On The Third Hand

19 November, 2001: "They aren't like us"

I would call myself multiculturalist (if there is such a word), but most of the people who consider themselves such would disagree. When I am dealing with a culture foreign to my own, I do my best to look at the world through their eyes. I do not consider all cultures to be equal, or even good--that is where I have a philisophical parting of the ways with the rest of the multicultural crowd. I do believe in judging cultures. I disagree with most of the American right as well, since I don't think we should always insist that other cultures must learn to deal with our ways, or that our ways are always the best way to do everything.

Two and a half years ago, I returned to the US, after living and working in Thailand, the other 'land of the free' (Thai means free). They have a way of looking at the world that is very different from the west. It took me a while to even begin to be able to look at the world through their eyes, and I'm quite sure I never succeeded in doing so completely. What, you may ask, does all this have to do with "the war". Nothing really, but it has everything to do with the peace. Read on...

The people in Afghanistan do not look at the world the way we do. If we try to force our cultural vision on them, we will fail. If we want to have a stable and prosperous government and people, we cannot impose our own values on them. We must insure that they do not become a problem again, but it may look like an impossible task. It is not impossible, unless we insist on trying to make them see through our eyes.

We can, in the long run, "subvert" them into a non-corrupt government. In the short term, we must accept that it may be necessary to bribe the various warlords into compliance. Insisting on our western standards of "clean government" could destroy what influence we do have.

We must also accept that insisting on absolute equal rights for women will result in no rights at all for women. As we women in the west fought our battles (and are still fighting), so must the women of Afghanistan. They may end up coming up with a more sneaky version of women's rights, as much of SE Asia has. By our standards (for instance), Thai women are second class citizens, but they own the majority of the nation's businesses, and the most powerful person in a family is the eldest female. In public, they defer to men--in private it's another thing entirely.

We must also accept that Afghanistan is a warrior culture, and that the people we will be dealing with have their own notions of honor and pride. We must find ways to get aid to the people while catering to the pride of the warlords and others in power. Offering charity as charity is a big mistake. We must swallow our own pride, and offer gifts to thank these warlords for helping us, we must insist on helping them rebuild because "we owe them" both for damage we have done with bombing and for turning our backs on them after they got rid of the Soviets. We must use every last bit of "spin" we can put on things to convince them to let us help.

The people want our help, but we must deal with all the warlords and their armed followers to give it. If we can't think outside of our own cultural box, we will fail. They are not like us, so we must learn to think enough like them to succeed. As I've said before, a strong and prosperous Afghanistan is the best propaganda the west can bring against the terrorist states.

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