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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (98710)	5/21/2003 11:15:25 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Given all the other well established and deep seated cultural differences there are among different peoples, I'd say that it would be highly unlikely that there were not an identifiable "Arab mindset". Ignoring this in any analysis of what has taken place is simple political correctness and is no better than using it as a catchall substitute for real thinking. Let me add a snippet I heard on NPR the other day. The Connection had an Egyptian scholar of some sort (I didn't catch his name) on to discuss the American occupation of Iraq. A caller, who said that he had spent many years in the Peace Corps, called to criticize the current American 'occupation lite', saying that in his experience, Americans and Europeans expected authority to come from within the individual, whereas Arabs expected it to be externally imposed. Therefore, the Arabs expected us to repress them and would respond only with lawlessness if we failed to do so. The host of The Connection exclaimed at the use of the word "repress" and asked if the caller didn't mean to use another word, and the caller said no, he had used the word advisedly. Then the Egyptian scholar was asked for his opinion, and affirmed the characterization of the nature of authority; he agreed with the caller and had no problem with anything the caller had said. I thought the entire exchange was illuminating.

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (98710)	5/21/2003 11:22:54 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Dennis, I've got two problems with the "Arab mindset" argument, neither of which has much to do with PC or anti-PC. The first is the difficulty of making that claim across as disparate a set of populations as Palestinians living in hovels in Lebanon, sheikh's in Saudi Arabia, Baath party members, westernized intellectuals, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, etc. To date, what's been recommended for reading on this thread has been much more assertion and much less making a case for unity in diversity. The second is that generally the term "mindset" and "culture" are used interchangeably. Since both are vague and each could be considered quite different from the other, it's even harder to understand what the referent is. The third, whoops, I only said two in the first sentence, well, moving on, is that sometimes the use of the term is, and it's definitely done in references to Arab mindset, to include a host of negatives and no positives. It then becomes the classic case of demonizing the other rather than acknowledging the shared humanity. I, obviously, recognize the use of the term culture in our everyday language. I use it; most of us do. As in phrases such as French culture. And in doing so, we mean everything from high culture to table manners and rarely distinguish. So what. No problem. It's the other uses, in which the concept is meant to offer serious explanations for ongoing regional and world conflicts that troubles me.

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (98710)	5/22/2003 2:04:38 AM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 281500

As for the argument about "Arab mindsets", I simply don't buy it. Given all the other well established and deep seated cultural differences there are among different peoples, I'd say that it would be highly unlikely that there were not an identifiable "Arab mindset". Ignoring this in any analysis of what has taken place is simple political correctness and is no better than using it as a catchall substitute for real thinking. I find it very odd that cultural relativism can be simultaneously held as valid and invalid in some circles. Derek