single story” without making them defensive? How can I share a feeling with my words to help someone understand?

I want to use my Soliya experience like a “lab” to practice this. I want to listen to the heavy words people use and ask good questions that show life is complicated.

Part II: What I’ve Learned About Myself

This course helped me look at myself to reflect on my own identity. The Identity Stripping Activity was deeply emotional. Being forced to remove words that describe me taught me what I really care about. Furthermore, I had the same activity in my second Soliya session: the facilitator gave us 5 identities (nationality, religion, hobbies/things you’re good at, friends, etc…) and asked us to order them from the least one that represent our identity, to the most one: it was really confusing for me and it made me think deeply about what my identity is really about and what represents me infront of others.

Similarly, the Identity Wheel  made me think hard. It made me see the difference between “how I see myself” and “how others see me.” It made me ask, for the first time, if the world sees the same “me” that I do.

This is exactly what I expect to explore in my Soliya and GCC experiences. My identity as a collaborator is strong; I love working with my GCC group and the US students. But I am also bringing my specific cultural identity into a diverse space. My Soliya group (Group 5) is already helping me enrich my self-knowledge. We are discussing immigration, and it’s forcing me to define “home” (connecting back to the “Northern Africa” article). By interacting with people from different backgrounds, Soliya is showing me which parts of my “Identity Wheel” become most visible and how my self-perception lines up with their perception of me. I am not just meeting people; I am getting a clearer picture of myself.

Part III: How I’ve Learned to Interact

This course has been a practical workshop in becoming a better “global citizen.” When the semester started, I was shy. Now, I feel comfortable sharing my ideas, and that change is a direct result of the class structure.

We learned how to have good conversations because we were given the right tools. The Community Agreements were the most useful tool, providing a blueprint for respectful interaction. Learning to “Critique ideas not people” and “Respect whoever is speaking even if you don’t agree” are not just rules for a classroom; they are rules for life and daily situations. The most important thing I learned was also respecting others’ gender and pronouns, I didn’t know about this because it is not common in my culture but it is really helpful for me because I will be in need with it one day. Everyone should be aware of this to not disrespect a person.

The “Fast Friends” activity was also fantastic practice. It taught me that some questions (like “What would be a perfect day for you?”) are the fastest way to bypass small talk and build a real connection. I also learned from our doctor the importance of respecting details like pronouns, which shows how small acts of respect can prevent someone from feeling left out.

My question going forward is: How do you handle it when someone breaks the agreements? How do you balance being “open-minded” with the need to challenge a harmful “single story”?

My goal for Soliya is to master being a good “global digital citizen.” It’s one thing to practice these skills in class, but it’s another to do it online with people you’ve just met. I want to use Soliya to truly practice “making space for others” and being aware of my own impact in a conversation.

Part IV: The Palestine Discussion in Soliya

This question is not hypothetical for me. The issue of Palestine already came up in my Soliya session, and it was like a real test of everything we’ve learned.

As we were discussing global issues, a participant from the United States mentioned the war in Palestine. I’ll be honest, I was surprised. It was not what I expected. That moment immediately challenged my own “single story” about what a US citizen might think or be willing to say. It proved that this topic brings up strong emotions and complex perspectives from all sides.

Even though my group’s final topic is now immigration, that moment was powerful. It showed me that these issues are all connected.

If the discussion had continued, I would want to direct it by using our Community Agreements as an anchor. My goal would not be to win a debate, but to listen. I would want to understand the heavy words that each person was using.

The support I would need is exactly the support Soliya provides: a strong facilitator and a group that has built enough trust to be vulnerable. We would need to collectively agree to “critique ideas, not people” and listen with the intent to understand, not just to reply. That moment showed me how difficult this work is, but also how important it is.

–>I used AI for refining and structuring the paragraph, but I did not like the given result so I modified most of it which took me almost 2 hours: link