What I Learned About Culture In A Garden

June 3rd, 2013 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

Waking up in my London hotel room last week, getting ready to make my presentation at a conference later that morning, the BBC repeatedly reminded me from the telly that “today was the first day of the Royal Chelsea Flower Show”.  I found this exciting news.  I mean, here I was England, and what is more English than the British love for their gardens.  And as I mulled this over, getting ready to leave the hotel for the day, I realized that I would have about three hours at the end of the day free.  Wouldn’t  it be lovely, I thought, to take some free time and head for a few hours to the Royals Chelsea Flower Show, and experience an authentic cultural archetype: London, Chelsea, flowers, and Britons.  Indeed, the three free hours at the end of  my day were, in fact, a karmic opportunity for this interculturalist, for yet another opportunity to experience culture’s powerful influence on how and what we believe, think and feel.

The show was an overwhelming combination of everything British, from punk to class to Victoriana to crowds of global citizens to Pimms Cups, military bands, and gorgeous, bountiful flowers, in short, people and nature, in all forms, in a perfectly British setting.  I found a peaceful bench and plunked myself down to enjoy the sights and sounds, and found myself, under the influence of all things botanical, thinking about the garden as a representation of the way we think, and culture’s influence on that.  Someone once observed that the English garden is designed to allow nature to bloom into what it is meant to be, with the role of the human being that of a caretaker, allowing nature to do what it does best.  The result is beauty based on naturalism.  Compare that to the French garden, and I thought about the various times I’ve strolled through the perfectly manicured, almost cossetted, formal French gardens of the Tuilleries, with nary a wild growing plant, or even a misplaced tree in sight.  No grass, just gravel, defining boundaries and markers where this can grow, but this cannot.  The French garden achieves its beauty based a vision of perfection, and man’s role here is to apply rational control over nature, in order to achieve this mathematical representation of precision.  Beauty in both gardens, but defined in different ways, and achieved through very different human behaviors.  The resulting values of both French and English societies, the way we educate our children, our expectations regarding the role of children and adults, students and teachers, managers and staff, and yes, even the way we grow our gardens, are all powerfully determined by our culture, indeed.  Thanks for the learning, Royal Chelsea Flower Show…and for some beautiful flowers!

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Communications, Gardens, London, cross-cultural | No Comments »

Why I Worry About China

May 16th, 2013 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

There are the obvious reasons, the most obvious being that China is the second most economically powerful nation in the world today, and anyone who appreciates the global interconnectedness of human endeavor in the 21st century has to come to terms with an economic power of that magnitude.  China has the fastest growing military in the world today.  And any of the statistics regarding China’s rise over the last decade that are periodically trotted out are always sobering: i.e., the standard deviation when calculating China’s population is itself greater than the entire US population; China is the world’s largest English-speaking nation; China is the second greatest contributor to global warming (the US is #1), but trumps the US as #1 in the pace at which it continues to add to the problem.

But none of the above really keeps me awake at night.  Any nation – including the US – claiming a superpower position, economically, socially or politically, should justifiably be a cause for concern.  There has, is and always will be a nation or supra-national entity (like the EU) holding the top power spots, and if it weren’t China or the US today, it would be someone else.

No, what worries me about China is something specific to the nature of China.  I am speaking of certain genes in the Chinese cultural DNA that, when magnified through Chinese power, present some terrifying scenarios for the rest of the world.  Specifically, I am referring to Confucian situational ethics, and the challenge that presents for the world as China makes the kind of political, economic and military decisions that great powers make.  This issue is beginning to be reflected in the headlines, from China’s cozying up to African regimes so reprehensible that the rest of the world has refused to work with them, in order to satisfy its voracious appetite for natural resources; its continuous selective interpretation of history in order to justify domestic repression of minorities and political reformers; and its willful irresponsibility for global ecology.  All of this is occurring precisely because Chinese decision-making is premised on Confucian ideas of situation-based or contextual truth, which at the end of the day, despite Chinese claims to it providing more nuanced interpretations of right and wrong based on situational context, actually allows for decision-making in the absence of a moral north star.  Present actions can only portend what we cannot imagine for the future.

While 5000+ years of Chinese civilization has certainly provided a philosophical tradition rich in intellectual treasures that contribute to human thought, the glaring absence of a legacy that searches for moral right and wrong is significantly worrisome as Chinese power is exerted around the world.  While Confucian situation-based ethics has increasingly been incorporated as an intellectual counterweight to equally dangerous sterile rationality – and its sometimes awful consequences – that has historically emerged from time to time in the west, there has been little in the modern Chinese experience that actively seeks to incorporate western notions of moral right and wrong.  The western legacy of a search for a moral north star began with Plato and his notion of “ideals”, runs through Judeo-Christian notions of “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not”; and is fundamental to the continuing western philosophical pursuit of “truth” and “knowing”.  Nothing of this kind exists in Confucian, Taoist or Buddhist thought, and if the west has achieved anything, it is the establishment of the need for a moral standard.

Without such a base, decisions can more likely be made based on situational expediency, a frightening and ultimately self-destructive scenario for any nation as powerful as China.

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , ,
Posted in China, Economics, Global Issues, politics | No Comments »

Bill Gates Needs Cultural Training…Not Excuses!

April 23rd, 2013 by Dean Foster | 2 Comments | Discuss This »

So we have the inevitable culture clash between a formal, hierarchically structured Confucian society, where roles and associated behaviors are rigidly defined, and the uber-informal culture of the Pacific Northwest and the IT business world, where any kind of rank and formality is relegated to ancient history, and informal, breezy individually competitive behaviors is valued.  The result?  Bill Gates greets the President of South Korea with one hand in his pocket, and the entire country is aghast and insulted.  As it should be.

It is one thing to legitimately claim ignorance of cultural differences as a defense when such gaffes are made, when the stakes may not be high.  But Bill Gates is a major public figure, as is the President of South Korea.  And he should know, as she most definitely does, that what he does and says carries great import.  What he was saying when he so casually refused to remove his hand from his pocket was that not only did he not bother to take the time to understand the culture of his host, but that such knowledge was unnecessary.  This behavior not only reflects ignorance, it reflects arrogance.  Major companies have long ago realized that ignoring cultural differences puts them at a significant disadvantage when attempting to do business with associates abroad: it creates extra cost, time, and puts individuals and projects at great risk.  Competitors who do understand this often have a significant advantage: after all, would you rather work with someone who you feel comfortable with, or someone you don’t?  In the 21st century, the competitive advantage often does not lie with hard skill expertise, as competing companies often have similar hard skill expertise, and Microsoft understands this competitive challenge all too well today.  In the global century, the competitive “tipping point” in fact goes to those organizations who know how to leverage cultural differences to accelerate their cross-border interactions.  Bill Gate’s behavior indicates a lack of appreciation for his very bottom-line fact.  Individuals, nation-states and companies all exist today in a post-global world where cultural contact is a fact of life.   There simply is no wiggle room for cultural ignorance, and no defense for it when it happens.

http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/koreans-slap-bill-gates-rude-handshake-113610749–abc-news-topstories.html

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Communications, South Korea, business, cross-cultural | 2 Comments »

Boston Marathon Terror: Choosing Violence Over Victory

April 18th, 2013 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

It’s hard getting through the day sometimes, especially on days where terror, so prevalent daily in so many parts of the world, strikes close to home.  It becomes hard to keep perspective on the fact that every day in some part of the world, terror is killing innocent people, when it hits your own neighborhood.  Then – and often only then – does terror remind us of one of the saddest realities of the human condition in the 21st century: the ubiquity of unprecedented levels of violence directed at the innocent.  Boston brought that home for me, a New Yorker, once again.

I am also an interculturalist, and the Boston terror attack also reminded me of an intercultural reality that is all too easy to overlook and admit: that cultural contact does not inherently produce peace, brotherhood, understanding and kumbaya.  If anything, cultural contact, as a phenomenon in and of itself, and in the absence of real understanding and intentional effort to implement justice, opportunity and equality (the hard work), when it occurs more likely produces misunderstanding, hostility, and violence.  In the 21st century, technology, communication, transportation, the development of global culture and global work, all have produced opportunities for cultural contact on a massive scale, never experienced before in human history.  But we need to be clear: this increased cultural contact by itself tends to produce, possibly an awareness of differences, but no real understanding of those differences, and without those intentional efforts at justice and opportunity that I mentioned above, cultural contact in and of itself, can more often become a reason for violent conflict.  This has been the historic pattern, and there is no reason to believe that it won’t continue in our century…exponentially, in fact, as our cultural contact experiences have increased exponentially in a globalized world.

It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, that wherever we have the opportunity for cultural contact, we also have the opportunity for violence, whether the venue is a “global gathering” like a marathon, an Olympics, or a G10 meeting; or a social or civic venue where cultures gather, like in a movie theater, factory, office or school.  There is, of course, in cultural contact, also the opportunity for learning, growth, new experiences, new ways of being, thinking and doing.  The choice in how we respond to cultural contact is always there: we can learn from it, or we can react violently against it.  And while the choice is always being made for reasons, sane and sometimes not, that have nothing immediately to do with cultural contact and more to do with political agendas and personality disorders, these choices are being made in our 21st century world, which is a world of intense cultural contact.  Sadly, the great global gathering of the Boston marathon in a sense became a flashpoint for the expression of a choice that was made by some individual or group, to advance terror instead of celebrating the possibilities of our interconnected humanity that the marathon represented.  Until the benefits of intercultural understanding, justice and opportunity are extended to all, I am afraid we will need to endure more such awful choices in the future.  In a world filled with cultural contact, we have new opportunities to see ourselves in new and different ways, to learn from each other as never before in human history, but whether we choose to do so, is the terrible question.

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , ,
Posted in American culture, Boston, Current Events, Terrorism | No Comments »

Obama’s “Cool” Israeli Reception: Is It More Than Just Politics?

March 31st, 2013 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

Yes, of course, Obama and Israel have had a lukewarm relationship from the start, we all know that: ever since Obama made his speech at Cairo University holding an open palm out to the Arab world at the beginning of his first term, and insisted that Palestinians have a right to their own state, Israel (and particularly Bibi and the more extreme right elements of the Israeli political spectrum) have viewed his administration as less of a “friend” than previous US (Republican) administrations…we all know this.  Given this political backdrop, it was not surprising that the reception Obama received in his recent first trip to Israel was “cool”  (tepid, some observers have remarked).  But our job in this blog is to always dig a little deeper than the surface politics, policies, and economics, and to look for the essential cultural genes that are, we believe, the drivers behind all the politics, economics and policies of any people.  And when we dig a little deeper into the Isreali cultural DNA, we find a cultural gene that pre-determines Israeli behavior when faced with political situations – and presidents – that Israelis find troublesome.

I am speaking about the interpersonal Israeli communication style that is the result of the “sabra” cultural gene.  “Sabra” is Hebrew for the fruit of the prickly pear, or the cactus fruit. The fruit is, indeed, prickly and thorny on the outside, but sweet and tender on the inside, and this description is often used to describe the Isreali cultural personality: until an Israeli has knowledge of, and consequent trust in, the other person, the communication style can appear to be brusque, dismissive, demanding, “cool” and distant.  As knowledge and trust of the other individual grows, warmth can develop quickly, the thorns having been navigated, and the relationship becomes sweet and tasty.  It should be noted that this often stands in contrast with the typical Arab communication pattern, which more typically demands an open effusiveness at first, a welcoming and hosting of the stranger as if they are a long lost friend, and that as knowledge of the other is then gained, trust is or is not built.  So, for Arabs, there is the appearance by the outsider of at first inherent welcoming trust which may turn later on, as knowledge of real intentions is gained, to dismissive rejection or continued intense personal obligations, while for Israelis there is the appearance by the outsider of at first suspicious and cautious, “cool” and sometimes aggressively challenging skepticism, which gives way to warmth and acceptance (or not) as knowledge of real intentions is gained.

From this cultural perspective, the “cool” reception that Obama received was not only a reaction to the political realities of the US-Israeli relationship, but also an expression, at the deeper cultural level, of the Israeli “Sabra” cultural personality.  This interpersonal communication style difference is also at the heart of many communication misunderstandings between Arabs and Israelis day-to-day…on the street, and at the highest levels of diplomatic communications.

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in "Cultural DNA(c)", Current Events, Global Issues, Israel, Sabra Culture, politics | No Comments »

Panama Booming, Centroamerica Collapsing. Is Something Cultural Going On Here?

March 19th, 2013 by Dean Foster | 4 Comments | Discuss This »

If you were living in any of the seven centroamerican countries these days, and had the economic option of living in any of these countries in the absence of any individual factors which would make the choice of one more advantageous than the other (like, you are coincidentally, a member of the ruling elite of your present country!), most people in centroamerica would choose Panama.  Maybe Costa Rica, although Costa Rica has been on a disconcerting slide of late from its previously secure slot as the go-to democracy of the region.  Now this is not based on any official survey, just a cultural gut reaction from recent informal chats I’ve been having with my centroamerican colleagues.

Here’s what’s been happening: Panama’s been booming economically, Costa Rica has not, and the rest of the countries in the region have been reeling, both economically and politically, under the influence of a shifting drug trade, which has made centroamerica the entrepot for Andean cocaine to the vast North American marketplace, as opposed to former Colombia.  As Colombia has cleaned up its act, drug trafficking has moved in Darwinian free-trade fashion, to the next most opportune location, the wobbly and vulnerable nation-states of centroamerica.  This has predictably exacerbated the staggering problems that these countries have been dealing with since their inception: monumental income and class disparity based on land-ownership patterns, reinforced by ruling elites that represent the radical extremes of either right or left, influenced, in turn, economically, politically, and in some cases, militarily, by greater world powers (mainly the US).  Panama, with its newly expanded canal (parts of which are still be opened in the near future), is now benefitting from the enormous rise of Chinese economic clout, becoming the locus for the shipment of Chinese and Asian manufactured goods to the Americas and Europe, and in the reverse direction, for oil from the Middle East, Russia and the Americas (mainly Venezuela) going to China.  Hence, Panama booms as China booms.  At the same time, Colombia has ousted the drug traffickers as it has beefed up its nationstate apparatus, while the North American marketplace for Andean drugs remains as vital as ever.  Given Panama’s recent history having ousted a dictator who was once cozy with drug traffickers, Andean druglords, with oodles of influence and cash, have avoided a less receptive and less needy Panama and easily relocated their operations to centroamerica (absent Panama), where it is far easier to buy off police, military and entire governments to look the other way as they ensconce themselves into the daily life of already impoverished peoples.

Is any of this cultural?  Is there any cultural DNA at work that is fundamental to all of this, that underlies the political and economic realities of the region?  This blog always tries to look for the cultural DNA that creates the economic and political realities that define the current situation.  Cultural DNA, being fundamental to any culture, is created from the beginning of the history of a nation or a region, and in centroamerica, we discover the cultural genes of the indigenous cultures (Mayan mainly, from the northern states of current Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and the lack thereof of similarly powerful centralized and hierarchical indigenous civilizations in the central and southern states of current Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica), the conquest of Spain (and the institutionalization of a different, even more oppressive hierarchy, defined by unequal distribution of wealth and political access), and the challenge of US political, economic and military interests being repeatedly enforced at the expense of local sovereignty in every country repeatedly throughout the region.  In the absence of any counterweight to these cultural genetics, such as the independent rise of exceptional local political stability (ie, the democratic institutions of Costa Rica, itself a result of some unique Costa Rican cultural genes), or economic independence (read, the Panama situation), these historic cultural genes have made centroamerica receptive to the druglords of the Andes.  What the region, and the world so responsible in many ways for the current situation, does in the face of the current situation, is of course, the stuff of headlines yet to be seen.

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in "Cultural DNA(c)", Centro-America, Current Events, Economics, Global Issues, Latin America, Panama, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

Papal Resignation & the Berlusconi Election: Grand Italian Opera in Two Acts!

March 5th, 2013 by Dean Foster | 8 Comments | Discuss This »

Luigi Barzoni, in his great cultural analysis, The Italians, summed up the Italian approach to life: ignore problems for as long as you possibly can, and when you cannot ignore them any longer, make fun of them, dismiss their importance, sweep them under the rug, blame them on someone or something else, but never, never, never deal with them directly.  This leads, of course, to the great cultural dilemma of Italy: people who behave as irresponsibly as children (Mussolini said,  “it is not impossible to govern Italians, merely useless”), and a fervent energy put to decorating the imperfections of life, rather than eliminating them in the first place.   This results in, as any tourist to Italy will tell you, “a beautiful country to visit”, but, as any person having to live or work in Italy will also tell you, a “terrible place to live”.  In their effort to “decorate” life’s problems rather than deal with them, Italians have developed “la dolce vita”, a gorgeous tapestry of art, music, cuisine, and daily life, unmatched in its beauty, and terrible in its political, social and economic consequences.  This is no way to run a country, so politics, of course, becomes a grand opera, a circus, and the constant dismissing and minimizing of daily realities allows for the continuation of a fatalism that maintains that ultimately, it is impossible for anyone to do anything about problems, so the best way to get through the day is to, well, ignore them, admire the person who can find ways around them (at any ethical expense), and enjoy yourself as best you can.

The cultural question, of course, is “why”?  Why have Italians opted for this approach to dealing with life?  There are perhaps a number of cultural genes that explain this: fatalism, as mentioned, is one of them, and its sources are a self-perpetuating reinforcement of fatalism, beginning with the collapse of imperial Rome, a historically agricultural economy dependent on the whims of uncontrollable natural forces (including the occasional earthquake and erupting volcano), to the rise of the hierarchical and intentionally mysterious Roman Catholic Church.  In this kind of environment, rules, processes and systems were always undependable, uncontrollable, and the admired individual is the one who can either make the rules, or find ways around them; those who actually believed in the value of the rules, who bended to them, were either helpless, foolish, or both.  In addition to fatalism, however, is also the cultural gene of “bella Figura”, or, literally, “beautiful face”, where how things appear is of equal or greater value to how things really intrinsically are.  That the surface is a reflection of the inner, therefore, the more beautiful the surface, the more “correct” the interior.  This is, of course, backwards, but no matter, so that if you lie so that things appear to be OK when they are  not, that becomes admirable.  Mussolini used to parade the same small number of troops down the Via Veneto, then back up behind the houses, and out again, to make it seems as if there were endless men ready to fight in the Italian army.  A grand illusion, fulfilling every emotional wish, but having no rational basis.  Bella figura, when combined with a disregard for the rules and an admiration for those who can find ways around the rules, results in rewarding illusion, thuggery, cleverness.

Hence, today, we have the “double-headed” opera of Italy 2013 in 2 acts: a comic-tragedy of unbelievable political circus (literally, with a professional clown as one of the major candidates), and the resignation of the head of a disgraced church, being helicoptered out of its crumbling decay to protect himself from his inevitable culpability.  Ah, Italy.  A beautiful place to visit…and a terrible place to live.  And culture could have told you so!

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Current Events, Economics, Global Issues, Italy, Uncategorized, politics | 8 Comments »

Doomsday! Y2K! End-World Mayan Calendar! Meteor Strike in Russia!

February 21st, 2013 by Dean Foster | 1 Comment | Discuss This »

The Cultural Reasons Behind the “Chicken Little” Movement to Intercept What Heaven Sends Us … or Not.

The recent meteor strike in Russia produced, on the one hand, the predictable call to humble submission and awe in the face of that which only heaven can send us, and, on the other hand, a call to arms to muster the resources required to head off any future astronomical catastrophes.  It’s an interesting combination, from my perspective, which is always one of looking at the headlines through the cultural lens.  While the West was as awed as anyone by the event, it was not humbled by it.  In fact, the event produced just the opposite in the West: a renewed effort by organizations, some government, some private, to create the systems and weapons necessary to identify and intercept any future heaven-sent threats to our existence.  And while the Russians (not culturally part of the West by any stretch of the imagination) certainly appreciate the value of such a scientific interception project, their primary reaction was to view the event as proof of our human frailty to greater heavenly forces over which we have no control.  No doubt, actually experiencing a meteor strike – and at the very center of “Mother Russia” — can engender a more subjective response than if one were merely objectively observing the event from afar.  But that the subjective response in Russia was far more fatalistic and created an occasion to reflect on our human helplessness, and that the response in the west was far less humble, and created an occasion to apply human rational logic to stave off the next astronomic catastrophe, says much about the role of culture in both the west and Russia, especially at this moment in time.

Russian Orthodoxy is as mystical an interpretation of the Christ story as they come.  Its essence is the requirement to reject material evidence and human rationality and intercession, and to submit to faith, in its most illogical, mysterious forms.  Western Christianity, particularly the reformed kind known as Protestantism, which provided the theological underpinnings for the development of the rational Western mind, and the capitalist economic system that was one of the results of that mind, has struggled with the role of man and God since the beginning, and has created a theological universe not entirely based on faith with plenty of room for human rationality and intercession.  And while fundamentalism exists in both camps, fundamental Protestantism is, in many ways, a rejection of the too, too worldly nature of reformed Christianity; fundamentalist Eastern Orthodoxy is gilding an already too, too orthodox Christianity.  So while, at this moment in time, rejecting evidence, science and rational thought may be part of the dialogue in Protestant societies with a fundamentalist wing (read: creationism, rejection of global warming, evolution, etc.), it is fundamental to the Eastern Orthodox reality.  In Orthodoxy, submission to the unknowable is essential.  In Protestantism, it is a cult-like reaction to the all-too-scientific rationalism of modern, secular life.

Is it no surprise, therefore, that the primary reaction to the meteor strike in Russia, experiencing a surge in reactionary Putinesque thinking as it is at this time, was a submission to the unknowability of the event, and the primary reaction in the West was an attempt to bend and control the nature of such future events through human intercession?  Such is the power of culture.


FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , ,
Posted in "Cultural DNA(c)", Current Events, Uncategorized, cross-cultural, politics | 1 Comment »

What’s Your Number One Culture Tip for Working with Thailand?

October 8th, 2012 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

We’ve been getting great responses to our “What’s Your Number One Culture Tip for Working with …” questions, and one of this week’s responses from Jose Ignacio Diaz, speaks volumes for working with not only Thai, but many neighboring Southeast Asian Indochinese cultures.

I would say two [tips], in my experience:

Don’t let people “lose face.” For many Western employers and managers it sometimes is a little bit hard to follow, but it is critical. Tough messages should be transmitted in a “Thai way,” meaning, positive and never in public. It requires many times a very creative mind and an important dose of patience, but it pays back.

And smile. Thais are not used to falangs smiling. It takes them aback and is always welcome. Smiling in Thailand doesn’t mean “we are happy.” It is just a polite way to behave.

Sr Diaz’s recommendations are pithy and true, and totally appropriate for work in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Myanmar.  Follow this advice to the letter. It’s been my experience that any variation from the effort to always maintain smooth and harmonious relationships with smiles and conflict-avoidance will only cause more difficulty.  I cannot think of more important cultural advice than the following.

P.S.— Jose refers to falangs in his post, and that word, or farangs, as it is sometimes translated, means “foreigner” in Thai, and is a term usually referring to Westerners.

Thanks, Jose!

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Culture Tips, SE Asia | No Comments »

Connection Between Arab Street Rage and iPhone Launch Mania?

September 25th, 2012 by Dean Foster | Discuss This »

The two big and worthy news stories of the day on Friday last week were interesting. On one side of the world, we had Arab street fury exploding in just about every major Arab metropolis (with the very curious exception of Saudi Arabia and other prosperous Gulf nations) against the West and the perceived pernicious vices of its enlightened and hard-fought-for secular freedoms (most significantly, the not-insignificant and inconvenient achievement of free speech). Simultaneously, on the other side of the world, in the belly of the West itself (the U.S.), individuals noticeably of the same generation were camping out in the streets in order to purchase the latest version of the iPhone smartphone.  Is there a connection here, or am I reaching too far to make what may be an obvious point?

We know that the latest round of Arab street fury has little to do with Islam, as the majority of Muslims—including most all of the most enlightened Muslims of the world—will inform us, and everything to do with the confluence of several difficult factors that have reduced most inhabitants of the Arab Middle East (with the exception of Gulf Arabia) to living in semi-medieval societies with little or no economic opportunity or social justice, inflicted most severely, despite the desperation of staggering numbers of unemployed young men, on women and children.

Of course, to unemployed, and mainly uneducated seething masses, it is much simpler to explain this situation in fanatically ideologic and religious terms, making one side evil perpetrators (the West) and the other side injured believers (the Muslim masses), and there apparently is no lack of politically savvy and ethically twisted clerics who will whip this insanity up to a froth at a moment’s opportunity, like when a stupid and tasteless movie comes out with the unconscious but nevertheless sole intent of being the pawn of such politically savvy clerics.

But the reasons for this situation in the first place are the result of political decisions made by selfish dictators, with the complicity of, in most cases, the West; and the U.S. in particular (refer to the support the Mubarak regime received from the U.S.), the country that also unfortunately and coincidentally is the greatest supporter of most of these nation’s greatest identified enemy, rightly or wrongly—Israel.

But going deeper still, there is the cultural element for unemployed, frustrated, desperate people; being disconnected from the possibilities; seeing the baubles, the trinkets, the opportunities of the West—everything that can easily be made hateful when one cannot have them—thrown in the face of their desperation.  Hence the fury.

On the other side of the world is, in fact, that world that is precisely what is hated, lusted for, despised, and otherwise dreamed of in the Arab world.  The world of connectivity, of opportunity, of baubles, trinkets and possibility.  And what better symbolizes all of those words than the latest, greatest version of the iPhone; that wonder that looks so good that, in Steve Jobs’s words, “you’ll want to lick it”; that amazingly connects us all, faster, prettier, better, funner, than anything ever did before, with all the possibility that exists in the universe.  Hence the campsites in the streets in front of Apple stores for days before the launch.

One side with possibility.  One side with nothing but the insane replacement of possibility with religious ideology.  One side with connectivity.  One side, completely disconnected from the world they must therefore alternately lust for and despise.  On Friday at the mosque, and simultaneously at the marketplace.  That’s why they hate us.

FacebookLinkedInTwitterTechnorati FavoritesShare

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Arab nations, politics | No Comments »

« Older Articles