Culture clash - middle eastern coworker (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

In this I agree with Jeff. The racism that exists in many countries makes that in the US seem minor—no comments on anything in this thread but what I’ve seen elsewhere (even in what might be thought of as progressive countries) is astounding.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I agree with both the studies and your reasoning. However, I do maintain that to make judgements about the average american by observing them through the prism of our international TV broadcasts or newpapers is both unfair and (sometimes)dangerous. Just as I learned much about other cultures by talking and working with those outside of my particular sphere, much could be improved in the opinion held by outsiders if they spent a week doing the same with a Yank. We aren't the violence prone, spree killing, uneducated, uncouth, warmongering, xenophobic and just plain dumb persons depicted on most boob-tube broadcasts, be they "news" or entertainment. On my first trip to Europe, one person exclaimed to me "the problem with your country is you have too many blacks. We do not have blacks here and we do not have the problems we see on CNN and TV." My reply was simple - "The problems you see on TV shows are either sensationalized or complete fiction. This is not how we are. 99% of Americans live and let live, with cultures intermingling and coexisting in relative harmony." Because it was 1 1/2 months after 9/11, I added "Just don't fly planes into our buildings and the average American pretty much keeps to themselves."

He then asked why I thought they were "our buildings", when they were owned by massive coporations who stole from the people. That more than anything told me what a great divide there was between America and the rest of the world.

 

[Mark Dill]

Sorry but I've got to call BS here. Sure there are differences in culture between Middle Eastern Muslim nations and South Asian Muslim nations - but US and Ethiopia??? Way too extreme. The Muslim countries are at least working off the same instruction book! (the Koran) More like US and Canada if you ask me.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Mark, gotta agree with Lew here. The interpretations of the Koran differ from sect to sect within the same country, never mind between countries themselves; just like an Evangelical Christian differs from a Catholic, Lutheran, Jehova's Witness or Mormon. Above and beyond the fact these these countries also differ in just how much of a theocracy they are under and thusly how much of an influence the Koran actually has; there are still vast cultural differences that have nothing to do with religion. I found the Pakistanis I worked with have more in common with the East Indians I worked with than other Muslims I've met, even given the historical and religious differences that have made them adversaries. They certainly ate similar foods and had similar secular customs, regardless of what religion they were; unlike the diet and/or culture of Southeast Asians who also happened to be Muslims.

Edit: This reminds me of the last project I worked on for my former company. My team consisted of an American Catholic (lapsed - me), a Pakistani Muslim male, a US naturalized native of East India female and an American Protestant female - all overseen by an American Jew. Seems technology is (sometimes) the great equalizer or maybe it is a lesson in how harmony stems from everyone working towards the same goal. I don't know, but I do know they were all fine people and I was proud to work with them.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Just to soothe a few ruffled feathers, I'll repeat a key clause in my earlier message:



It's not an attack on American intelligence, just your media. I wasn't inferring your intelligence from your popular media, just pointing out that your media is on the whole insular. There are, however, honorable exceptions.

Please don't take offence (or offense, even) - I was merely pointing out that a non-American perspective on the case is radically different. I don't think our media are necessarily better (our tabloid press are generally a disgrace and I think a lot of American TV reporting is far better presented and more articulate than the Brit equivalent). I still love you all. And genuinely, if I ever had to leave the UK and live somewhere else, the Netherlands or the USA would be my prime choices. I've always rather liked the idea of teaching in a nice small liberal arts college.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

No harm, no foul Andrew. I hope you know my rants are all in good fun, despite my tone, as I know yours are as well. Like I said, some things just push my buttons.

By the way, if you ever do decide to teach at a "nice small liberal arts college" in the US, better to keep your criticisms of the US press close to your vest. If there is anything close to forced dogma at those institutions, it is the fact the US press can do no wrong.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I picked Ethiopia simply because it is a Christian country of long standing and has a markedly different culture. If you are not pleased with that comparison, I’ll withdraw it and substitute Brazil for comparison.

But if you believe that Malaysia or Indonesia is as close to Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Iran as the US is to Canada, you have not spent much time considering those respective cultures or governments.

Just a couple of trivial examples. In Malaysia, Shiite Muslims are prohibited by law from promoting the Shiite branch of Islam, as the Sunni form is the State religion (though non-Muslims enjoy religions freedom).

Women in Indonesia do not normally wear religious dress and in Southeast Asia in particular, they do not wear veils even when wearing religious dress.

And in Muslim-minority Singapore, where it is almost impossible to dress incorrectly, the one style of dress on the streets is the few times that you see women from some Middle-eastern country wearing drab brown, tan, grey or black, head to toe, veiled dress. This is so out of character with the Malay Muslim dress as to be almost obscene.

Malay women (even in religious dress) typically wear brightly colored dress usually with floral patters.

You might wish to do some study, before you become too closely associated with the insular American skewered by our cousins across the pond.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Actually I think that Andrew would fit very well in a couple in your local institutions, Jeff. I’m thinking Williams or Amherst for example (or my son’s Alma Mater, Carleton College in Minnesota.

Schools like these still provide educations that actually require students to think, something not necessarily required at larger, more well-known institutions.

 

[Mark Dill]

OK I guess we had a misunderestimation, as GWB might say. I was just thinking of Pakistan vs. Middle East while you were comparing any and all Muslim nations to the Middle East. Granted, they are not all the same culturally. But even my coworker says she identifies more with Middle Eastern culture than with Indian or Asian, so I gotta take her at her word on this one.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I have a good friend who graduated from Williams (what we in my class referred to "Hyper-Ivy League" because my friend got accepted to Harvard before hearing from Williams and Middlebury - Harvard was his "backup school"). He got out with a degree in Russian studies, earning a 4.0 cumulative and spending his senior year in Moscow, in 1987. He then went to work with his father at "Hallmark Cards". I put it in quotes because from the time we were young, we always thought his father was a spy and his position at "Hallmark Cards" was a front. After my friend went to work there also, given his stellar background, we're pretty sure our suspicions were correct.

 

[MarkHastings]

andrew, I did realize your comments weren't an attack, and I knew the onslaught that would come of it because Americans have been bashed so much about this geography thing that we are a bit sensitive to the comments no matter how meaningless they are. I totally agree with this, but I still hate the remarks. I can guarantee you that I wasn't proficient in geography when I was a child, but I was programming computers in middle school. I may not have known what region Pakistan was from (at 11), but I was doing extended basic programming languages.

I mean, as was stated, there are so many other subjects that were of interest, that I wasn't too concerned with geography. Perhaps that's due to the fact that in America, you can do anything you want. I had such a limitless range of possibility in front of me, that I didn't need to focus on regions of the world. I knew (even at a young age) that I wanted to deal with computers and art, so I focused on math and art.

Also, in America, I have the luxury of being able to not focus on geography. In America, you don't have to be knowledgeable to be successful. And while a lot of us want to be knowledgeable, we know we can just be knowledgeable in the areas that we want to be knowledgeable in.

Wow, that was a lot of "knowledgeable"

 

[Lew Crippen]

I’m sure that she does Mark. One of the reasons that East and West Pakistan spilt is that they were so culturally dissimilar.

The point I was trying to make (perhaps poorly) is that countries with significant Muslim populations can be very different, often with little in common culturally. A point that I believe is often overlooked in the States, where Islam is often defined by radicals in the Middle East.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Absolutely right - compare e.g. the muslim countries of the far east with some of the ones in the middle east. Other than religion, they are as alike as chalk and cheese. It's also worth noting that even within supposedly red-hot militant countries, often what you are seeing is an excitable small element hogging the media spotlight. Most people are trying to make the best of what gets thrown at them, like anywhere else. It'd be a bit like only seeing pictures of the USA consisting of the KKK burning crosses.

 

[Holadem]

Lew said everything much better than I could have. While it is certain that housewives everywhere are equally clueless about the affairs of the world (no offense to any housewife reading this...), the discrepency in such knowledge between your average white collar american and other first world equivalent is dramatic.

I am not as nice as Andrew... the media certainly shares part of the blame, but the problem as I see it is significantly more fundamental than that -- it's the people. The attitude expressed above by Mark is more the rule than the exception here, in my experience. As for why it matters, the answer is outside of the scope of this forum. Let's just say that the ignorance of a computer scientist in Poland is of less consequence on the world than that of an American of the same socio-economic status.

Oh, I will most certainly agree with that. For, say an african, you could do a LOT worse than living in the US. Believe it or not, I spend a LOT of time defending the US in this regard and a few others when I go to europe. The recent riots in Paris by disenfranchised arab and african youth has revealed to the world the dark underbelly of the Hexagon. It seems not a month goes by in Germany without some assault on an african/arab immigrant. Let's not even get into Eastern Europe. Even funnier, the attitude towards blacks in some arab countries are orders of magnitude worse anything I've seen here. At least here, racism is an issue. In much of the world, it is an unchallenged status-quo.

--
H

 

[andrew markworthy]

I don't totally dispute this, Holadem, but I think it's worth noting that practically every single assault of this type is likely to be reported in the national media in Europe. What you are seeing is often the full number of cases, not a sample.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

I don't know if you are inferring it, but every one of these types of assaults, even ones that are not assaults at all, are not only reported, but are a national crisis in the US.

Never underestimate the lit fuse that race is in this country. It is so in the forefront as to be almost stifling to race relations, rather than promoting them. Gosh, sometimes they even decide national elections. The case of the african-american dragged behind a pickup truck in Texas was paramount in the election campaign of both sides in 2000. Willy Horton (convicted killer/rapist who killed again while on weekend parole) was used against Dukakis by both his own Democrat and the opposing Republican party in '98.

Besides, when I first made the statement, I meant overt, ingrained and accepted racism, sexism and religious intolerance. I live in a nation with a history of purging intolerance. Granted the purge often happens much later than it should, sometimes by hundreds of years, but it does happen.

I never heard intolerance of another's religion until I heard a non-native Catholic berating a Protestant. I went to college with a large muslim population, I saw the virulent anti-semitism that some foreign students brought with them and I did not understand, for two of my best study partners were an Arab and a Jew.

I was not raised to hate other races/colors or creeds. Martin Luther King was a hero to my white family, just as he was to blacks. I was so color blind as a child that I once went to a friend's house and was astonished by the african art that was displayed. I asked my friend why he had so much African art when "you aren't from Africa, you're American." My parents condemned the stoning of buses on both sides of the color line in the 70's and wept for what my city had become. However, some people in countries that have

 

[Peter Burtch]

Hi Mark-

I am curious to know more about where your friend hails in Pakistan. I have yet to meet someone from their urban areas who strongly identifies with Arab/Bedoin culture (read='middle eastern' as it seems to have been stereotyped). I definitely suggest you speak with some other Pakistani natives living in Chicago to get some more perspectives. Heck, drive on down to Devon Street in the city and you can make a day out of it >.

Also, I understand it has been hinted at ad nauseum, but when you state your co-worker identifies less with 'Indian' culture, you realize that reference could include a whole slew of very different groups of people. Does she mean Hindu culture, or non-muslim Indian culture(?) It gets a bit mucky obviously.

-P

 

[MichaelBA]

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
-Ambrose Bierce

Those of us born to immigrants, however, especially from places overseas, and with close ties to the old world usually have engrained from early on a fairly good sense of geography.

 

[Mark Dill]

Here's where it gets a bit tricky. I didn't get into this before, for simplicity's sake, but she is actually not FROM Pakistan. She was born in the U.S. so in many ways, culturally, she is an American. However, she has grown up very sheltered from the world by her parents (seriously, you have no idea how sheltered) - so culturally she is very similar to them. So, basically, she's probably as confused as I am about who she really identifies with.

I know she has spent extended time in Pakistan and has family there, but she has lived here all her life.

 

[Mark Dill]

Actually, that last is not quite true - I am pretty sure she went to a boarding school in the UK for high school. And for college, she lived at home and took technical classes at night.