Living overseas has really changed my perceptions of politics back in my home country.
I was raised in a family of staunch Republicans and went to work as a stock broker (now called investment banker) in my 20s. Coming from a semi-privileged background (not needing to take on any student loans to get through college), and although I did work extremely hard and hold down up to three jobs at the same time, at that time I subscribed to the Republican world view of Social Darwinism. At that time, I was a fiscal conservative and a social moderate.
Then I married a foreigner and moved overseas to North Africa in my late 30s.
Living and working in North Africa for two decades, as well as raising my family here in a class-based society, and coming in contact with many Europeans from class-based societies such as Britain, has enabled me, after many years, to see the world from a different point-of-view. While my own country back home (the United States) has became ever more divided, and the Republican party became ever more extreme, I became increasingly distressed watching these changes.
For many years overseas, considering myself a “moderate” (I’m sure I’m one of those famous “swing” voters) I found I seemed to upset my staunch Republican family back home any time I “dared” disagree with their extreme points-of-view. I found I also upset Democratic Americans who I came in contact with overseas, as well as some Europeans by daring to disagree with some of their points-of-view. So I stopped discussing any sort of politics with most people. I discovered that most people are not interested in having a discussion debating the merits of alternative points-of-view; whether Democrat or Republican, most people only want to forward inflammatory emails (often not true if one checks Snopes) that support their own extreme point-of-view.
About four or five years ago, I finally threw up my hands in disgust at the health care situation in America (one of the reasons my foreign husband and I moved back to his home country–insurance is private here, too, but at least medical care is affordable if you have a job, and inexpensive insurance covers medical prescriptions at 80%); at the Republican points-of-view on the Iraq War and their misunderstandings of the whole mentality in the Middle East; and at the Republican view of Social Darwinism which I no longer agreed with after living in class-based North Africa. My viewpoint had transformed into believing that while sometimes people are responsible for their own lack-of-progress, that other times, many circumstances are beyond their control.
My mother always emphasized to us that it was important to never register as an Independent (which is where I feel I probably belong), but to instead always declare a party so that one may vote in the Primary elections). So, I changed my party registration to Democrat. When I did it, I almost had trouble signing the paper, knowing that in spite of what my mother said, that if any of my family members saw me registering as a Democrat, that I would be forever disowned as the “black sheep of the family.” For about a year afterward, I felt really weird about it. Then I happened to have a particular conversation with a woman on the internet who insisted on discussing politics. I relented. She turned out to be a rabid Republican unwilling to have anyone even question her extreme points-of-view. That conversation was useful for me, because it really confirmed for me that I had done the right thing to leave the Republican party.
I’d like to know from other readers living outside of their home country, or for those who have ever lived for a time outside of their own home country, did the experience change your perception of your home-country politics? If so, how?
Two decades ago, I had the occasion to travel for several months in Black Africa–Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, and Zaire.
The first few weeks after my arrival, I was shocked at my lack of ability to recognize people; everyone looked the same. I couldn’t tell people apart. I thought something was wrong with me.
More than twenty years later, I found an explanation for my problem through watching a television program. In this episode of The Good Wife, trial lawyers discover through the use of a consultant that it is difficult for most white witnesses to make accurate identification of black perpetrators, and equally difficult for most black witnesses to make accurate identification of white perpetrators.
This problem, as I have recently learned, is called “Difficulty with Cross-Racial Face Recognition.”
Kenya is a black majority country. When I first arrived, I had trouble noticing differences between people's faces.
After spending approximately three weeks in East Africa, I finally became able to recognize people and tell them apart. I think what happened to me here as an adult was a reproduction of the experience all of us must go through as babies, yet none of us remember. It is clear that we learn as babies to recognize best of all those we grow up around, most particularly our family, and our own race. Recent research shows that it is in the extremely precise judgement of the micro-measurements of the face (which vary by race) where recognition takes place.
Burundi
When I traveled in Burundi (four years before the war with Rwanda), one person I spent time with told me, “I could never step over the border into Rwanda, or they would kill me.” When I asked why, he told me, “They would just take one look at my face, and kill me.”
Tutsi boy
This person was a Tutsi. At that time, not only did I not believe my acquaintance, but I could not tell the difference between the Hutu and Tutsi. Now, many years later, the differences are clear.
Agathon Rwasa, a Burundian Hutu Militia Leader
Now I live in North Africa. When traveling with my North African husband (who is Caucasian), I find people in certain regions speaking to him in the Berber language. He doesn’t speak Berber. My husband explains, “They just see my face and assume that I speak Berber.”
A Berber man with his daughter
I lived in North Africa for many years before anyone pointed out to me the facial differences between Arabs and Berbers. Sometimes I can clearly tell them apart; other times not. But even now, my recognition doesn’t even come close to those who were born here.
A few years ago I went to a wedding in a small village high in the Atlas Mountains. That weekend I noticed something I had never seen before. Everyone in the village had a very distinctive cranial shape, and a very particular set of ears. It was distinctive enough that even if I saw someone who looked like that back in America, now I would ask them, “Are you, by any chance, from this particular village in the Atlas Mountains?”
Atlas Mountains
I finally understood why Americans (or maybe just me) are particularly bad at racial face recognition. In most Old World countries, people have stayed in the same locations, and intermarried primarily with the local group for a long-enough time to develop very, very precise micro-racial characteristics. Each village, even 20-30 miles away from each other will have very particular characteristics. People from these countries are quite used to looking at people in this way, and recognizing which area they are from.
In America, we are not at all used to looking at people in this way. Since we have immigrants from all over the world, everyone is entirely mixed up. We have unlimited micro-varieties within every race. If a black African or white European came to America, he or she would no doubt be able to look at many Americans of their own race, and know precisely where many of their ancestors came from.
America - the nation of immigrants
One important difference in America is that most people, even within their own race, have intermarried with others from many different locales. So many of their micro-features would no longer be the same as might be associated with a particular European or African village. Americans have always moved from one part of the country to another on a regular basis, as well. In addition, many more interracial marriages are occurring. For all these reasons, people are “mixed up” in America, and Americans are not used to recognizing people by looking at their micro-characteristics and trying to categorize where they are from. But, as babies, they become used to looking at the micro-characteristics of their own race, in order to recognize family members.
Animal micro-recognition is similar. Years ago, I used to wonder how biological researchers in the field could watch a troop or a herd of animals, and recognize each animal. They all looked the same to me.
Later, after we got two cats from the same litter as pets, I began to see the subtle differences in their faces and bodies, especially when there were several neighborhood cats who looked close enough to my own cats that I called to them by mistake. Now I never make that mistake as I immediately recognize much more subtle differences, even from a distance.
New information is now being publicized about a condition called Face Blindness. People who suffer from this condition are unable to visually recognize their own family members or close friends. The short linked-to video on Face Blindness also explains the opposite condition, which is called being a Super Recognizer, meaning that one is able to recognize and remember every face he has ever seen. These people are able to tell you where they saw a face, as well as being able to recognize a photo of any of those people taken at any point, at any age, during their lifetimes.
Through this new research, I now see that recognizing faces is a learned skill for most people, an impossible challenge for people with face blindness, and incredibly easy for super recognizers.
My hidden secret perplexed and embarrassed me for many years. But now that I understand why I had this problem, I no longer feel so guilty! Thankfully, in my older years I’ve now learned to recognize much more than I noticed in my younger years.
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.
Europeans criticize Americans for working too much....
Where do the different work attitudes in different countries come from?
Americans are criticized by Europeans for “working too hard,” and “not having any culture.” Americans in Europe often criticize Europeans for having anti-business attitudes and being cultural snobs. The Asians, on the other hand, make Americans look extremely lazy! In French-speaking North Africa, we have a curious mixture of pro- and anti-business sentiments. Business and money are extremely respected, yet nothing works well. Businesses are extremely inefficient, and services are terrible (including government services).
The answers are to be found in the historical experiences of various countries. The major difference which sets America apart from Europe, in work attitudes today, is that America has no history of feudalism.
The remnants of these attitudes are found today in European attitudes toward work, where laws and the public demand that workers have plenty of free time and are not “taken advantage of” by those in management (the old lords and princes).
New York offices of the French Investment banking company, Calyon.
American work attitudes, in contrast, were not not born out of feudalism, but out of freedom, individualism, and capitalism. One of the main reasons Americans left Europe was because they rejected the class system. (This is why American bosses occasionally make the office coffee, to demonstrate to workers that they are not “above” others in social class.) In America, one’s social standing at birth does not prohibit one from rising to a prominent position (whether Abraham Lincoln or Barack Obama).
Who you were at birth has nothing to do with who you will be, or might be. In America, it is “up to you” to make what you will of your life. In America, no one cares who you ARE. They care what you have DONE, what you have ACCOMPLISHED. This is why Americans generally give the highest pay, promotions, and status in business to those who accomplish the most (rather than those who went to impressive schools, but who do not perform once employed). Anyone can reach the top tier by becoming rich, if they are smart enough, and willing to work hard enough. This is what every American teaches their children from the time they are two years old.
These attitudes are seen today in the American tradition of Management by Objectives, which involves participative goal setting, then choosing a course of action, and decision-making in line with those actions. Employees are measured against these standards. Unfortunately, American managers often find that management by objectives does not work well in many other parts of the world, such as in North Africa.
Satchel Paige - a victim of American racism in baseball
In America, the problem has been racism, not classism. The class-based problems and conflicts of Europe have been replaced in America by race-based problems. While minorities have now been absorbed into society through the past battles of Martin Luther King, past affirmative action (preferential hiring practices based on race), and by becoming members of the professional and middle classes, some disaffected groups and individuals are still very anti-white.
These individuals feel a group solidarity against the white culture. This same feeling also applies to certain religious groups and groups of new immigrants from various nations to America throughout our history. They were discriminated against on the basis of national origin until each group became well-integrated after two or three generations.
In the same way, many Europeans and North Africans feel a class-solidarity against those above or below them, which influences work behavior in those countries, in the same way that race conflicts affect work attitudes among anti-white groups in America. (The Arab Spring movement is partly about hope of the middle classes in the North African countries for abandoning nepotism and moving toward meritocracy.)
America continues to work on these race-based conflicts, but in reality, skin color and culture do continue to be a barrier to certain groups. White Americans, using the example of Abraham Lincoln, have always told their children since the age of two, “You could grow up to be president.” However, since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, now for the first time, black Americans can also tell their children the same thing.
Barack Obama
Today in French-speaking North Africa, there are remnants of attitudes from both the feudal system and modern French systems. Work behavior of employees and managers here is extremely confusing for North Americans. While some people work hard and well, these people are rare, and should be especially appreciated (and rewarded).
Instead of being helpful to customers, and cooperative with employees or co-workers, most North-African employees (especially those not in management) tend to set up little “fiefdoms” and act like little Napoleons within their sphere of influence.
If someone comes to them with a request or a problem, instead of facilitating the process, they act as “gatekeepers” and often try to create problems and obstacles where none existed before. (Yes, some of them expect bribes, but even those who are not looking for bribes tend to behave this way.) Instead of sharing information so that the organization can function smoothly, both managers and employees are extremely secretive with information, insuring that the organization lurches along from crisis-to-crisis, and problem-to-problem. This seems similar to business practices in France, in some ways.
There seems to be a sort of “class war” going on between management and employees in most North African companies. Managers generally come from certain families, and have gone to certain schools. Employees, neither from important families nor important schools, have little stake in making the organization function well, and their main interest seems to be in working slowly and inefficiently, specifically making sure that no employer “takes advantage” of them by making them work “too hard.” Employees’ interests seem to usually be diametrically opposed to management’s interests, and many employees (not all) come into a job the very first day with the attitude that they expect an employer will try to exploit them.
Queuing at a government office in North Africa
When employees or co-workers are asked why they don’t give their best effort and take pride in their work, they often answer, “What will it get me if I do? I will not get paid any more.” Yet, most say, if presented in theory with a theoretical doubling or tripling of salary for a given job, that the work effort would be exactly the same, that this would not solve the problem. Therefore, the real problem lies in the attitude behind the work. Employees immediately assume that their personal interests are in opposition to their employer’s interest, and that they must do everything they can to “protect themselves” instead of everything they can to “do the job right.”
While most Americans view themselves as working hard for a chance to get ahead, and believe in more possibilities in their future, employees in class-based societies usually don’t believe they will be able to get ahead, or be rewarded for their efforts, no matter how hard they work. Their societies are not meritocracies, and this accounts for their reluctant attitudes at work.
Many employees in North Africa behave in a passive-aggressive manner at work, saying "yes," but secretly sabotaging their employers.
North African employees’ typical productivity is about one-quarter to one-third of an American worker (not everyone–there are some very hard-working North Africans; and certain regions have these problems more than other regions). Their jobs are “protected” by labor laws which prevent the employer from replacing them no matter how poorly they work. It can be done, but it is extremely expensive and indemnities increase for every year the employee was with the company. There are only three acceptable reasons to fire an employee: being caught stealing, showing up drunk, or not showing up at all repeatedly. Those reasons do NOT include being habitually late or doing poor work.
Looking at French-speaking North Africa as a whole, unfortunately, from the employee’s viewpoint, exploitation is rife throughout every level of the society. Few businesses are corporations. Most are individual or family-controlled enterprises, large and small. Nepotism is the order of the day, from finding a job, to being promoted, to getting anything done in the society.
Business owners tend to exploit anyone working for them who is not a family member, while non-productive family members often have a title and a salary, while doing little. People are less often employed for their skills than for who they are, or who they know. Of course, this makes services notoriously bad for consumers. But even those who lament the exploitation of workers in their own workplace often come home and exploit the labor of those below them.
One secretary, who previously in tears because her boss overworked her and treated her poorly, turned right around and did exactly the same thing to the assistant she later got. Some in the middle classes cry over being exploited at work and turn right around and exploit their own maids at home. As a teacher, I saw over-and-over young students complaining about adults and older children who spoke to them rudely, using insulting words. But the minute they become older themselves, they turn around and do the same thing.
All this exploitation is about power, which seems to be the main point of interest of each person in the society. Everyone wants to know precisely who has the authority for what, and authority is never delegated to others as it is in American culture. This also may be similar to France, but even more extreme in North Africa.
Every time a new employer-employee relationship is created (whether in an office, or a housewife at home with a maid), most employees are not thinking about if their new boss will be kind or provide them with reasonable working conditions. It is already assumed that they will not. Instead, they are thinking, “How powerful will I be able to be in this relationship?” (This may be starting to change with some of the younger generation who are becoming educated and, after the Arab Spring, are hoping for meritocratic changes to take place.)
This concern about power is where foreign managers and expats run into trouble. American managers aren’t generally thinking about using power and maintaining it. They are thinking about how to facilitate cooperation, collaboration, and effective problem-solving. Unfortunately, kindness and consideration (even in speech) is viewed as “weakness” in North Africa, and immediately, the subordinate maid or employee with the “power interest” mentality begins to take advantage, secretly sabotaging the goals of the manager. The most serious dilemma for the expat manager becomes how to treat employees well (a sincere desire), while at the same time getting them to put forth a good effort toward accomplishing the goals which are important to the manager or employer.
I’m sure this is a humorous list for the British, but for those of us who are not British, it’s a great guide to print out and keep on hand to understand what our British friends really mean!
This list certainly typifies in the pink column how Americans would understand the speech in the gray column. I worked for years in a company with both American and British employees, and these were exactly the type of misunderstandings we had going on for years. People often don’t realize what has happened until it creates a major misunderstanding such as joint partners going off in completely different directions without realizing they have done so, until a major problem occurs.
My thought is that when the British are dealing with each other, they will understand each others’ meanings. If they wish to be understood, British bosses and subordinates are dealing with other English-speaking cultures, they need to be careful to say clearly and plainly what they actually mean.
The Seven Cultures of Capitalism compares the business cultures of the United States with Britain, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands (Holland), France, and Japan. Other countries, such as Singapore, Italy, and Australia are sometimes mentioned. While not a new book, the content is still just the knowledge international businesspeople need today.
According to British author Charles Hampden-Turner and Dutch author Alfons Trompenaars, some of the biggest problems faced by Americans in International Business are:
1.) The United States invents extremely well (whose creativity correlates with an inner-directed society), but sometimes isn’t able to follow through well with the subsequent phase of innovation (improving and changing the product in order to to better serve customer’s ideas of how to use it, something at which the Japanese excel).
2.) American firms become extremely vulnerable at the point where they must serve a maturing market (just where Japanese industry strikes and makes massive inroads).
3.) Inner-directed Americans sometimes encounter problems in world marketing because customers using the products often do not share the logic of the designers.
4.) America’s inner-directedness prevents the U.S. from forming the cooperative structures necessary to compete internationally at the level of value-added chains, industries, or nations . (Three examples given of when America was able to close ranks to fight a larger problem were the Great Depression, World War II, and after the launch of Sputnik.) Other nations, especially Asian nations, are able to do this much more effectively.
Historically, large economic combinations have been viewed negatively in America’s experience. The Sherman Antitrust Act and other antitrust policies came about because America views collusion as the inevitable consequence of joining together. Turner and Trompenaars believe that Americans see cooperation between firms as collusion against consumers. and that their fears are not groundless.
Taiaiake Alfred, the world’s foremost expert on the effects of colonization on indigenous peoples, speaks about the ongoing anger felt by people who have been victims of colonization. Listening to Taiaiake speak on the today’s ongoing colonialist experience of Aboriginals (formerly called Inuits) in Canada, I found his points relevant to what is happening today in the Middle East and Africa.
As a Westerner arriving in the Middle East some years ago, I was shocked to find Middle Easterners and North Africans describing the Iraq Wars in two ways–as Americans leading a new Christian Crusade against Muslims, and Americans as neo-colonialists out to “steal” Iraq’s oil. “Why else would a country do these things?” I was told, when I tried to argue with people.
North African and Middle Eastern people are still focused on the Crusades as a recent memory (in the way that Westerners focus on the two World Wars as a recent memory) because of their very recent memory of colonization. Recent colonialist experience colors the judgement of a people about everything in life. This altered mentality creates a way of thinking where they feel that no one ever acts altruistically, that no one (nor any country) ever does something unless they will be able to “benefit” from it personally.
The reason it’s difficult for Americans to understand this colonialist mentality is because our own colonialist experience happened so long ago, and anyone with living memory of it died more than 100 years ago. I would posit that for a society to rid oneself of the colonialist experience and mentality takes at least 150 years. If we could go back and look at American society , post-1776, I think we would see lingering attitudes from the Colonialist experience up all the way until World War I. Those born in 1770, some of whom presumably lived until about 1860, would have told their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren about their memories of the colonialist experience. Those grandchildren born in 1830-1850 would have lived until the early 1900s. I would say that sometime between 1900 and WWI, those old attitudes would have been overcome by other events, and forgotten.
So, how does this extrapolate to Africa and the Middle East today? In my experience, people in the Middle East and Africa seem to have a love-hate relationship with their former colonial power.
A love-hate relationship often exists between the colonizers and the colonized. (Painting by John Frederick Lewis, British Orientalist Painter 1830s to 1860s)
In fact, parts of North Africa were united under nationalist governments for the first time in the 1950s. Prior to this time, these areas existed under feudal warlords.
Viewing the independence dates of African countries in the map below, and adding 150 years, shows us that it will take until at least 2100-2130 before Africa is able to begin to shake off its colonialist heritage and the lingering negative effects of the colonialization experience.
Decolonization Dates / Independence Dates of African Countries
A recent colonialist experience creates an anger among a people over their own native culture having been repressed, that no amount of material “goodwill” can ever assuage. In the Middle East and Africa (without mentioning specific examples) there are instances of lands and people being absorbed into a national culture of which those people consider to be a foreign power; these national governments have spent a great deal of money on improving the infrastructure of the absorbed areas–highways, schools, telecommunications, transportation, and modernization–without obtaining any loyalty from the part of the local populations.
New Highways Built for Local Populations in the Deserts of Northwest Africa
Why not? Because these materialist “offerings” do nothing to address the real problem of “forced” assimilation. Native peoples remain alienated.
New Empty Towns Built for Local Populations in the Deserts of Northwest Africa
No doubt this process of forced assimilation and alienation has taken place all over the world, throughout history. But it is not an easy process to recover from, and the effects linger in each locality for up to 200 years afterward. During the North African Spring we have heard much talk of the different tribal areas in Libya, and the problems of forced assimilation during the Gaddafi regime which are now bubbling to the surface. In the past decade we heard of Kurdish problems in Iraq and Turkey. Sometimes we hear of problems with groups in the Sahara. Elsewhere, China has built new infrastructure in Tibet.
New Road Built by the Chinese in Tibet
According to Taiaiake Alfred, colonized peoples–such as the Aboriginals (formerly called Inuit) and other native peoples of North America–especially believe in treaties, because treaties show respect between two peoples, or two nations. National governments of various societies, on the other hand, believe in integration and assimilation based on social justice principles. The main agenda of national governments is to make formerly colonized peoples into fully-functioning members of society through providing language, education, and job opportunities; however, they show a lack of respect to native peoples by trying to assimilate them. Education is used everywhere as an assimilation tool. “Native peoples living independently is also a threat to national governments because if they live independently, they control more land. This makes less land available for mining claims, for other citizens,” Taiaiake says.
Modern Inuits in Canada Dealing with Effects of Colonialization
Native leaders who try to work within the national system to obtain more benefits such as land claims and self-government for native peoples are usually viewed as illegitimate leaders by the grassroots population.
Colonized peoples don’t want to be part of an integrative relationship. Their vision is different. their problems are not money problems, or problems of jurisdiction. They are angry about losing their culture and their different way of life. This creates a permanent state of alienation. No matter how many material goods are given, these make no difference, because those material goods never address the source of the problem, the psychological anger.
Furthermore, as these new material things become the norm, the material standard rises ever further. This process prevents getting to the root of the problem–this psychological anger–the pain in the community which comes from losing one’s culture. This causes a permanent state of alienation coming from not having their culture, their values, reflected in the value system of the overall society. This is why there are so many social and psychological problems in the communities which are not being addressed.
In Canada, people wonder why, when the government injects 7. million dollars to relocate a complete band of 700 Inuits to a new location, giving them new housing and other material goods, why the same problems of alcoholism, suicide, depression, and despair emerge again.
Morgan Fawcett, an Aboriginal (Inuit) victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, has dedicated his life to making sure women think before they drink
“It didn’t work because it’s putting the car before the horse,” says Taiaiake. “These people aren’t ready to participate in this government because it’s not a form of government which is reflective of their culture, and their values. It is essentially an imposed form of government. More importantly, the problem of deculturalization of these people has not been fixed.”
Taiaiake says, “When Africa was decolonized, you have societies left that reflect all the worst aspects of the colonizers in the way power is used, in the way that corruption has infused the society.”
Canada’s indigenous people suffer from a post-colonialist mentality, according to Taiaiake. “Native peoples have been illegally dispossessed of their land and treaties have not been honored. We have to address those things before we can have reconciliation.”
“There is always a connection between the means and the ends,” Taiaiake says. “If you want to have a peaceful co-existence with your neighbor, you can’t use violence.”
The true reclaiming of what it means to be an indigenous person is spiritual. This means one must return to the essence of being a true warrior, in the sense of “they carry the burden (of their heritage).” It is about having strength and integrity inside yourself to be an authentic person, carrying yourself with a sense of justice and rightness.
“Colonialized peoples need to recreate themselves as people who are spiritually-grounded and strong, in order to withstand all those forces of assimilation and recreate the something new out of the best values of the indigenous culture. The most impressive thing that Ghandi did was to take a stand against both imperialism and traditionalism, and insist that people needed to create something new out of both appropriate to today. This is really the solution.”
Meanwhile, what can be done about growing problems among youth? There are increasing levels of drug use, violence, and family violence. Smoking is increasing, gun and gang culture are emerging in Canada. What about indigenous people in the urban centers?
“We need to create relationships between those people and the home communities. However, many of those home communities themselves are problematic.”
More indigenous people in Canada are going to university and becoming doctors and lawyers. Taiaiaka’s view is that each day of his life, no matter what job or education level an indigenous person receives, he can make the choice to support either the vision of indigenous people, or the vision of the colonizer. Taiaiaka hopes to inspire the next generation of indigenous leaders to regenerate the culture in a political and legal manner, to force Canada into a reconciliation with reality. He envisions a social and political agenda in Canada like the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The goal is to recover the stolen sense of what it means to be an indigenous person living the authentic life of our ancestors.
For all recently decolonized peoples, the way forward is to find a middle road which is neither the vision of the colonizer, nor a reactionary vision against the colonizer. Decolonized peoples must take what is useful from the colonizer and combine it with a spiritual vision from their own culture to find a new way forward in the modern world–to be part of the modern world, while not “of” the colonizers’ world.
With regard to national cultures which are trying to assimilate native cultures through the use of education and materialistic recompense, I feel this strategy is far preferable to the ethnic cleansing which is happening in so many parts of the world (which is what happens when assimilation efforts fail). While I can understand the pain of native peoples, I think adapting to the dominant culture is probably the best middle course of action for all.
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.
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!
Intercultural Meanderings 