The Western, democratic world has all the answers for the rest of the world just as much as the Prices of The Poisonwood Bible do for the Congolese. What exactly do I mean? The fictional Prices, a family lead by a devout, evangelical, Baptist Reverend-patriarch, moved into the 1950's Belgian Congo with the general intent to baptize and save the poor, sinning natives. Then the natives could live their lives with God's love and acceptance; then Reverend Price could be as holy and close to God as possible, a true spreader of the faith.
Peu importe that the Prices could neither speak French nor Kikongo, the true spoken language of the village people. No matter that they took no time to understand the people whom they were planning on converting, that their own survival was more important than providing supplies to the impoverished. Saving the soul was a much more fulfilling act for the Congolese than nourishment, basic supplies, or in-depth understanding and respect anyway, right? After all, "What could we give them? We hadn't given a single thought to them wanting earthly goods, in our planning ahead. We'd only brought things for ourselves." There was no way for young Leah to even communicate: "These children have nothing to do with je suis, vous etes...And from day one I have coveted it bitterly...I imagined myself shouting "We like Ike!""
The human brain can make us do any number of things to oppose the unknown. And, granted, the similarity between young Leah's frustration with the mutual incomprehension and lack of appreciation does not fully complete a comparison between the Prices' mission and the foreign policy of the Western world (namely the U.S.) However, we as a nation can learn from the Prices' travails and missteps. Their provider in the very foreign Congo, Mama Tataba, has left. The chief has openly discouraged all villagers from accepting Baptism from the Reverend. Services are held, but anyone who attends is unenthusiastic or waiting for the meal that will occur immediately afterward. As if, on a larger scale, foreign policy directors and position holders promoting the spread of democracy do not find similar issues on their hands. In the increased search for terrorists in the Pakistani borderlands, a U.S. chopper accidentally killed three Pakistani officers ; the Pakistani government has since closed that border to U.S. troop movement (which is, all the same, expected to be re-opened rather soon). It was a bad mistake, but is something to be understood given the U.S.'s dangerous mission and hefty goal in the region: to uproot and destroy all terrorist threats. The problem here, as with many foreign policy issues, is that countries simply do not speak the same language. I'm not talking about the language that Leah fears little children use to make fun of her ivory, Belgian-like skin (although I plan on discussing literal language barriers in later blogs); I'm talking about the type of bare-bones communication of each other's essential values, desires, and cultures. The U.S. and Pakistani governments' shaky relationship comes from the fact that the U.S. must use Pakistani territory to wage a seemingly endless war against terrorism (an idea), while the Pakistani government seeks to expel terrorists, continue on with its society productively, and simply keep its citizens from getting caught in the crosshairs between political allies with no cultural ties and political enemies with a very similar culture. The fact that Pakistanis on the streets and in government may be worried about the fact that the U.S. is waging a war with no end in sight on their soil does not seem (note: an educated opinion, not claiming to be truth) to be affecting the strategy of American involvement.
Examples of lack of consideration of the other side's essential desires and cultural language of what is truly essential to survive are evident in our recent history. While many Americans and American government see democracy as the ultimate lifeblood of a fruitful societal existence, other cultures, having been oppressed by outsiders (of caste, country, religious sect, etc.) have proven to hold different systems for gaging what they want out of government representation. The United States government's desire to provide democratic rights to all peoples is ideologically noble. All the same, people have, to our surprise, taken these new democratic reigns to steer their governments in a non-democratic, non-secular direction: "The groups with the greatest success at the ballot box have usually been those appealing to nationalist sentiments or, more dangerously, to ethnic identities. In Iraq, despite attempts by American democracy-promotion groups to support new parties and train their leaders, the viable contenders in the current contest, as in 2005, are still the religious parties formed in exile in opposition to Saddam Hussein" ( ).
On a grander scale than the Prices, American government faces an issue in how to best direct its foreign policy in correlation to the views of foreign societies. We offer democracy and/or stabilization (through military involvement) to various regions, and sometimes expect or hope our chosen nations to comply by electing democratic, Stars & Stripes-loving leaders. But to maintain respectful (and thereby successful) relationships with said nations, and to truly represent the ideals of representative democracy, we have to allow them to define themselves through whichever leader they please (assuming the leader doesn't resemble a specific Ahmedinejad or Jong-Il). This is the only way of truly being fluent in a cultural language: having knowledge of a culture's reason for a certain type of government and then learning how to interact with, not dominate, said leader or system. In a world increasingly independent of the whims of U.S. foreign policy, we have to learn to adapt, not resist. The Price family has not exactly learned this lesson, and their status as minority has come to far overshadow their initial status of welcomed royalty.
Yes, it would help if the Prices spoke Kikongo and if all appropriate U.S. foreign relations officers spoke Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Spanish, Mandarin, and/or French. But understanding a nation's needs and how they can pair with (not be overshadowed by) your own country's needs prevents the conflicts of misunderstanding (which is more dangerous than shouting "I Like Ike!" in this big a stage), nationalism, and ideological polarity. And what partnership survives that ordeal?
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