CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

This is not about politics or even about the death of the ISIS leader al-Baghdadi. It’s about communication.

Some people are upset about what they call the crude way the President described it. 

But rather than being offended, it helps me to see that he understands how other cultures communicate differently than we do in North America. He used terms, figures of speech, & images that speak loud & clear to people outside North American & Europe.

While those things seem crude & offensive to us (read “unpresidential”), they speak very loud & clear to the people (both our friends & enemies) in the culture in which al-Baghdadi lived. And that’s what’s important to understand about this.

It wasn’t just a major blow to our enemies. It also spoke to the people in that culture. So rather than criticizing the way he communicated these things, it’s better to have an intellectual curiosity about why he did so & what he was trying to accomplish. It was to instill fear in our enemies & confidence in our allies. We are in a war, you know.

He was speaking a language that we may not understand or appreciate, but he was speaking a language that our enemies & allies in the region easily understand.

And that’s what it means to communicate cross-culturally.