Former queen of Jordan, Queen Noor Al-Hussein, speaks to an audience in Macky Auditorium Thursday night. (CU Independent/Lee Pruitt)
CU students can find common ground with each other through a former queen.
Students and locals filled Macky Auditorium Thursday to hear the former queen of Jordan, Queen Noor Al-Hussein, as she spoke on global relations, cultural miscommunications and the part youth can play in this.
Her majesty, dressed casually in a turquoise blouse and trousers, introduced herself as an Arab-American-born citizen turned Jordanian royalty when she married King Hussein bin Talal in 1978.
Annie Beall, a 20-year-old junior sociology major, said the Queen eloquently delivered positive messages for the future.
“It was really cool to see a leader that was so poised and with such positive and plausible ideas for the future,” Beall said.
Al-Hussein said that she identifies with both the West and the East.
“[The West and Middle East] are not separate entities, but rather wholly consistent and constituent parts of who I am….” Al-Hussein said.
Humans, she said, who universally share 99.9 percent of the same DNA, have more in common than they realize. In this regard, she said it is important for individuals to focus more on their similarities than on their differences.
“Only .1 percent separates every Christian and Muslim…,” Al-Hussein said. “There is more that unites us than differentiates us.”
Tahani Al Ali, a 20-year-old sophomore human resources major, said that she found this biological fact interesting.
“What she said about people having similar DNA was really cool,” Al Ali said.
Olubiyi Ogundipe, a 19-year-old junior economics major, said that he related to the Queen’s discussion on cultural connections.
“I’m Nigerian, and I can relate to what she said about [bridging cultures],” Ogundipe said.
An advocate for peace and a human rights, Queen Noor also co-leads Global Zero, an international campaign that is striving to eliminate all nuclear weaponry from the earth, she said. They are collecting signatures around the world for this global petition.
Queen Noor addressed another problem that disrupts global peace: the Western media’s role in distorting perceptions of Middle Eastern people.
“The media can have a disruptive, destructive impact,” she said. “Can it have a positive impact?”
Al-Hussein said that the media should be used to educate the public in order to promote tolerance of other cultures. She said that CU, with its annual hosting of the Conference of World Affairs, is already partaking in this.
“CU is on the cutting edge of this kind of dialogue,” she said.
Queen Noor said that technology is the key to unlocking the cultural miscommunications that we face, by bridging the gap that exists between cultures. It is up to this generation, the youth, to make changes, she said.
“This may be the most important time in the history of the world to be a student,” she said. “You have the world at your fingertips, and the ability to break through barriers of the past with the click of a button.”
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Jennifer De Falco at Jennifer.Defalco@colorado.edu.
