Respect Our Culture!

Andrew:

Recently a friend of Andrew’s whom he met when he was working in Shanghai, China flew to Dubai to meet her boyfriend. He friend is an Austrian woman who until recently had been working in Shanghai, China. She met her now boyfriend who is a Swiss man who works in Sao Paulo, Brazil through a crazy set of coincidence in their work. Both of them are freight forwarders (import export business) and they speak multiple languages.

They met by chance at a convention and then met again by chance on several different occasions in a different country each time. By the time they came to visit us in Dubai they had been on 10 different “dates” in 10 different countries. Given their backgrounds and outlooks on life they easily fall madly in love with each other. In fact she was in the process of moving to Sao Paulo when she visited us.

Anyway, her boyfriend, Bjorn, flew to Dubai from Sao Paulo for a business conference and she flew in from Shanghai to meet him. He was waiting for her in the lobby a brand new, ultra swank Intercontinental Hotel. When she got out of the taxi, they rushed to each other since they probably hadn’t seen each other for several months. As they just embraced in a passionate kiss hello, an Arab quickly ordered them to, “Respect Our Culture!”

They were embarrassed given that they both had thought they were respectful of other cultures and didn’t believe there was anything wrong with what they were doing.

This incident brings to light an important question for that prudish, kiss halting vigilantly: whose culture was he talking about?

When one looks at what makes up just the native Emirate culture they realize that there are huge differences in it. There are vast differences in the Bedouin and ‘Arab’ culture. Each Bedu tribe has their own rituals, dress, greetings, language. For example what the Rashid, Bani Kitab, Awamir, and Mahra say, do and wear is often different from that of the Wahiba, Junuba and Duru. Some tribes have pagan superstitions carrying around an “eye” to ward off bad luck; others believe in a literal interpretation of the Koran on issues such as allowing for slaves. Others believe that the profit Mohamed granted them amnesty from having to pray five times a day, so they don’t pray at all.

When you look at Dubai as a culture in itself one has to ask what culture should be the one to follow. The first answer, “to follow the indigenous culture,” raises other questions. Which indigenous culture?” Thanks to marrying and intermingling with South Asians, Africans, and others for centuries Emirates are a wide range of skin and body types. From this there are several social class levels, with each having its’ own rules and norms.

Then should one adapt the cultural norms of Arabs? The problem is that the term “Arab” refers to the peoples from North Africa, the Levant countries and Arabian Peninsula. Arabs in that case are not just Muslims, but also Christians, Jews and followers of other religions that have been around longer hundreds to thousands of years before the birth of Mohammed. Arabs vary so much that even the Arabic language, education, wealth, and interpretations of Islam are completely different from one to the next.

So if following the rules of the local culture isn’t clear, then is it possible to follow the norms of the city? The 200 plus nationalities in Dubai barely follow any rules of the road, are norms going to be any easier? For example, you will see two Arab, Indian or Pakistani men walking hand in hand. Apparently that just means they are good friends and does not mean that they are the kind of people want to go to Massachusetts to get a civil union. Also you will see two men give an “Eskimo kiss” when meeting each other. Imagine if George Bush and Dick Cheney rubbed noses together before a presidential address?

Can you follow the culture of the majority? Indians and Pakistanis who constitute an absolute majority of the population. The problem with doing that is that the sub-continent has such a richly diverse cultures from varying long histories, terrain and religions. The rules of social behavior vary widely from, north to south, east to west, city to country, village to village, family to family.

Even if we are to subscribe to American or “Western” norms big question marks pop up about which ones to talk about. By American does one mean Western Ohio Amish-American, Oklahoma-Cherokee Americans, Brookline African-American Muslim Americans, Southern Californian Armenian-American, Southwestern Alaskan Yupic Esiko-Americans, rural Minnesotan Hmong Vietnamese-Americans, Eastern North Carolina Mexican-Americans…with the variations this list could go on for days. If one adds the countries and cultures of Europe, about the only norms in common might be those that involve sustaining human life.

The point is that norms vary across cultures. Cultures can exist in a country, region, city, neighborhood, work environment, family, and many other places. Instead of taking on an impossible task of learning a million different rituals, languages and norms, it is better to have cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity. Once one is aware of their culture and sensitive to others they can get along better. They can ask questions and learn more about others to gain mutual understanding and to respect our cultures!