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Look out Savior, here comes Gibran Hamdan: the Palestinian Pistol
They don't come much more American in terms of values and personal background than [Bills] quarterback Gibran Hamdan, which is what his father intended even when work called the family back to the Middle East in 1984.
Latif Hamdan, a Palestinian, got offered a job by the Kuwaiti Institute of Scientific Research, and saw it as an opportunity to move his family closer to his native homeland. At the time, Hamdan and his wife, Laila, lived in San Diego and Gibran was just 3.
Gibran, now 26, immersed himself from a very young age in the three most popular sports among all American kids – baseball, basketball and football – during his formative years spent in Kuwait, and his best friends also were Americans from places like Texas and Georgia. He had a chance to learn more about the Middle Eastern culture his father was raised in while attending the American School of Kuwait.
But when Gibran was 9 and back in San Diego on vacation, his family's future was drastically altered, as was that of Kuwait's. On August 2, 1990, under the order of their leader Saddam Hussein, more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and 700 tanks invaded Kuwait.
"We never went back because there was nothing to go back to," Gibran recalls. "Money was gone, our house was gone. Everything vanished into thin air. We knew family members and friends that were in the vicinity or around when the invasion happened, but it obviously became a very difficult thing to communicate with them to see where they ended up."
...
Since President George W. Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, Gibran has been sought out by teammates in Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and now Miami [and Buffalo] for help in understanding the people of Iraq. It's something he doesn't mind discussing, but he's quick to remind those asking the questions that his view isn't any different than theirs.
"I'm cautious initially and I've warned them that my point of view is very Americanized considering my parents raised me that way and wanted me to be American," Gibran says. "But I do have an idea a little bit of the thought process in those countries. My father was born and raised in Palestine and it's a difficult thing. Actually, the teammates that ask me are usually the ones that have a good perspective on it because they are open to finding out.
"I think that's the key thing. As we move forward as a country and as the public wants to look over there and decide what we should do or not do, I think the key to it is being open to another culture. Yeah, maybe somebody's different than you, that doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Now they could be, in your eyes, but in their eyes they look at it totally differently, and if anything my travels have shown me that."
To that end, Gibran feels the biggest misconception about the Middle East is that there is something culturally wrong with the Middle Eastern culture. He believes it is important to recognize that there is beauty and goodness in all cultures or else they wouldn't exist.
just be sure to check the soles of his cleats before he takes the field
if he throws a hail mary should we call it a suicide bomb
if he plays in an overtime game dont mention sudden death
edwards has installed a checkpoint in front of his locker
dadum bum i got a million of em
They don't come much more American in terms of values and personal background than [Bills] quarterback Gibran Hamdan, which is what his father intended even when work called the family back to the Middle East in 1984.
Latif Hamdan, a Palestinian, got offered a job by the Kuwaiti Institute of Scientific Research, and saw it as an opportunity to move his family closer to his native homeland. At the time, Hamdan and his wife, Laila, lived in San Diego and Gibran was just 3.
Gibran, now 26, immersed himself from a very young age in the three most popular sports among all American kids – baseball, basketball and football – during his formative years spent in Kuwait, and his best friends also were Americans from places like Texas and Georgia. He had a chance to learn more about the Middle Eastern culture his father was raised in while attending the American School of Kuwait.
But when Gibran was 9 and back in San Diego on vacation, his family's future was drastically altered, as was that of Kuwait's. On August 2, 1990, under the order of their leader Saddam Hussein, more than 100,000 Iraqi soldiers and 700 tanks invaded Kuwait.
"We never went back because there was nothing to go back to," Gibran recalls. "Money was gone, our house was gone. Everything vanished into thin air. We knew family members and friends that were in the vicinity or around when the invasion happened, but it obviously became a very difficult thing to communicate with them to see where they ended up."
...
Since President George W. Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, Gibran has been sought out by teammates in Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and now Miami [and Buffalo] for help in understanding the people of Iraq. It's something he doesn't mind discussing, but he's quick to remind those asking the questions that his view isn't any different than theirs.
"I'm cautious initially and I've warned them that my point of view is very Americanized considering my parents raised me that way and wanted me to be American," Gibran says. "But I do have an idea a little bit of the thought process in those countries. My father was born and raised in Palestine and it's a difficult thing. Actually, the teammates that ask me are usually the ones that have a good perspective on it because they are open to finding out.
"I think that's the key thing. As we move forward as a country and as the public wants to look over there and decide what we should do or not do, I think the key to it is being open to another culture. Yeah, maybe somebody's different than you, that doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Now they could be, in your eyes, but in their eyes they look at it totally differently, and if anything my travels have shown me that."
To that end, Gibran feels the biggest misconception about the Middle East is that there is something culturally wrong with the Middle Eastern culture. He believes it is important to recognize that there is beauty and goodness in all cultures or else they wouldn't exist.
just be sure to check the soles of his cleats before he takes the field
if he throws a hail mary should we call it a suicide bomb
if he plays in an overtime game dont mention sudden death
edwards has installed a checkpoint in front of his locker
dadum bum i got a million of em
Romes!!!!
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