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Show -jressions of the Middle East wfort note This news-(( news-(( is grateful for this ser-articles ser-articles written by Gary nee reviewing acthities mie of the experiences of Kt the BYU entertainment troupe touring the Middle East, under auspices of the State Department. Depart-ment. Iraq When I was a little boy in Sunday School, I remember the first time I was introduced to the story of the Tower of Babel. Bab-el. The idea that some people got together to build a tower into heaven seemed absolutely incredible. My astonishment was accented by my view of the towering Wasatch moun- graphic standpoint and therefore there-fore every viewpoint is going to differ a little from every other viewpoint. The fact that Russia is an enemy to the Western-oriented nations has more impact on the average Iraqui, whose country borders on Russia, than it has on the average American half a world away. The stability of the Iraqui government has a deeper deep-er practical meaning to the Dutch, for example, who must rely on Iraq for their oil, than it does to the oilman in America Amer-ica who can rely on his own reserves. So it is when we try to understand un-derstand some of the many interesting in-teresting international situations situa-tions today. Just as a simple fact of Iraq geography helped me understand why the people who once lived in what is now Iraq wanted to build a huge tower, so also ,can just a few basic facts in geography, natural na-tural resources, political structure struc-ture and history help us gain sufficient insight into world troublespots so as to render us capable of intelligent discussion dis-cussion and action. Wise, 90 . years ago is often overlooked because it started the same day as the Great Chicago Fire. tain range through the church window. As I analyzed this story at various points of my life, an actual feeling for the motives these people possessed eluded me even though on intellectual understanding of why they built the tower began to take form. It was not until a few days ago that a genuine feeling feel-ing for their position came to me. Baghdad, Iraq, is situated on the banks of the famous Tigris Ti-gris River. Between the Tigris and the Euphrates flourished in centuries past some of the most famous and powerful civilizations civ-ilizations the world has known. The Babylonians, Sumerians, Akkadians and Assyrians were just a few. We found the opportunity op-portunity to visit the remains of some of their cities, to stand where their kings and soldiers had stood and to view the world as they might have done. The effect was fascinating. fascin-ating. As we traveled out into the desert to the ruins of Babylon, Ba-bylon, I was amazed by the lay of the land. Never have I experienced ex-perienced a countryside so perfectly per-fectly flat. In every direction the only break in the flatness was an occasional mound denoting de-noting the ruins of some ancient an-cient .civilization. It was only then that I felt I possessed an insight as to why people wanted want-ed to build the Tower of Babel into heaven. But this experience took on deeper meaning as the days passed. Each country views the world situations from a geo- |