Diamond - The World until Yesterday

(I’m beginning a new era in my reading as a result of a family birthday present – a kindle. So, now I can download my books for easier reading. However, when I quote I’ll only reference the % of the book completed for page citations.)

 

Jared Diamond’s life among the native peoples of Papau New Guinea provided a great backdrop from which to explore the attributes of traditional societies that might have merit in the modern day. The point he makes is not that we should attempt to turn back the clock but that we should look at the positive attributes of traditional societies and consider how their strengths might add to the quality of contemporary life for all.

 

When we consider that 96% of the subjects studied in the top journals of psychology in 2008 lived in WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democrat) societies, thus establishing the perceived world-wide standard of how human beings function, is it not possible, and even likely, that we are missing qualities of the many other people who do not inhabit these WEIRD environments? WEIRD societies are based on the concept of a nation state when many of the people of the world are organized in bands, tribes, chiefdoms, or other emerging organization types. Diamond explores how traditional societies look at space, handle disputes, engage in war, how they view childhood and old age, danger, religion, language diversity, and health. Diamond commented at the end of his introduction (8%) that, “those of us who have grown up in modern state societies, modern conditions of life are so pervasive, and so taken for granted, that it’s hard for us to notice the fundamental differences of traditional societies during short visits to them.” When Diamond returned to live in LA after immersing himself in New Guinea, he was deeply struck by the differences between WEIRD environments and those of many societies around the world. And, he recognized the potential merit of adopting/adapting some of the approaches of these traditional cultures.

 

Diamond writes in vivid detail from his own experience in New Guinea and he broadens from his own experience by referring to numerous other anthropological and archeological studies of traditional cultures. The details of his analyses are fascinating and enjoyable to read and come down to several recommendations in his Epilogue. When looking at traditional practices that would have merit in modern times:

• Instead of assuming that modern technology holds the answer for rearing children, might we look at traditional practices that encourage strong family bonds and natural development of youth toward adult responsibility?
• Instead of insisting on shared nation-state languages, might we encourage bi and multi-lingual practices that preserve languages and nurture cultural pride?
• Instead of blithely accepting the risks of the modern day, might we consider what things place us at repeated risk and adopt select constructive paranoia for these situations?
• Instead of withdrawing from inter-faith dialogue, might we curiously delve into understanding each other’s religious views related to the search for satisfying explanations of ultimate questions about the physical world, dealing with anxiety and stress, and the need to make sense of death?
• Instead of pushing more fast food to the developing world, might we explore how nutrition varies by cultural group and what can be done to reduce health problems that are the result of mass production and availability of food?
• Instead of marginalizing elders, might we consider approaches to extend their working life and engage them in advising and coaching others with less experience?
• Instead of relying on modern adversarial judicial practices, might we consider using systems based on informal mediation, emotional clearance, and reestablishment of relationships in disputes?

The bottom line of Diamond’s book is perhaps a quote from one of his American friends, “Life in Africa is materially poor and socially/emotionally rich, while U.S. life is materially rich and socially/emotionally poor.” (87%) Perhaps a critical look at the mix of benefits across cultures could create wellness and a good life for all.

Not to forget what life in Qatar was like...

The experience of living and working in Qatar has become very normal for me after 5+ years.  So normal that I sometimes forget how extraordinary it has been, and continues to be.  I want to remember and one of the best ways to do that is blog.

I had a pretty amazing 24 hours in terms of encounters with people from around the world between Wednesday and Thursday afternoons of this last week.

• It started with seeing a Cornell medical student from Egypt that I hadn't seen for a while in the fitness room.  I congratulated him for receiving the outstanding student worker award the previous night.  After my congrats, he posed, "I know you're very busy but would you be willing to have coffee sometime?"  The humility of this guy is amazing, considering that he is a top student plus works probably 15-20 hours per week why wouldn't I welcome the opportunity to have coffee with him?
• The next encounter was seeing another guy in the fitness room who is of Palestinian background but has lived in Qatar most of his life.  He's a big guy, marginal English, but we always exchange greetings and encouragement.  I dazzled him with a little Arabic when I left and his face lit up with pride.
• Then I went to a Georgetown debate on the question of whether or not China's rise in the world economy and politics would end American hegemony.  Pretty esoteric debate, but informative.  The most interesting part was talking with 3 Chinese guys at the reception afterward.
• What a surprise to see one of the Chinese guys the next morning as I was driving into work.  I offered him a ride to Georgetown which provided the opportunity to exchange business cards and begin a dialogue about comparison of educational practices, and especially student development work, between China and the U.S.A.
• Later in the morning, I met with one of the young male Qatari staff.  He's a bright guy but has a tendency to go with the flow.  However, on this particular day he expressed concern to me about some of the work assignments he had recently had.  This was a wonderful opportunity to start a conversation with him about what he really likes to do and how he needs to hone his focus so that he can establish a career path that he enjoys.
• After work, I went to the fitness room for a full workout with my Filipino trainer.  There I saw the typical array of Qatari, Pakistani, India, Syrian, and other nationalities I usually see but one particular encounter was absolutely wonderful.  A South African student who works out regularly noticed that one of the Nepali staff who cleans the facility was trying to use some of the equipment.  Noticing that the Nepali didn't know how to operate it, he offered him some help in the most gracious and egalitarian way you can imagine.

I went home after working out, stopping by Papa John's (ironic that I would eat American fast food) for a satisfyingly indulgent large pizza.  I went home to eat dinner, call Diane, and settle in for the weekend.  In a world so incredibly small and where we are all intertwined in our welfare, isn't amazing that in one day I have the privilege of engaging with people from so many places around the world?  Doha is truly a cross-roads of the future!

Shadid - House of Stone: A memoir of home, family, and a lost Middle East

Having covered the tumultuous changes underway throughout the Middle East and Arab/Islamic world in Iraq, Egypt, and Libya, providing a picture of both the tragedy and possibility of change, Anthony Shadid lost his life covering Syria in 2012. But before his death he would take a break to get in touch with his Lebanese heritage, ultimately leading to the restoration of his great-grandfather’s Mans of Stone in the village of Marjayoun, far above the bustling city of Beirut. Shadid’s discovery of his roots and of himself, fortunately are preserved in the memoirs of the time of his transformation in House of Stone (2012).

During my time in the Middle East I’ve continued to read anything that will inform me about the history, culture, and struggles of the region. House of Stone was one of the most memorable and enlightening. Shadid used Arabic language liberally (always translating when he first introduced a word or phrase), interspersed historical references from the Shadid family’s move to America in the 19th century, and included stories of the political strife and civil wars that have so deeply undermined his home (in Arabic - bayt) time and time again. These stories and reflections taught me as much as any book I’ve read about the sorrow of dashed dreams amongst impossible, and deeply engrained, conflict.

The strife in Lebanon has resulted from a legacy of the Ottomans, complicated by the interventions of Europe, and stirred by the religious differences that in its early days were a strength to its people. Providing an example of his distant relative Hana Shadid who, as a Maronite Christian, chanted the Muslim call to prayer heard throughout Marjayoun, Shadad advocated for the natural tolerance and respect that once existed for all who sought God. This kind of tolerance was the foundation for a community whose riches were in its relationships and the natural beauty of a place described through his grandmother’s eyes when she returned to her family’s home in mid-20th century:

This time she saw the vistas for which the country was fabled – the turquoise Mediterranean as she approached the port of Sidon; the cliffs of Jezzine, carpeted in pine forests, vineyards, and orchards; the clumps of almond trees that cascaded down the hills of the Litani Valley. She paused at the panorama under the sentry of Beaufort Castle, sheer, inhospitable slopes plunging toward the river’s churning waters – a sweeping view beautiful in its severity, like the face of a proud old man bearing the hardship he has endured.

In the Afterword of Shadid’s book written by his widow, Nada Bakri comments, “Anthony writes that his great-grandfather ‘must have longed for and been haunted by what he had barely touched but not had the chance to savor.’” Shadid was able to savor the restoration of the family home only briefly before Lebanon would be thrown back into civil war in 2008. As the Syrian crisis continues unabated, Lebanon is again bursting from within as it attempts to provide “bayt” for refugees exiled from their homes. The repeated story of longing for a better life but never quite being able to grasp it is far too common in this region of the world.

Fulbright - The Arrogance of Power

Dean Wilcox of Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies commented in the Preface of The Arrogance of Power (Fulbright, 1966), “He (Senator Fulbright) rightly points out that many great empires in the past have collapsed because their leaders did not have the wisdom and the good judgment to use their power wisely and well.” (p. ix) Further, “We have now reached that historical point, however, ‘at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective on what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it.’” (p. x)

Fulbright made many points in The Arrogance of Power that fascinated me, especially considering the foreign affairs dynamics the world now faces. One of the points he raised was about revolution – how it occurred and how we might expect to experience revolutions today. Fulbright suggested that having not experienced true revolution since the original American Revolution and later the Civil War, Americans didn’t really understand the sequence of conditions that brought revolution. He identified the historical pattern that revolutions tended “to be preceded by the demoralization of traditional ruling classes…, whose very moderation makes them unable to cope with the violence which they themselves may have unleashed, then by the rule of extremists, whose extremism degenerates into terror and who then are displaced by more practical men who bring the society back to normalcy and routine.” (p. 74) Understanding this sequence may help to explain, and even console, those who are wary of 21st century revolutions.

The corollary between the dynamics of the U.S.A. being involved around the world (Caribbean, East Asia, Berlin) in 1966 to defend against the encroachment of communism is prophetic of 2013 with the U.S.A. being involved in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East in order to defend against Islamic fundamentalism. Both reflect an ongoing pattern among American politicians and military of labeling an ideology as threatening to democracy and then attacking it. Using Fulbright’s description of communism, substitute “ Islam” to explore the dynamics we possibly see today - “Far from being unified in a design for world conquest, the communist countries are deeply divided among themselves, with widely varying foreign policies and widely varying concepts of their own national interests. .. If we accept the premise that it is aggression rather than communism which endangers us, then it follows that the existence of a strong communist state which poses a barrier to the expansion of an aggressive communist power may be more desirable from the viewpoint of American interests than a weak non-communist state whose very weakness forms a vacuum which invites conquest or subversion.” (p. 81) Fulbright’s point was that at the time the U.S.A. feared anything related to communism and mistakenly fought everything that suggested a communist influence when it would likely have been better to accept various diverse communist states that were independent and held control against the potential of a more enveloping communist global power.

How America slipped into being the world’s policeman is described in the example of Viet Nam and other military interventions from the mid-20th century. Fulbright’s analysis was that America teetered ambivalently in its politics and it demonstrated a lack of confidence and security in its own goodness. He repeatedly called forth the images of Lincoln and Roosevelt (Theodore) as the respective examples of humanism and puritanism that characterized the swings of America’s engagement in the world saying, “America is a great and powerful and fundamentally decent nation; we know it – or ought to – and the world knows it. At times, however, we act as though we did not believe in our own greatness; we act as though our prestige as a great nation were constantly at issue, constantly in danger of being irretrievably lost, as if our greatness were something that had endlessly to be repurchased, requiring unending exertions to prove to the world that we are indeed an important and powerful nation.” (p. 198) In his closing paragraph, Fulbright called forth the advice of John Quincy Adams that America should be “the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all” but “the champion and vindicator only of her own.” (p. 258)

Hastings - All Hell Let Loose

Either I wasn’t listening in America history in high school or my teachers were telling a different story about WWII than I just read in Max Hastings’ All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 (2011). Hailed “unquestionably the best single-volume history of the war ever written,” it integrated many personal stories told or written by those who survived or in some cases died during the war years. It also told a story much more complex than I had ever known and much more influential in its impact on the relations between so many countries throughout the 20th century.


It took a while to get through the 748 pages but it was well worth it. One of the most overwhelming messages about WWII is the incredible, and differential, sacrifice required of some countries over others during the exhaustingly long period of the war. I had always known that America was reluctant to enter the war until dragged in by Japan’s assault on Pearl Harbor. I had not realized that, even after engaging, it sacrificed far fewer of its soldiers to the conflict. Of the estimated 60 million people to die through WWII, 2.69 million Japanese, 6.9 million German, 6 million Jews, 27 million Russian, 15 million Chinese, and on down to the 449,00 British and 418,500 Americans would perish through combat, death camps, starvation, or as bystanders to combat. Any death is tragic but the proportion who paid among the Russians and Chinese resulted in bitter feelings among the Allied governments and led to compromises in territorial allocation after the war that would create many of the political complications of the 20th century and beyond.

The British were the most vilified of all the groups involved in the war (interesting in the context of the currently popular dramatic series, “Downton Abbey”). The British Channel protected them from the direct assaults that had to be endured by other countries throughout continental Europe. The British were also perceived by other military forces to be incompetent, arrogant, bunglers who cared more about their own egos than they did about the welfare of those they were supposed to protect. They were especially negligent in relation to their former colony, India, subjecting Indians to racism and harsh treatment even as they engaged in military service alongside their former oppressors. America fared better but was still characterized as too accommodating, ignoring alarming evidence about Hitler’s rise, and sometimes seeking the glory of visible conquest rather than defending the dug-out trenches of Europe. Ultimately, the Americans were crucial in winning the war through the sheer might of their industrial machine, even though a number of strategic errors on their part likely prolonged the war or resulted in needless sacrifice of lives.

The history books and public opinion are, of course, most critical of Germany and secondarily of Japan. Both committed atrocities against their own people while maiming, raping, and killing any of those who would oppose them. Unfortunately, the Allies in some cases followed suit as WWII came to a close and civilians were rendered vulnerable to the overwhelming power of the military forces that would come to free them from the oppression of Nazism and Fascism.

Hitler’s response to the “Jewish Problem” stands today as the most obscene example of genocide in all of history. Pity that there were many others throughout the world whose prejudice emboldened Hitler’s fanatical final solution. And pity that guilt and remorse about the complicity that so many felt after WWII led to partitioning of lands that would create ongoing conflict throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Particularly devastating was the establishment of Israel on the ancestral lands of Palestine, an act that set up one of the longest standing and divisive issues between the Western and Arab worlds.

O'Hara - more perspective on the Last of the Donkey Pilgrims

O'Hara's book really is one of my favorites.  It is a great introduction to the language, culture, politics and geography of Ireland.  Now having completed the book, I'm beginning to imagine the itinerary for Diane and me to visit - insh'allah in 2014.  We have both had a yearning to connect with our roots in much the same way O'Hara did.  I doubt we'll be walking with a donkey and cart but we are certainly going to do more than a superficial tourism experience.

There were several ideas that O'Hara dropped as pearls of wisdom in his text.  Without going into great detail, I offer a couple of thought provoking quotes and encourage you to ponder:

And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. (p. 203)

What a great pity, I sighed, for kids to be brought up in a land stained with bloodshed, their minds sullied by senseless murder and occupying forces of men and metal.  How many simple joys are lost to mistrust?  How many dreams never realized?  How immeasurable their lifelong loss?  (p. 252)

Maybe, just maybe, the secret of life is to trust without provision or fore-thought.  Could trust be the simple truth that would make the world spin in harmony?  (p. 292)

In answering a question about why Kevin could live in Ireland:

The people, for starters.  It seems that every third person I meet could become a lifelong friend.  But mostly, I feel I'm a better person here, probably because I'm surrounded by so many good people.  There's a cultural undertow in America that can drown the best of one's intentions.  (p. 380)

And, nearing the end (and beginning) of his journey:

Here I am, twenty miles from Rattigan's, and despite all that might await me there, there's a part of me that wants this journey to linger on.  Once I step foot into the pub, I'm afraid my house of cards will topple and I'll be left to face my own familiar self again.  For eight months I've been blessed by this journey God has provided me.  But now I face the unenviable task of returning home, where I might forget the valuable lessons I've learned on these roads.  (p. 415)

And, relating a story of a boy's nightmare shared by a friend:

Weren't you the lucky lad to survive such an ordeal, and more lucky still, for from this day to your last, ye'll always have a story to tell.  (p. 422)

Kevin reunited with his wife, brother, friends and all the Irish kin who cheered him along his journey on Christmas Eve.  Missie was the real star that night as she was proudly ushered into Rattigan's for her first bucket of Guinness.  Kevin's journey took 25 years to bring to press but it surely gave him many stories to tell in the meantime.  I can only hope that my journey to Qatar has made me a better person, has brought me closer to humanity, and that I'll be blessed to have survived and "from this day to my last, have a story to tell..."

O'Hara - Last of the Donkey Pilgrims: A Man's Journey through Ireland

“And the only path through the flames, I could see now, is simple human kindness, not overwrought passions and notions of self-sacrifice.” (O’Hara, Last of the Donkey Pilgrims, p. 276) Kevin O’Hara’s concluding sentence of the chapter on his passage through Belfast is hauntingly simple and captured both his experience and mine through so many of the cultural encounters and leadership discoveries I’ve had over the last 7 years.

O’Hara is an American who in 1979 decided to explore his cultural roots by undertaking a walk – 1,800 miles – around the coast of Ireland. Not just a walk by himself but in the way a “tinker” would have long ago – with a donkey and cart. O’Hara discovered so many things about himself and about the nature of humanity. Encounter after encounter confirmed the essential goodness and hospitality of all those on his path, even at a time when the conflict between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland was still very volatile.

As a Catholic Irish-American, a distinction shared with John F. Kennedy, O’Hara’s most difficult moment on his journey ‘round Ireland was dealing with his own fears as he entered the outskirts of Belfast. The “Time of Troubles” was a very frightening reality in 1979 so O’Hara’s trepidation was not entirely unfounded. The coincidence of Pope John Paul’s visit to Dublin on the same day that O’Hara passed through Belfast only added to the sense of doom, doom that had O’Hara fantasizing his own martyrdom in the crowded streets that day. As he left Belfast behind, O’Hara realized that the “path of flames” was only in his mind. He had been helped by numerous strangers, as he had been throughout Ireland.  This help came in response to the simplicity of his mode of travel (walking his donkey and cart) and his willingness to treat all those he would encounter with respect and anticipating a positive response.

Even though O’Hara’s travels in Ireland were very different in form and place than the travels I’ve undertaken or encounters I’ve had in my work in Qatar, I have to admit that on occasion I’ve also had fantasies of my own “path of flames.” Looking back in my blog posts, I vividly remember my first venture away from Luxembourg in November 2005 when I was lost negotiating train routes to Switzerland. That day in November I had many trepidations which were unfounded, a pattern I have repeated, but with less and less frequency as I’ve traveled more. The journeys I’ve taken have sometimes been to other places but more often these journeys have simply been when I responded to a person on my path.

There seem to be many examples of the “path of flames” these days and I wonder if the simple wisdom expressed by O’Hara might help negotiate them. Race and class in America, conservative and liberal ideology, Israel and Palestine, and many more examples are not easy to fix but I wonder if some engaged in negotiating these differences might be more successful if they (we) shifted their (our) awareness to the reality of simple human kindness.