Intercultural communication in Iraq

Though the Intercultural Communication course has been finished, I’ve decided to keep on posting on intercultural matters from time to time. We are living in thrilling times, when it comes to intercultural communication. This has been made clear over and over again (cf. the last few weeks) and it hit me again this morning when I heard an interview with an Iraqi on the Flemish radio.

In plain English the man was talking about the introduction of democracy in Iraq. He was truly disappointed in the way Westerners (and most of all: Americans) had introduced the (Western) democratic principles in Iraq. Iraq, a former leading country in the Middle East, was sentenced to a secondary role, according to the interviewee. Especially over the last few years (since the breakdown of Saddam’s ancient régime) the position of Iraq has been weakened, due to Western (American) interference, the man said.

This is all a matter of intercultural differences, he added. He gave a brilliant example to illustrate the differences in communication between Western and Iraqi people: “If I would tell you that you have a beautiful wife, you will probably take it as a compliment. If you would tell me that I have a beautiful wife, I will feel offended and start fighting.”

Intercultural alert: religion

I would like to point out a few facts that hit me over the last few weeks.

Fact 1: I watched a late night talk show on the Flemish television, where an actor played the role of a priest, complaining about why people don’t go church anymore. It was clear that the actor was laughing at the (catholic) church. Result: no official reaction from the church.

Fact 2: I watched a hilarious Flemish comedy series on DVD. One of the sections is called: Cooking with Jesus. In a nutshell: Jesus does the cooking, is very bad at it, but gets in touch with the hereafter “for a small miracle”. Result: no official reaction from the church; some Christians felt offended, though.

Fact 3: Some time ago, a Danish newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Result: incident between Denmark and the Muslim world as a result of that publication. Danish products are being replaced by local alternatives in Saudi-Arabia.

These three facts (1 and 2 as opposed to 3) clearly show the way people are thinking about and dealing with religion. It’s not just a who-is-right and who-is-wrong case. But the least you can say is that the incident shows that in our global society we definitely have to take care of intercultural differences when it comes to dealing with humour and religion.

Upcoming exams

First things first: happy new year to all of you. May health and intercultural experiences may be your advantages for 2006!

I promised to post something about the upcoming exams. Here we go.

Your final result will be covered by three parts:
- Integration task
- Group discussion (exam)
- Short written essay (exam), with the stress on short...

For the exact division of the marks, I would like to refer to your curriculum brochure.

The Greatest Belgian (2)

According to the French speaking community of Belgium, the Greatest Belgian of all time is Jacques Brel. Actually, he was of Flemish origin, singing in French, living in Brussels.

I wonder whether Brel is really better known abroad than the Flemish Greatest Belgian. Since he performed in France and in most of the French speaking world, I guess the answer will be yes. By the way, Father Damian was third.

Bye, bye, international students!

Yesterday, we held a reception for the international students who took the international semester on Digital Business Management. In a moving closing speech, Zdravka could easily convince the audience that this has been a wonderful experience. Not only did the students learn quite a lot (often in an other way than would be the case in their home faculties), but the international students will also be friends for life.

I can only confirm these words. It was not only a nice experience for the students, we - on the teaching side - have learned a lot too. What I learned most from the international students, was their eagerness to communicate. Compared with the coyness of our students, it was nothing more or less than an intercultural clash... Hope our (Belgian) students learned from that for their future lives. It really was a wonderful intercultural experience.

Have a nice trip home and many thanks to: Bernardo, Ricardo, Catia, Joana, Joao from Portugal, Risto, Zdravka, Elena, Suzanna from Macedonia, Ramon from Spain, and Istvan from Hungary (hope I didn't forget anyone...). And why not: see you (somewhere, some time)!