Stardate 20010906.0707 (On Screen): Islamic culture and American culture are so different from each other that sometimes what one does can seem insane or naive or foolish to the other. We observed this during the Gulf War several times. Saddam Hussein kept making what seemed like infantile public relations gaffs. At the beginning of hostilities there were a large number of Westerners in Iraq, and the Iraqi authorities rounded them up. But they were termed "guests", and Hussein decided to have a photo-op. I remember pictures of him standing next to an American boy, beaming a smile at the camera and the kid looking distinctly uncomfortable. It was a fiasco and shortly thereafter the Iraqi government permitted them all to leave the country after the use of the term "hostage" began to swell to tsunami proportions. During the buildup to the attack, he kept talking about how mighty his army was and how there was going to be the "mother of" all bloodshed. That turns out to be traditional in Arab culture; before a fight you whoop and holler and wave your sword over your head and try to convince your opponent that you're formidable. Unfortunately, it ran right smack up against the old
American tradition of "speak softly and carry a big stick".
[In the 1960's there was a culture shock problem when Japan emerged as a major business presence and US businessmen started dealing with Japanese businessmen big time. (Japan is, of course, not Islamic but it's a similar kind of problem.) There kept being cases where a deal would be struck and then fall apart and the Americans would decide the Japanese couldn't be trusted and the Japanese would decide the Americans were uncultured boors. Turns out that in traditional Japanese culture it's considered impolite to say "no" to someone, so they've learned ways of shading "yes" so that some forms of it mean "no"; the idea was that if someone said "yes" quite reluctantly then the other party would get the message and drop it. But the Americans heard "yes" through their translators and assumed they had a deal; the nuances and cultural context didn't get translated. There was actually a thriving business for a while in consultants who actually understood Japanese culture and would coach American businessmen through negotiations with the Japanese. In the long run, the problem was solved by the Japanese learning that Americans weren't offended by hearing "no" but were offended by what they perceived as liars, and also learning that the Americans are uncultured (in the sense of being unsubtle) but are not boors -- merely straight talking and honest. As the Japanese learned to open up and express themselves honestly, the problem disappeared.]
Now I've been observing the Taliban making the same kinds of blunders, if blunders they be. It depends on your point of view. This article may or may not be reporting on a trial balloon coming from the Taliban itself; if it is, then it is naive in the extreme from the point of view of this westerner. It suggests that the Taliban might be willing to trade the 8 western charity workers for Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is currently in US prison. He was convicted for the bombing of the World Trade Center and is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole; he's also a crony of Osama bin Laden, who is hiding out in Afghanistan. However, it's also possible that this proposal hasn't come from the Taliban but has come from Abdel-Rahman's relatives. Regardless, it represents a cultural misunderstanding of canyon-like proportions. There is no chance, none whatever, that the US would consent to such a trade. Any serious attempt to propose this to American diplomats would be greeted with scornful laughter. This isn't the Cold War, where the US and USSR would trade spies with each other; we are not going to trade cold-blooded murderers for missionaries. If Abdel-Rahmen's bombing had been successful, he would have toppled that building and upwards of ten thousand people might have died. Fortunately, the engineers designed better than that and the structure was never in peril. We're supposed to trade away someone like that? They're lucky we didn't execute the bastard. (discuss)
