Robinson Continues To Clear Up
International Misconceptions
By Courtney Bonoyer

 

Nova Robinson, a Bethel native and recent Dartmouth graduate, met with the Herald on Tuesday to discuss her Fulbright Scholarship that will take her to Bahrain to study women in Muslim society. (Herald / Tim Calabro)

Terrorists, oil sheiks, harems—these are some words that come to a lot of American’s minds when they think about the Middle East. While these words may be true for a few people, it’s a gross misconception for the majority of them.

Nova Robinson of Bethel feels that it’s time to clear up international misconceptions like these. That’s why she is involved with experiences such as her two international exchange trips to Italy, and her upcoming Fulbright Scholarship to Bahrain.

The Fulbright Program has been around since 1946 and Shirley Green, who is on the scholarship board, describes it as a way of "increasing mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of more than 150 countries that currently participate in the Fulbright Program."

Robinson is using her scholarship to go to Bahrain to learn more about "the mechanisms that are in place to educate Bahraini women about their political rights, what systems are developing and of those, which are successful and why." She will distribute surveys to women from various backgrounds and interview women who have risen to political prominence.

In order to make this happen, Robinson had to go through the process of sending in an application stating what her project was going to be and where she wanted to work on it, research the area, be interviewed and wait. From the time she sent in her preliminary application to the time she found she’d been accepted, the whole process took about a year. She was the last person at Dartmouth to find out they’d been accepted into the program.

Robinson will leave in September to spend three to six months in Amman, Jordan learning the language and then she will go on to Bahrain to work on her project. She chose Bahrain because her mother, Rebecca Carlton, grew up in Saudi Arabia, very near Bahrain; the country is small, so it will be easier for her to learn a lot about the culture; and because of the amazing progress women have made politically there.

Women in Bahrain have been fighting to be able to vote, much like women in America did. In 2002, they were finally able to not only vote, but also be candidates. In 2004, Dr. Nada Haffadh became the Minister of Health, making her the first female cabinet minister. In 2006 Lateefa al Gaood became the first female to be elected to Council of Representatives in Bahrain.

From her experiences there, Robinson hopes to be able to educate others about Bahrain and the Middle East. Due to the media giving Americans a very narrow view of other cultures, especially Middle Eastern ones, many people have the idea that, despite there being 22 Arab countries, they are all the same. That is far from correct. For example, Robinson lived in Egypt for a year and says it’s far different from what she knows about Bahrain. Bahrain, being an oil rich place, is more affluent and has more resources than Egypt.

When Robinson gets back in the fall of 2009 the self-described nerd plans on going to graduate school, either for journalism or women’s history. As for the Fulbright Program, she feels it’s important and something she may not have taken part in, if not for support system she had from living in a small town like Bethel.

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