A Global Village but Still Divided

BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN NIGERIA

HAVE you ever heard stories of a race of people who had no mouth and therefore could neither eat nor drink? They were said to survive by smelling, mostly apples. A bad odor would kill them.

There were also tales of a West African people who had gold to trade. A Portuguese ship’s captain of the time reported: “Two hundred leagues beyond [the] kingdom of [Mali], one finds a country the inhabitants of which have the heads and teeth of dogs and tails like dogs. These are the Blacks who refuse to enter into conversation because they do not wish to see other men.” Those were some of the strange ideas that were held many years ago, before the age of travel and discovery.

Peoples Come Together

Such stories were taken seriously for centuries. But as explorers charted the planet, they found no mouthless apple smellers, no dog-headed people. Today there remains little mystery about those who live beyond our borders. The world has become a global village. Television brings foreign lands and peoples into our living rooms. Air travel makes it possible to visit those lands within hours; millions of people do so each year. Others are on the move for economic or political reasons. States a report of the United Nations Population Fund: “On a scale unknown in history—and certain to grow—people around the world are uprooting themselves and migrating in search of a better life.” About 100 million people live outside the country in which they were born.

Increasingly there is economic interdependency among nations. A global communications network, like a gigantic central nervous system, links every nation of the earth. As ideas, information, and technology are exchanged, cultures merge and adapt to one another. Throughout the world people dress more alike than ever before. Cities of the world share much in common—police, luxury hotels, traffic, stores, banks, pollution. Thus, as the peoples of the world come together, we witness what some describe as an emerging world culture.

Why People Remain Divided

But while peoples and cultures intermingle, clearly not all see one another as brothers. “Everyone’s quick to blame the alien,” wrote a Greek playwright over 2,000 years ago. Sadly, the same is true today. The evidence is no farther away than newspaper reports of bigotry, hatred of foreigners, “ethnic cleansing,” racial strife, religious riots, massacre of civilians, killing fields, rape camps, torture, or genocide.

Of course, most of us can do little or nothing to change the course of ethnic conflicts. We may not even be directly affected by them. For many of us, however, problems come from a lack of communication with the foreigners with whom we come into contact—neighbors, workmates, or schoolmates.

Does it not seem odd that people of differing ethnic groups so often find it difficult to trust and appreciate one another? After all, ours is a planet of enormous diversity, endless variety. Most of us appreciate the rich variety of food, music, and color as well as the many kinds of plants, birds, and animals. But somehow our appreciation of variety does not always carry over to people who do not think and act in the same way that we do.

Instead of looking at the positive aspects of diversity among peoples, many tend to focus on the differences and make them a point of contention. Why is this so? What benefit is there in reaching out to people whose culture differs from our own? How might we break down walls to communication and replace them with bridges? The following articles will endeavor to answer those questions.

Walls That Block Communication

ROBERT is a Watch Tower missionary who lives in Sierra Leone, West Africa. One day shortly after his arrival in the country, as he walked along the road, he noticed that the local children were chanting: “White man! White man!” Robert, who is a black American, looked around for the white man, but no one else was there. He then realized that the children were directing their cries toward him!

There was no maliciousness in the chanting. The children were merely voicing their recognition that Robert came from a culture that differed from their own. Calling Robert a white man was the best way they could think of to give voice to that difference.

How Culture Influences Who We Are

Culture has been broadly defined as “a set of shared ideas, . . . the customs, beliefs, and knowledge that characterize a way of life.” We learn many cultural values through direct teaching, but we also absorb much without even being aware of it. Said one researcher: “From the moment of [a child’s] birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behaviour. By the time he can talk, he is the little creature of his culture, and by the time he is grown and able to take part in its activities, its habits are his habits, its beliefs his beliefs, its impossibilities his impossibilities.”

In many ways culture makes life easier for us. As children we quickly learn how to please our parents. Knowing what is acceptable in our society and what is not guides us in making decisions about how to act, what to wear, and how to relate to others.

Of course, what we are as individuals does not depend on just our cultural background. Within every culture there are variations among people. Who we are is also determined by genetics, our experiences in life, and a host of other factors. Nevertheless, culture is a lens through which we see the world.

Our culture, for example, decides not only the language we speak but how we speak it. In parts of the Middle East, people value the ability to express themselves skillfully with many words, using repetition and metaphor. In contrast, the people of some Far Eastern countries keep verbal communication to a minimum. A Japanese proverb reflects this view: “By your mouth you shall perish.”

Our culture governs how we view time. In Switzerland if you are ten minutes late for an appointment, you are expected to apologize. In other countries you can be an hour or two late and little apology would be looked for.

Our culture also teaches us values. Think how you would feel if someone said to you: “You are putting on a lot of weight. You are really getting fat!” If you grew up in an African culture where heftiness is valued, you would likely feel happy at the remark. But if you were raised in a Western culture where slimness is highly esteemed, the frank comment would likely upset you.

‘Our Way Is Best!’

What so often hinders communication between those of different cultures is that people everywhere tend to assume that their own culture is better. Most of us think that our beliefs, values, traditions, style of dress, and ideas about beauty are correct, proper, and better than any alternative. We also tend to judge other cultures according to the values of our own group. Such thinking is called ethnocentrism. The New Encyclopædia Britannica observes: “Ethnocentrism . . . may be said to be almost universal. Members of nearly all the world’s cultures regard their own way of life as superior to that of even closely related neighbours.”

Two hundred years ago, an English squire put the matter bluntly, saying: “[From what] I see, foreigners are fools.” The editor of the book of quotations in which these words appear wrote: “[This] must come as close to being a universal sentiment as has ever been uttered.”

Examples of intolerance toward those of other cultures abound. Though originally penned by a German novelist in the 1930’s, the following quotation is often attributed to Nazi leader Hermann Göring: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver.”

Strong ethnocentric views can lead to discrimination, which in turn may lead to hostility and conflict. Richard Goldstone is the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal investigating war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Concerning the barbaric acts in both conflicts, he said: “This sort of thing can happen anywhere. Here you have two separate lands, with distinct cultures and histories, yet similar atrocities [are] committed by neighbor against neighbor. This kind of brutal ethnic or religious warfare is just discrimination taken to a violent phase. The victimized group must be dehumanized or demonized. Once this is done, it frees ordinary people from the moral restraints that would normally inhibit them [from] doing such terrible things.”

Broadening Our Outlook

Usually the people we choose to be our friends are those much like ourselves, people who share our attitudes and values. We trust and understand them. We feel relaxed in their company. If we view the behavior of another person as odd or abnormal, our friends will probably agree with us because our friends share our biases.

What, then, can we gain by communicating with others who differ from us because of cultural background? For one thing, good communication will help us to understand the reasons why others think and act as they do. Kunle, a West African, says: “Many children in Africa are strongly discouraged from talking while eating a meal. In some European countries, however, conversation at mealtimes is encouraged. What happens when the European shares a meal with the African? The European wonders why the African seems to brood silently over his meal. Meanwhile, the African wonders why the European is chattering away like a bird!” Clearly, in such situations, mutual understanding of each other’s cultural background can do much to remove social prejudice.

As we come to know people of other cultures, not only do we improve our understanding of others but we also understand ourselves better. An anthropologist wrote: “The last thing which a dweller in the deep sea would discover would be water. He would become conscious of its existence only if some accident brought him to the surface and introduced him to air. . . . The ability to see the culture of one’s own society as a whole . . . calls for a degree of objectivity which is rarely if ever achieved.” Nevertheless, by exposing ourselves to other cultures, we are like the sea dweller who is introduced to air; we become aware of the cultural “waters” in which we live. Writer Thomas Abercrombie expressed the matter nicely: “One never seduced by a foreign culture can never appreciate the fetters of his own.”

In short, an appreciation of other cultures can enrich our lives by broadening our outlook, so that we better understand both ourselves and others. While cultural heritage and ethnocentric thinking can be walls against communication, they do not have to be. Those walls can be breached.

Destroying Walls to Build Bridges

WE DID not choose the family or nation into which we were born, nor did we decide what culture would shape our thinking. Over such things we had no control. We are all subject to time and circumstance. But we can control how we view others and how we act toward them.

The Bible describes how we may do that. Consider a few principles that will help us to build bridges of communication to those who may come from a background that differs from our own.

“The God that made the world and all the things in it . . . made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth.” (Acts 17:24, 26) All of us are members of the same human family and thus have much in common. Looking for the things we have in common makes communication easier. All of us want good friends and need to feel loved and respected. Everyone seeks to avoid physical and emotional pain. People of all cultures love music and art, tell jokes, believe in being civil to one another, and search for ways to be happy.

‘Do nothing out of contentiousness or out of egotism, but with lowliness of mind consider that the others are superior to you.’ (Philippians 2:3) This is not to say that we should consider others superior to us in everything. Rather, we should realize that in some areas of life, others are superior. We should never think that either we or our culture has a monopoly on all that is good.

“Really, then, as long as we have time favorable for it, let us work what is good toward all.” (Galatians 6:10) Simply taking the initiative to be friendly and helpful toward others, regardless of their cultural background, can do much to bridge a communication gap.

“Know this, my beloved brothers. Every man must be swift about hearing, slow about speaking, slow about wrath.” (James 1:19) Good communicators must do more than talk; they must be empathetic listeners.

“Counsel in the heart of a man is as deep waters, but the man of discernment is one that will draw it up.” (Proverbs 20:5) Be alert to discern the feelings and issues that lie beneath a person’s surface behavior. Get to know people better.

“[Keep] an eye, not in personal interest upon just your own matters, but also in personal interest upon those of the others.” (Philippians 2:4) Be empathetic by viewing issues from the other person’s point of view. Be unselfish.

Cultural Diversity Among Jehovah’s Witnesses

That these principles really work is seen in the remarkable unity of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are active in 232 lands of the earth. They are a people who come from “all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues” and who are determined to conform to Jehovah’s loving guidance in all things.—Revelation 7:9; 1 Corinthians 10:31-33.

Individual Witnesses do not disdain the culture of others. Neither do those who become Witnesses reject the culture in which they were reared, unless it disagrees with the principles in the Bible. In such cases they make changes in their lives. They recognize that in every culture there are praiseworthy features and that these are even enhanced in people who adopt true worship.

They strive to view our planet as God must see it—bright and blue and beautiful—spinning through space. It is a planet with a marvelous variety of peoples and cultures. Jehovah’s Witnesses look forward to the time when all on earth will enjoy life as a truly united family.