Why It’s So Difficult to Eradicate Corruption

Whenever a new government or new party is elected, particularly in the Third World, a promise to eradicate corruption is always at the forefront.  But why do these promises almost never materialize?

The answer is more simple than it appears. Government doesn’t lead society; it REFLECTS society. If people in government are corrupt, it is because this corruption, this way of thinking and getting things done, is pervasive throughout the society.

So, at best, new parties and new governments make a big show of “attacking corruption” by arresting a few people.  What they are really doing, however, is just trying to scare everyone from pushing the boundaries of corruption, so that they don’t “get caught.”  All the while, even the new government officials continue with corrupt practices in their daily lives.  The people change, over and over, but the corrupt system never changes.

Why is this?

The problem starts with young children.  I see this every day as a teacher.

Young, impressionable children watch and notice the way their parents deal with the issues of life each day. In most third-world countries, when the child has a severe problem at school, instead of letting the child repeat the grade, the parents go in and “beg” or pay a bribe for their child to be promoted (because parents feel ashamed if their child is not promoted). When the child gets a bad grade or doesn’t do homework, parents do the same thing. Instead of children being taught that they will have the consequences of their actions, good or bad, they are taught that one can “get out of any consequence” by either paying a bribe, or knowing the right people. Is it any wonder that they grow up into corrupt adults?

Corruption will never be eliminated in government until it is first eliminated in society. Yet, speaking as a teacher, I don’t see this happening at all. Even five-year-olds are learning this corrupt behavior by watching their own parents.

I personally know of one case where a five-year-old told his teacher that if the teacher didn’t allow him to do as he pleased, “I will bring my father in and have you fired!”  (The result was that the foreign teacher told him, “Go right ahead!  Go get your father right now!  I’m waiting for him!”  The student didn’t know quite what to say after that, as he wasn’t expecting that response…..)

So where, exactly, does the endemic corruption in third-world nations come from?  It comes from the class system.  In order to have a meritocracy, and fair treatment for all, whether in the courts or in daily life, EVERYONE HAS TO BE EQUAL UNDER THE LAW.  In third-world countries, and even in many developed countries, this is unfortunately not the case.  Those who are born wealthy, or with titles, the right name, or connections can get away with crimes of any sort and no court will convict them.  This is truly what it means being “above the law.”

The ONLY way, therefore, for ordinary citizens to get justice, or even things done in everyday life, is through “knowing the right person (powerful people),” or paying a bribe.  In every class of society, those above exploit those below.  (This does not mean every individual in the society exploits others, but it is true as a general rule.) The rich exploit the middle and lower working classes.  Even lower-middle class people, if they have some economic success in their own lives, hire a maid and exploit her even worse than higher classes.  People on the lower end steal and cheat time-wise on their employers because they feel like they “deserve it.”  They feel this way because it is a passive-aggressive sort of class warfare.

The same dynamic plays out in companies where many bosses exploit their workers.  Since there is no justice in third-world countries, it is dangerous to resist directly, so they resist in a passive-aggressive manner, “forgetting” important things, showing up late, etc.   Their jobs are often protected by “work rules” which mean they can’t be fired for any of these sorts of infractions.

Not every boss is exploitative.  Unfortunately, when a foreign manager is working with these sorts of employees, their behavior is very confusing.  The manger expects a certain level of output, what is normal for himself, or in his own home country.  He gets only 1/3 of that and wonders what is wrong.  He tries every tactic to improve productivity, only to find workers getting worse and worse.  (He can’t fire them due to work rules.)  What’s wrong is those particular workers have the class-warfare mentality.

In third-world countries, because of the “class” system, no one will ever be equal under the law.  Even in countries with recent revolutions, such as in Arab Spring countries, the class system and class-warfare mentalities continue.  So I am not optimistic that they will be able to develop meritocracies.

Democracy (or democratic reform) means nothing without meritocracy.

–Lynne Diligent

The REAL Reason Arab Men and Boys Are Still Treated as Pashas by Women

“Kitchen! Kitchen!”  Most North African boys still make fun of each other by saying this, which means, “Sissy!” (For my foreign readers, this means, “You’re acting like a girl!”)

North African mothers still raise their daughters to do all the housework, and boys are not expected to help at all.  (The only exception is in some families where there are no girls, and the boys have learned to help.)

The first generation of educated, North African women are out in the labor force.  But are the attitudes of men changing?  Not yet.  Working women are still expected to work full time AND do ALL of the child care AND take care of ALL the housework.  In general, men are expected to work, and spend all of the rest of their time relaxing.  They still expect to come home and find “everything done and waiting for them.”  (A very few modern husbands do help out doing dishes or cooking, or with general housework.  But they don’t tell their friends!  Some even make sure the curtains are closed so no neighbors see them helping out, either.)

As one young dual-citizen North African-American girl told me, “In North American culture, MEN take care of WOMEN.  In Arab culture, WOMEN are expected to take care of MEN.”   This accounts for the shocking experience of American women who marry Arab men, only to find they are expected to take care of the man as if they were his MOTHER!  Many intercultural couples have hit the divorce courts over this exact issue, as many of these men are unable to adapt, even when living in America.

Will this change, in Arab countries, within a generation, as the second generation of women hits the workforce in 25 years?  I don’t think so.  Here’s why not.  This is my own theory, but when I discussed it with several local North African women, they all agreed with me.

Islamic inheritance laws give double to boys as they do to girls.  The reason for this is that men are supposed to be financially responsible for women under their care, in THEORY.  If a man is decent, he will do it.  (But just as everywhere, many men are irresponsible, or not decent.)  In practice, many women are never able to claim their inheritance rights, particularly in places like mountain villages.  (Crawford, 2008)

The essential point is this.  Every woman knows that she is under a man’s thumb, or will be in the future.  Girls are under their father’s control.  Wives are still under their husband’s control in most Arab countries (such as needing the husband’s permission to get or renew a passport, even for a foreign wife, such as in Egypt).  When women become widows, they are not free, but instead under the control of their sons, and at the mercy of their sons!  Love aside, THIS is the TRUE reason why mothers spoil their sons so extremely.  That son is eventually going to have power over them, and be responsible for supporting them in old age, so of course they need that to be a very strong emotional relationship.  But it accounts for why they young boys are treated as pashas (the amount varying by specific country, but in all countries when in comparison with the West, where boys and girls are treated equally).

When I asked several North African women, that what if inheritance (and divorce) laws were changed and made totally equal between men and women, do they think women would continue to treat men and boys as pashas?  Each of the women I asked answered me by saying, “What you say is true, of course they would not.”

However, since those inheritance laws are laid out in the Koran, I don’t see any changes on the horizon!

–Lynne Diligent

Different Interpretations of Rude Behavior–Intercultural Miscommunication!

(Google photo)

Some parents in our upper-middle-class Middle-Eastern school come in to see teachers and make demands such as, “I want my child moved up to the front row today, and I want him to stay right there for the entire school year!”  When a teacher tries to explain that they have to consider and balance the needs of all the children in the classroom, these parents sometimes reply,  “YOU don’t tell OUR children what to do; we tell YOU what to do, because WE pay your salary by bringing our children to your school!”  How does a teacher even respond to a parent with ideas like this?

As a foreign teacher, each time I had a strange encounter like this with a  haughty and disdainful parent, I wondered about this strange behavior toward teachers and administrative staff.  Whenever one of these encounters took place, I would ask my Middle Eastern assistant why these parents would behave this way.  I was always told, “They behave that way because they are rich.”  It still wasn’t clear to me what being rich would have to do with rude and imperious behavior.  So when I asked how the two things were linked, I always got the response, “They think they can behave that way because they have money.”  This didn’t clarify matters, either.  It was especially not clear since I knew plenty of other people who had even more money and did not behave in that sort of manner at all.

Typical “look” of the type of parent who “talks down” to teachers in the Middle East.

I understood my assistant’s words, but still did not understand the behavior, or what his words actually meant.  Ten years later, I believe I now understand–it’s not really about money, but about status.  In every country, many people try to follow and copy what they perceive the rich people doing.

Coco Chanel

For example, let us look briefly at the fashion of suntanning, in Europe and the United States.  In the 1800s, women used to stay out of the sun and even carry a parasol to keep the sun from falling on their skin.  Prior to 1900, those with tanned skin were presumed to be low-class common laborers.  In the 1920s, this perception began to change.

Coco Chanel

When Coco Channel returned from the French Riviera with a suntan, having a suntan (particularly in winter) became associated with having the time and money to vacation in warm places.  By the 1940s, sunbathing and suntans were popular everywhere.

In the Western United States in the 1960s and 1970s, students took great care while skiing to never use suntan cream (in order to purposely come back from skiing with a tan or a sunburn), and to leave the ski-lift tickets attached to one’s jacket all season.   Both of these actions raised one’s status, showing that he or she was someone able to afford to go skiing (an expensive sport).  From the 1960s onward (the age of jet travel) a suntan in winter demonstrated that one was part of the leisure class, able to afford to jet off to a warm destination in winter.

Other countries have other ways of indicating that one is a member of the wealthy, or leisure class.   In some Middle Eastern countries (such as Syria, among others), there is a special system which confers the ultimate status.  The most important people carry special cards in their wallets which place them above the powers of law enforcement officials.  Only members of the most important families are able to obtain this card, and so, are free to act without any repercussions.

Joan Collins playing the haughty and domineering Alexis Carrington on Dynasty.

Therefore, some people in the Middle East (especially the newly rich) perceive that what it means to “act like an upper-class person” is to act very haughty and imperious, as though you can order other people around, and no one can say anything to do no matter how rudely you act, or what acts you commit.   This is what I believe was happening in my school. My conclusion at present is that the parents who behaved in an imperious manner were mostly not well-educated or well-brought up, yet had the fortune through business or inheritance, to come into money.  Buy behaving this way, they are essentially trying to announce to others, “Look!  We are important people, and we are more important than you (the teachers and school employees)!”  So this behavior, in their mind, is a way for them to gain status and prestige, as well as to flaunt it to others.  As a foreign teacher, it seems to me to be greatly lowering their prestige, but people in my local country seem to understand that, “Since they are rich, they feel entitled to act that way.”

This system even affects the behavior of children in school.  Children in our school are often rude to their teachers, and completely uncooperative with regard to class rules (continual talking while the teacher is teaching;  not staying in their chairs; refusing to line up or walk quietly in a line; talking loudly, rather than whispering).  Every new idea works for just a day or two, and then it’s right back to the old behavior.

After teaching in the Middle East for twenty years, I now believe that the reason children are uncooperative is because being cooperative shows that you and your family must have low status.  High-status children behave as they wish, because to do so shows the other children that they come from an “important” family and are “above” having to follow the teacher’s rules.

–Lynne Diligent

Do First World Countries Really Impose an “Anti-Immigration” Curriculum on Third-World Countries?

Anti-Immigration Plot?

Among some in the educational establishment in Northwest Africa, the idea is spreading that the new skills-based educational pedagogy is actually an “anti-immigration” plot hatched by first-world countries to “keep third-world workers in their own countries.”  I even heard of a college professor of education who is teaching this to prospective teachers, who are asked to implement the new pedagogy.

What is actually happening with the new pedagogy, however, is the result of the new global communication revolution of internet penetration into third-world countries.

World Internet Users, 2011

In the past, as explained in The Globalization Paradox (2011), the Industrial Revolution spread from England, to the European countries, and to some of the New World (North America, Australia, and New Zealand), but not much further.  These parts of the world had two distinct advantages (which up-and-coming third-world countries are now trying to do something about):  1.)  they had enough educated and skilled workers to run the new factories, and 2.)  they had good institutions–well functioning legal systems, stable politics, restraints on expropriations by the state–to generate incentives for private investment and market expansion.

Other countries had to depend on “importing” skills and institutions, and they used intercontinental labor mobility to do so.

Imported labor building American railroads

This era is now coming to an end.   Internet communication and improved transport of goods via supertankers enables companies to move operations elsewhere, because it is more cost-effective, rather than the more expensive alternative of importing labor.   Therefore, any country who wants those jobs must prepare its labor force.

This revolution is NOT happening because of a first-world PLOT designed by governments.  It is an unanticipated effect of internet communications.   Many, many individual companies are making these decisions on their own.  Many are now forced to in order to compete with those who have already done so.

Forward-thinking third-world governments are now realizing this, and are beginning to create the conditions which will enable some of their citizens to obtain jobs in the new world marketplace, or to become entrepreneurs and create their own businesses.

Education in Libya, North Africa

For example, in North Africa, in just one decade, schools have been built all over the country, and for the first time, the majority of children are in school. Those who are graduating from college, having succeeded in their education, are now clamoring for jobs.

The only middle school in this rural area of Northwest Africa

Two problems exist.  First, the countries are small, and the market size served by businesses is small (except in textiles, tourism, and agriculture).  Therefore, the profitability of acquiring new equipment and technologies is small for the average business, which still remains family-based, and therefore provides limited opportunities for employment to average workers without family connections.

Tunisian college students

Second, most local college graduates are not from the elite classes (the elite usually send their sons and daughters to foreign universities).  Many of these graduates feel that the elites are in cahoots with the local governments, and that these elites block improvements in others’ economic positions that would threaten their own power.  This is a great part of what the Arab Spring movement is about.  The newly-educated middle classes want a democratic meritocracy, rather than an oligarchy of the elites.

By implementing the new skills-based pedagogy, they are actually attempting to insure that what is being taught has some usefulness in the real world, as well.   However, it is not only in the third-world where these pedagogies are being implemented; they are now de rigueur in much of the first world, too.

This trend has now been taken to an extreme, however, as was illustrated to me recently by a friend in England, “I was amazed to see how rigidly it is implemented these days in my daughter’s school.  When you go to parents’ evenings, the teachers actually do have enormous A3-size spreadsheets with hundreds of tiny squares on a grid.  Teachers find the student’s name, and move along the row, saying things like, ‘Uses adjectives to express emotion in a third party – level 4A;’ or in history, ‘deducing a specific social condition from a contemporary artwork – level 5B.’  It is all incredibly mechanical, and if you ask how they are doing overall, there is no such thing.”

A Page from the British National Curriculum

What is happening in third-world North African education is now no different that what is happening in Europe.  It is not a plot.  However, this trend in Europe appears to have gone much too far, into uselessness!

Is it something new that first-world countries are against importation of unskilled labor?  Yes, and no.  First-world countries are mostly interested in protecting the middle-tier of jobs, rather than those at the very top or the very bottom.  These are the jobs that every country wants to reserve for their own workers, and that they do not want immigrants filling.  This is nothing new.

Middle-tier, white-collar desk jobs

No country minds importing workers at the very high skill end, where those skills don’t exist, and where they may benefit by learning those skills from the imported workers.  Also, most countries continue to import workers for the very lowest level of jobs, such as migrant farm labor, or office cleaning at night.

What is new is that both Islamic terrorism has been increasing in Europe, and migrating groups have been attempting to impose ideological change on their host societies.  This has definitely had a backlash  effect on the general willingness to accept immigrants, both in Europe and in America, especially from Muslim countries.

This restriction on jobs is even true for me as a first-world immigrant to a third-world country, where I find most jobs are reserved for people who are citizens.  As a non-citizen immigrant, I am only permitted to do for which it can be “proved” by the company I work for that a citizen cannot fill the position, or else I must be self-employed.  I want to point out that third-world countries have equally strong anti-immigration policies as do first-world countries.

Northwest Africa has been implementing a new educational pedagogy the past few years, which requires teachers to mark each student on specific skills mastered (similar to my English friend’s experience, described above), as well as to use modern group activities and other interesting delivery methods.

Crowded classrooms in Northwest Africa

One of the reasons teachers have been striking for several years is that most teachers feel this is too difficult and requires too much work when each teacher has over 300 students each week ( compared with typical American teachers having up to 180 students per week). One middle school teacher I know says, “I teach 13 classes of 45 students each, with each class lasting once a week for two hours.”   An incredible amount of material has to be covered.  This teacher felt that if he had three classes of 15 students each, or even his own classroom (he has to move from room-to-room) he might be able to fully implement the new educational pedagogy.

Educational trends swing with the pendulum as much as other social trends do.  We are still clearly in the upswing of this trend toward skill boxes.  I predict that the current trend will continue for another twenty years before it is scrapped in Europe, and educational trends head in another direction.

–Lynne Diligent

“GOOD NIGHT, MADAM!” Was the Shocking Greeting I Received….

When connecting for the first time with a  foreign female English speaker on Facebook, GOOD NIGHT, MADAM!  was the momentarily shocking first greeting I received.  I soon realized she didn’t speak English very well and thought she was being polite.

After speaking with her for some time, I suggested a better greeting the next time she spoke with a native English speaker would be something like, “Hello, how are you?”  I explained that, in English, “good night” actually means “goodbye” and that a “madam” is a woman who runs a house of prostitution.  I explained that I understood these were not her meanings, but suggested other greetings, nevertheless.

Madam Dee Flowers

She was quite surprised at this information.  She asked me if “madam” in English is not the same as “madame” in French.  Since she’s from a French-speaking country, women one does not know are always addressed the the single word “Madame…” as a form of politeness.  She mentioned some very old-fashioned English novels (from mid-1800’s) which also seemed to use this form of address.  I explained that those novels were just about  the only place you might find that form of address used these days.

She said she’d never heard the other meaning of the word “madam.”  I asked if she’s had an instructor who taught them to say that in English.  She said no, that it was her own idea of what she might say to be polite.

She asked me if “madam” was not correct if there was a word she should use instead.  I explained that we don’t usually use a word to replace madam, except when we actually know the person’s name, in which case we might add “Miss Green” or “Mrs. Green,” for example.  She was surprised and thought that every language must use such a word to address anyone as a form of politeness.  I did say that in the American South, they sometimes use “ma’am,” which is an abbreviated form of the old-fashioned word “madam,”  but that it is mostly a regional usage.

This is a perfect example of how someone from one culture can go out of their way to be polite, yet achieve disastrous results.  Someone else might have taken immediate offense and not taken the time to think about the speaker’s intention.

–Lynne Diligent

Why These People Will Never Be Hired By an American Company

Would YOU hire any of these foreign applicants? Each of the following practically SCREAMS “I want a job but I am completely incompetent in the language–“Don’t hire me, or this is how I would communicate with your clients in English….”  None of these applicants seems to realize that IT’S ALL ABOUT THE DETAILS.

These examples (names changed) come from a job board in Morocco, from people looking for jobs with  American companies:

1. “I’m a student at Ben Messik University in casablanca. i got my DEUG in English literature and i’m intrested in having a job with you.”

American Employer Reaction: Casablanca is not even captitalized, interested is misspelled, and no American company would have a clue what DEUG means. “i” is not capitalized in two places.

2. “iam 23/m iam looking for any chance to work in usa in any think i have a experionce and i speak english not bad”

American Employer Reaction:  This person clearly doesn’t know that a sentence must be started with a capital letter and finish with a period. “iam” is not even a word. The country is not even written correctly. It must be all in capitals with periods following each letter, and preceded by “the,” as in “the U.S.A.” The word “i” must NEVER be written in lower case. Experience is misspelled. English is missing a capital letter. It is a run-on sentence instead of two clear sentences.

3. “Hello; my name is mohamed saddiki, i work for the Marriott Company in Myrtle Beach South carolina as a Laundry Assistant Director. I would like o have a job with one of the American companies or Agencies in Morocco. Thanks.”

American Employer Reaction:  This person lives in America, yet hasn’t even learned that his own name needs to have capital letters! Carolina is missing a capital letter and to is misspelled as o. Agencies should not be capitalized. YES, even a laundry director is expected to know these things in an American company.

4. “my name is hicham, american citizen (probably a dual-citizen) looking for job with one of the american companies in rabat, morocco”

American Employer Reaction:  Did not start sentence with a capital letter, doesn’t even know to capitalize his own name, or the word American, nor the words Rabat and Morocco. Does not put a period at the end of the sentence.

5. Hi, Im mehdi bouaziz I study english at cady ayyad college and I wish to work in english copanies or hotels

American Employer Reaction:  I’m is lacking an apostrophe.  This person doesn’t even know that his name should be capitalized.  The words Cady, Ayyad, College and English all need to be capitalized.  Companies is misspelled.  There is no period at the end of the sentence.

6. “Hello, first to start this off, I am american living in the USA, and looking to make my life in Morocco. I am fluent in english, spanish. I can speak, read and write a bit of french as well. I am very motivated, hard worker, flexable, and i will make a full commitment to the company that will hire me. I currently working for a academy out of maryland as an account manager which i have been here over 3 years. At the current moment i am working on my B.S. degree in accounting. my past and current experiences has been, account manager, payroll manager, bookkeeper and regional sales. i have plus over 10 years in accounting field. and looking for a position in morocco prefer casablanca, rabat or setat.in a american company or moroccan company, but i dont speak moroccan yet. in god willing i hope that i can. you can reach me at sweetlove2792@yahoo.com only if you think that you make me an offer. please only serious commitments i am not here to play around. i travel two times in a year to casablanca morocco, so if there is a need to meet that would not be an issue. salaam”

American Manager Reaction:  Even if this person is born in America (even worse), they clearly didn’t learn much in school.  Lack of nearly all necessary captials. English, Spanish, Maryland, Morocco (2x), Casablanca (2x), Rabat, Setat, American, Moroccan (2x),  God,  and Salaam are not captialized.  First words of sentences are not capitalized.  The word “i” is never captialized, as it must always be.  USA is not written correctly with periods between the letters.  Says “a” instead of “an” academy, and “a american company” instead of an American company. Leaves words out of the middle of sentences.  Doesn’t leave spaces after periods at the ends of sentences.  Don’t is missing the apostrophe.  Has 10-15 years of work experience in the U.S., yet cannot write at the standard expected of an 8-year-old child in America (using correct capital letters).  Has an extremely inappropriate email address, which alone would preclude her from being contacted.  This person claims to be serious, but who would ever believe she is serious with a post like this? Who, from an American company in Morocco, would EVER call this person? NO ONE.

7.  iam pleased to write this words to directors of american companies and agencies in morocco to ask for job that requires the english skills;in communication or in writing. i would to inform you that i am 23 years old, i obtained my university diploma(licence) in english department in the hassanII university in casablanca in 2008, as well i can speak and write frensh and arabic.Besides this, i have some computer-using abilities such as microsoft words, excel, powerpoint, and navigating in the internet. Concerning my professionnal experiences, i had an important experience in an anglophone callcentre in casablanca in august 2006, and at the present time, i am working as a cashier in the shop of petrolium stationin casablanca as temporary job. Finally, i will be so delighted to receive an ansewer from you as soon as possible.

American Employer Reaction:  There are just as many, and similar-type errors in this paragraph as in Example Six above.   Run-on sentences, spelling errors, no attention to capitals of any type, several words run together without spaces.  NO ONE would consider calling this person, either.

When applying for an international job, in ANY language, it’s the DETAILS which make ALL the difference.  While the examples in this post apply to English-language applicants, the same principles no doubt hold true for any language in which the applicant is not a native speaker.

Applicants are ignorant of what is required, and many teachers are equally ignorant in terms of not emphasizing these skills with their students.  Even supposing any companies happened upon this website, does ANYONE seriously think that ANY of the above people have the REMOTEST chance of being contacted???

My TWO important points in this post:

1.  Foreign teachers of English need to start paying attention to these details of capitalization, punctuation, and spelling, and to  MARKING THEIR STUDENTS OFF FOR EACH AND EVERY TIME A STUDENT MAKES THESE PUNCTUATION OR CAPITALIZATION MISTAKES. This is what we, as native-language teachers, do with American or British children, from the time they are seven years old. When you first teach the spelling of a proper noun, if they write the spelling correctly, but don’t capitalize it, then it is MARKED WRONG (even if the actual spelling is correct). Every time “i” or the first letter of a sentence is not capitalized, it is -1. Every time a period is forgotten, it’s -1. When they get two or three papers back with a big fat ZERO score, they start to pay attention QUICKLY.  Furthermore, after the teacher makes these corrections, each student needs to REWRITE their sentences or essays with all the required punctuation, and DO IT CORRECTLY, as well as to understand the WHY of each correction.  I would say that foreign teachers do not realize that capitalization and punctuation is JUST AS IMPORTANT as correct grammar.  (And yes, it IS normal for American and British teachers to spend MANY hours of their OWN time outside of class correcting these papers.)

I’m sure there are foreign teachers out there paying attention to these things.  But my experience in North Africa these past 20 years has shown me that many teachers in this part of the world give little importance to these issues.  I have been continually amazed by many of those I know with university degrees in English who tell me, “I don’t pay any attention to punctuation or capital letters.”  But when I ask further, most of these people tell me that their high school instructors and university instructors didn’t pay attention to any of these details, either.

As an example, in past years, my own daughter (a dual-citizen, and a native speaker of English who was in a North African school with a daily English class) came home from both her secondary-level English class in a private school, AND from another class at a private language center (both taught by teachers from the local North African country), neither of the teachers had even marked as wrong my daughter’s forgetting to put periods at the end of sentences!  When I had a “fit” about it, my daughter told me that EVEN THE TEACHER did not bother to put periods on the board!!!  Applicants are ignorant of what is required, and many teachers are equally ignorant in terms of not emphasizing these skills with their students.

2.  If you are a student of English and have an instructor who is not paying attention to these details, or even teaching them, be aware that you are getting a VERY INFERIOR education which will never serve you well in the international job market.  Students need to insist that their teachers correct their papers in terms of all the little details, and then take time to rewrite those papers correctly (keeping both copies for reference).

Most Important:  If you are posting something on a job board, sending a CV or resumé, or communicating in writing with ANY potential employer, by all means, have a teacher or a native speaker review the piece of communication for correctness before sending it or posting it!

–Lynne Diligent

Why Foreigners Sometimes Think that Americans View the World as Geography Cartoons Depict

What Americans are first taught about the world as children. This looks like a 1970-2005 point-of-view.

These maps represent what Americans are first taught about the world as children.

For a majority of Americans (speaking as an American now overseas) these maps are maps about feelings, rather than about knowledge.

It’s true that there are some Americans who never progress beyond this viewpoint, but the majority of American adults are not quite this uneducated.  Among those who are, it comes from the “We’re number one!” mentality that pervades what children are taught about America (or at least were until recently).

This view of the world looks more like how Americans felt in the 1950s and 1960s.

No matter how knowledgeable we become, it’s true that we can look at maps like this and understand the reasons they are drawn that way immediately–from our first knowledge as children.  That’s what makes them cartoons, that some of those feelings stay with us forever,  in spite of our knowledge.

Anyone who lived through the Reagan years certainly remembers the country feeling just like this!

–Lynne Diligent

Middle Eastern Children Explain a CULTURAL Reason Why Moderate Muslims are Not Denouncing Extremists

Living in the Middle East, I often get asked the question, “If all Muslims are not extremists, then why aren’t the so-called ‘moderate’ Muslims not publicly denouncing the extremists (or their behavior, and/or their interpretation of Islam)?”

A chance comment to me by a Middle Eastern student made a very important reason clear to me, which I have never seen discussed anywhere.  The reason is CULTURAL.

Middle Eastern and North African societies  are cultures where people are divided into in-groups and out-groups.  This is a completely opposite type of thinking from what we have in the United States and some other western countries.

I had an interesting conversation about this with some 11-12-year-old students I know.  We were discussing some bullying problems that have been going on in their North African classroom, when one student asked me, “Mrs. Diligent, why do our American teachers at our school think we should help people (other students) who aren’t our friends, when our parents teach us not to?”  Having lived in the Middle East for 18 years, I understood immediately what they were talking about, as well as the confusion and frustration of their American teachers.

When I first moved to the Middle East with my Middle Eastern husband, one evening I was out walking with my husband through a tight area of the old city, and a line of parked cars were outside of a restaurant.  Someone had parked their car and left the lights on.  A man was standing there, who appeared to me to possibly be the parking lot attendant.  As we were passing right next to him, I asked something like, “Excuse me, this car has its lights left on, do you know where the owner is?”

My husband immediately got upset with me and asked, “Why are you asking about this?  It’s not your business!”

I replied that perhaps the person would come out of the restaurant to find their battery dead, and that if the owner could not be found, perhaps we should just open the car door and switch off the lights for the person (we were in a very small city, with an atmosphere of a very big town).

Again, my husband said something like, “It’s NOT your BUSINESS!  We don’t get involved in other people’s business like that!”  (or similar words, recalling the conversation 18 years later).   My husband then actually apologized to the the parking lot attendant for my having “disturbed” him, and told me to be quiet as we walked away.

My husband is NOT a jerk, by the way…so you can imagine my shock and surprise at this incident.  This is just how the American teachers are feeling about the way some of the students are treating others at school.  It is also just how many Americans are feeling when Muslim terrorists commit atrocities and the so-called “moderate” Muslims are not speaking up by publicly denouncing their behavior!   Thus, many Americans are WRONGLY concluding that the “moderate” Muslims actually are secret extremists, and condone those people’s behavior.

So, what is the explanation here?  The explanation is that most of these Muslims were raised in “in-group” cultures.

In an “in-group” culture, children are taught to normally offer help ONLY to other members of their in-group (your family or very special friends).  (So, woe to a person in the Middle East–foreigner or country national–who doesn’t have a large family in-group to “help” them every time they have a problem!)

Some students told me that if someone witnessed a person being harrassed by others in the street, the correct response would be to ignore them and not get involved.  Children are told, “That’s their business, it’s none of our business.  Stay out of it!”  (The logic is that in “in-group” societies, one is neither obligated nor expected to help others.  Why?  Because those people have their own in-groups to help them.)

So, if students witness another student being bullied on the playground or in line, their usual reaction is to ignore what is going on, rather than to offer help, unless one of the participants is their own friend–in which case they enter the conflict on the side of their FRIEND, rather than necessarily on the side of the person who is being bullied.)  This is the behavior which many American teachers have tried to fight, usually unsuccessfully, because the whole culture is like this.

This same idea contributes directly to international intercultural misunderstandings.   The subject often comes up when discussing Israel and Palestine, and America’s support of Israel.

I find many people in the Middle East absolutely convinced that the United States is a Jewish country.  When I ask what percentage of America they think is Jewish, I usually get an answer of between 50-80%.  When I inform them that the actual percentage is around 2% (actually the 2010 figures say it is only 1.4%, while the Muslim percentage in 2010 was about 1%) I get absolute disbelief.  Sometimes after discussing it for about fifteen minutes, I make a little headway in making them doubt their former opinion.  But in ALL cases, the response is, “If they aren’t Jewish, why would they help Israel so much?”  They usually reply that he only reason they can see for providing such aid to others would be the selfish reason of helping one’s own blood relatives;  thus the assumption that most people in America are Jewish!

Now we turn to the question of why moderate Muslims are not standing up and publicly denouncing terrorists.  Most of these people are either living in countries that are in-group societies, or have moved to the United States from such countries, and were brought up with such values.  Therefore, when someone does something really bad, they might declare privately to people who are friends, “That’s terrible!  That person calls himself a Muslim, but he most definitely not acting like a Muslim, or in accordance with Muslim values!” (This is what is meant when moderate Muslims comment, “That person is not a Muslim.”)

When people are brought up to STAY OUT of any conflicts, and not even to help their neighbors or classmates who have problems, and are even DISCOURAGED from doing so, is it any wonder that as adults they continue to behave in accordance with those values?  It does not mean that they agree with that behavior or condone it in any way.  It is more like they want to keep their head down and avoid trouble.

One reason for this is that reprisals can be very severe in their own cultures for either speaking up or getting involved (in some cases such as a person might just disappear and never be heard from again).  So yes, they are afraid of reprisals, but this is not the whole story.  It’s the idea that , “You are only responsible to people in your own in-group.”  That in-group (unlike in the West) does NOT include either strangers, or the whole society.

Lastly, this doesn’t mean that no one ever helps others.  They do.  However, this help is rare compared to the number of people in the West who offer such help to others.   In the West, we don’t have in-groups, and every individual is considered to be equally responsible to all others in the society–such as to enforce no-smoking sections; to speak up if people butt ahead in line; to help someone who is having a problem in the street; or to speak up publicly against behavior which is to be condemned by society.

–Lynne Diligent

The Generation Gap in the Arab World

If anyone remembers the Generation Gap of the 1960’s in the United States, a similar phenomenon is now sweeping the Middle East and Arab World.

Here is an example:

Traditionally in Middle Eastern culture, women do not “date.”  A man who sees a woman he likes in the street that he is attracted to is supposed to go and propose marriage to her family before he is allowed to get to know her.  (This is one of the reasons why the incidence of cousin marriage remains relatively high–people ARE aware of birth defects caused by it; however, men are often afraid to take a chance on marrying a woman they don’t know at all.  So they settle for marrying their first cousin, whom they have been allowed to get to know in a family setting.)

Now, almost all young girls are in school with boys and talking to boys, even if they are in rural schools.

In the cities, many girls in schools are having boyfriends (which doesn’t mean they are actually dating) as in classroom romances between children.  Even if a girl doesn’t have a boyfriend, all of them have boys they “like” in the class.  Boys also have the girls they “like.”  All this starts in early elementary school.  By the time kids get into junior high and high school, kids in the richer high schools are actually dating.  In many cases, the mothers know their daughters have boyfriends, but they keep it a secret from the fathers (who tend to “go ballistic”). I n a few cases, the fathers know and don’t care, but this is very rare.

So, even girls in elementary school are having boyfriends even if they are not dating at that age.  Due to modern television programs from the West, many middle-school girls now ask their parents when they can start “dating.”  The most common answer which girls I know have recently been getting  from their parents is, “When you finish the university, and are ready to get married, then it would be OK to go out on a few dates, such as to a restaurant or a movie.”

This seems like a quite liberal idea to the parents and especially fathers who are answering in this way, as it is so much further advanced over what their generation was allowed to do (men currently in their 40’s).  Yet, to the children and teenagers, this idea seems so far behind the times as to be laughable.

So is the Generation Gap a real phenomenon?  Yes, I think it is.  It happened in America in a time of great social change; it is happening in the Middle East in a time a great social change.  In the West, the changes were driven by the pill;  and by sex, drugs and rock-and-roll.

In the Middle East, the change is driven by education, particularly  of girls.  This is the first generation where girls are being educated even in rural and mountain areas.  Before, girls were kept in the house except to go to the market and public bath.  Now girls are out going to and from school every day, unsupervised and unaccompanied by their parents and family members while in school,  and free to talk with boys at school.   They have opportunities for freedom never before available to Middle Eastern girls.  So yes, the Generation Gap does exist.

Sex education is mostly absent in Middle Eastern societies (after all, no need is seen for it since girls are not supposed to be doing anything at all before they are married).  The result of this is that more out-of-wedlock pregnancies are happening.  Even pediatricians are being pro-active in bringing up the subject of birth control pills with high school girls and their mothers.

In my view, it takes at least a full generation for the Generation Gap to close a bit.  Teenagers will always want to be different from their parents, no matter how “hip” their parents were in their own time.  But this type of difference is far less than the amount of difference in a Generation Gap.  I predict that today’s Generation Gap in the Middle East will last another 30 years.

–Lynne Diligent