January8, 2007:
The war on terror puts a premium on "cultural awareness." But in the
Arab world, being aware of the culture, and reporting on it accurately, can be
considered politically incorrect back home. Consider, for example, some of the
things that expatriates, working in Arabia, have been reporting for decades,
and now thousands of U.S. troops are experiencing as well.
Arabs
have a different attitude towards work. While Americans have a thing for
"keeping busy" and being entrepreneurs, Arabs look up to the man of leisure.
Government jobs, which require little work, are much sought after in the Arab
countries. While there are hard workers and entrepreneurs in Arab countries,
they are not admired as they are in the United States. This difference in
attitudes creates all sorts of "culture clash" problems, as both groups see
their attitudes as the natural and normal ones. Each groups sees the others
attitudes as alien and odd. However, the lack of hard work and initiative is a
major reason why the Arab world has fallen behind other cultures in the last
fifty years. Arab countries with oil have used a lot of the money to hire
foreigners to do their work for them, rather than investing in their economy
and education. Thus countries like South Korea, which has no oil, and was
poorer than most Arab countries half a century, is now wealthier than any Arab
nation. The South Korean example is one of many similar ones in the Far East
and other parts of the world. Arabs are coming to accept that their work habits
may have something to do with their shabby economic condition, but this is
still a minority opinion.
Arabs
really have a problem with personal responsibility, which is a bedrock
characteristic in any strong economy. The cause of this Arab problem is the
concept of "inshallah" ("If God wills it.") This is a basic tenet of
Islam, although some scholars believe the attitude preceded that religion. In
any event, "inshallah" is deadly when combined with modern technology. For this
reason, Arab countries either have poorly maintained infrastructure and
equipment (including military stuff), or import a lot of foreigners, possessing
the right attitudes, to maintain everything. That minority of Arabs who do have
the right attitude towards maintenance and personal responsibility are
considered odd, but useful. The "inshallah" thing is made worse by a stronger
belief in the supernatural, and magic in general. This often extends to
technology. Thus many Iraqis believe that American troops wear sunglasses that
see through clothing, and armor vests that are actually air conditioned. When
they first encounter these beliefs, U.S. troops thought the Arabs are putting
them on. Then it sinks in that Arabs really believe this stuff. It's a scary
moment.
Arab
loyalties rarely put nation at the top. Family, clan and tribe always come
first. This is not unusual, but the lack of patriotism is definitely more
pronounced in Arab lands. This also leads to trust issues, since foreigners are
considered the ultimate outsider, and someone an Arab is free to exploit any
way he can. Building trust with Arabs is difficult. You can do favors, even
save lives, and that will get you some gratitude. But friendship in the Western
sense is hard to come by, and easily lost. This is further complicated by
religious issues. Islam has a strong "us versus them" component. Westerners who
are Moslems have a much easier time getting along, but will eventually
encounter that Arab attitude that there are Arab Moslems, and then all manner
of inferior non-Arab Moslems.
Arabs
are more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories, and weird stuff in
general. Many Arabs really believe that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks
were all an Israel or CIA plot, and that Arabs had nothing to do with. This
despite the fact that Osama bin Laden has publicly taken credit for the
attacks. Just go take a look at the English language versions of some Arab
newspapers for some examples. Note that the Arab language versions are even
more out there. Arabs who learn English also tend to learn that the world is
not as wild and fantastical as they were raised to believe, and results in the
English versions of Arab media being rather more sedate.
Islam
tends to discourage Western "two points of view" type thinking. Many religions
think of themselves as the "one true faith," but Islam is rather more insistent
about that point. This is why so much terrorism these days is carried out by
Islamic radicals. While only a minority of Arabs are that fanatical, the
majority believe Arabs are right, and the rest of the world is not. And there's
no room for discussing this matter. This attitude makes compromise
difficult.
Arabs
are well aware of the fact that the rest of the world, especially their ancient
enemy, the Christian West, but also the rather more alien Far East, have
surpassed the Arab world economically, and in many other ways as well. The
popular Arab response is that it's all a foreign conspiracy to destroy
Islamic civilization. This sort of thing is alien thinking to most Americans,
who take if for granted that Arabs could fix all their problems if they just
united and got down to work. But the divisions of tribe and clan, plus
"inshallah", makes that very difficult. For many Arabs, it's "them or us," not
"them and us." Arabs, more than Westerners, see the current wave of Islamic
terrorism as a battle of civilizations. This attitude is slowly changing in the
Arab world, but the majority of Arabs still see themselves as blameless victims
of Western oppression.