What Clash of Civilizations?

News of the death of Samuel Huntington, political scientist at Harvard whose book "The Clash of Civilizations" caused so much debate around the time of 9/11, has come at the same time as Yahoo! News published a sad little story about a debt slave from Egypt who was brought to Los Angeles to work 20 hour days as a maid for a rich Egyptian family. Eventually the situation was reported by a neighbor, and the child was taken into foster care and the employers were tried and convicted of child abuse and slavery. After serving their two year jail sentences, they went back to Egypt and were seen by a reporter entering their high priced condo accompanied by a small child carrying their bags.

It is tempting to say, "well, it's too bad, but after all, they have their cultural customs..." but this is not a good way to commemorate the American workers who were shot in cold blood on American streets for daring to demand such uneconomical and unAmerican things as an 8-hour work day and a six day work week. That's not so long ago, it's within living memory. In the 1930's a rich Los Angeles family would not have had to go all the way to Africa for a debt slave. There were plenty of Anglo American girls available, and people then thought that would be giving them a chance, too. At least they could work in a big house with running water.

Human Rights are not natural to any one human culture, they have to be fought for. Again and again.

The question really is, what is the best way to help other people fight for their rights? The world is littered with ill-fated programs of well-meaning people who failed to help the miserable people they wished to serve. That's not to say "let's just leave them alone" that's to say, "let's be careful and understand what's going on before plunging in." There are useful things that can be done, but the first impulse is not necessarily the best.

So clarity of purpose is really very important in this area. Speaking out for human rights is not imposing "our culture" on others, but of course, we have to know how to separate our culture from universal human rights. Otherwise, we risk being like those old-fashioned missionaries who mistook clothing styles and musical instruments for civilization. Not an easy task!

Curiosity

I guess I should begin by commenting a bit on the title and tag line. It's a quote from a poem that has been one of my favorites since high school. Beginning by suggesting that curiosity is unlikely to have killed the cat, it goes on to say that actually it is lack of curiosity that will kill us. The title is "Curiosity", maybe it can be found somewhere on the web, or you can look in your high school or college English Lit. textbook. It's a poem that's deeply meaningful to me, and, I think, to anybody who leaves behind the familiar to see what's over the next hill.

Curiosity has always been one of my main motivations for quitting an old (well-known) job and getting a new one in a new, preferably exotic location. Following the example of my parents, who brought us up to be world citizens in a wide variety of previously unvisited locales, I have spent a lot of my working life moving around.

Like the time I went to live in Manhattan. I had actually visited there once before, about eight years earlier, but only for a day or two. Then, in 1995, after seven years of life in the hills in rural Nepal, in a house on a hill top with no plumbing or electricity, I was offered a job in New York, New York. Talk about culture shock! The noise in New York is horrendous. That's the first thing I remember. Then there was missing my quiet hill top with the beautiful view of the river below. My apartment in Manhattan on the 12th floor had windows that were designed only to open from the bottom, and no more than about 5 or 6 inches. You couldn't put your head out the window to breathe even what air Manhattan has to offer. My job was in a windowless cubicle on the 16th floor of another building. Sitting on a crosstown bus, or in the featureless lunch room of the office, I would think about what I had left behind and find tears running down my face. New York, of course, doesn't care about that, but I do have to say that in the whole 15 months I lived there, nobody was ever rude to me. They didn't have enough interest in me to be rude, I guess.

I spent a lot of time not really knowing what was going on, and feeling like all the expertise I had gained in Nepal was lost and useless, but looking back, I do have to say that I learned a lot there, and have found that period of my life to be a source of strength. Wish it could be otherwise, but it's really true that struggle makes us stronger!

It is my hope that this blog will become a community where people share their own stories about crossing cultures, so please weigh in with your comments!