Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/02/roger_cohens_very_happy_visit.php makes an excellent point I've also observed on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf: To be inhospitable to a guest is so obscene in Arab Gulf culture as to be unthinkable. I also have never had a bad experience as a guest of anyone in that region, even when they spouted the most hateful comments imaginable about "other," third-party Jews and Christians (or, indeed, just about any other culture.) I have also observed how many Americans, even high officials, unused to the profound and sincere hospitality of that culture, have mistaken hospitality for friendship. They are not the same.
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
Showing posts with label middle east. Show all posts
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Western imperialist thinking
I recently had occasion to remember a conversation many years ago in which a Saudi diplomat remarked to me that my insistence on the existence of objective facts and what he derisively characterized as "Cartesian logic" was a narrow Western cultural outlook. He believed what he "knew" emotionally to be true, and this was the higher truth.
The way he expressed himself suggested that he picked up this way of describing his thinking during the years he had been sent to an American university. It also reminded me of something I thought about years earlier when I worked on African affairs: That one of the most damaging effects of colonialism was that the Europeans took the best and brightest children of the local elites and educated them in British and French universities, where they were exposed to the economic and social thinking of Marxist professors whose advice would never be taken seriously in a modern, working society. But those young leaders then took these nutty ideas and tried to transplant them at home when they came to power, helping set the continent back another two decades in potential development.
If you really want to find a Western imperialist conspiracy against the Third World, that's it. And it was devastatingly effective.
The way he expressed himself suggested that he picked up this way of describing his thinking during the years he had been sent to an American university. It also reminded me of something I thought about years earlier when I worked on African affairs: That one of the most damaging effects of colonialism was that the Europeans took the best and brightest children of the local elites and educated them in British and French universities, where they were exposed to the economic and social thinking of Marxist professors whose advice would never be taken seriously in a modern, working society. But those young leaders then took these nutty ideas and tried to transplant them at home when they came to power, helping set the continent back another two decades in potential development.
If you really want to find a Western imperialist conspiracy against the Third World, that's it. And it was devastatingly effective.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)