People who don’t understand Arab/Middle Eastern culture often attempt to negotiate and don’t realize that their mindset is so different that negotiation by Western standards is impossible.
Western negotiations are typified by two opposing positions with minor concessions being made at first on both sides to build confidence. Then concessions are made back-and-forth in an escalating manner until the major contention can be dealt with more easily.
Arabs view making concessions as a sign of weakness. They start with the position that they are right and you are wrong. So you make a concession, then you make another, then if you make still another concession, we will be that much closer to a solution. And of course, they do not consider themselves to honor any of their part of the agreement, because after all, they are right and you are wrong.
Yep. I remember hearing an author who wrote a book about why Presidents so often fail in foreign policy. They build their entire careers on their talents in splitting differences, and convincing people to see things their way. What they don’t realize is that in western democratic countries, 90% of people share the same basic worldview. They have no experience dealing with people who have a completely alien mindset. All the skills that have brought them success are not only a useless, but a detriment in a situation like you describe. Not just liberals, but even a lot of conservatives just can’t open their minds to that reality. That was G.W. Bush’s main problem, IMHO. He just couldn’t believe that most people over there don’t want freedom, at least not in terms of individual liberty for everyone.
Good post!...that’s exactly right....
Additionally ‘the meaning’ of their words and ours is often vastly different even though they use the same word in their dialect as we do...it does not mean the same thing....and that also goes between the various Muslim sects. They have as much difficulty understanding each other.
Compound all this with the fact that most have a life time of physical and mental abuse in one form another so their ability to reason is all the more difficult....it’s impossible to think we can affect “their world”.