Culture Shock

Culture shock can be painful, embarrassing, or even deadly. What is killing me is the simple fact that it is even a thing anymore. I have experienced it myself, and have even feared for my own life from it. With the tools I have available to me now, I am embarrassed to say that I ever even felt such a way. The only reason for shock is an intolerance to another culture, and a forgetfullness that we are also human and animal and of the same Earth. It comes from a feeling that the ideas and values of that culture are threatening to our own. We who have the tools also have the duty to educate ourselves about any culture we should interact with enough so as not to be shocked by any interactions and also honor as much of thier heritage (much of which we likely share) as necessary to be respectful.

In the social sense certain people might just not blend with certain scenes, and that is understandable, but very much a first-world problem. In the broader sense, it is totally unacceptable for another human to be made to feel unwelcome simply because of the way they look or act or where they were born. Afterall, we do not know what persecution they have fled to be with us. They may have been persecuted for defending us or our ideas or values. They may just be here by someone else's choice or even against thier own will. They may still be buying thier freedom as so many are. Why would a culture of vast resource of knowledge be so ignorant as to be offended or shocked by another culture?

It takes little time to ask how would I greet someone in Urdu or Farsi or Spanish or English or French. It takes no time or effort at all to forego judgment of another culture in favor of effort to understand another persons customs. Her customs are as innate as our own. I am ashamed that i have ever had the culture shock, because this was a symptom of politics and not the love of the Earth or human nature. I can explain the circumstances that berth it, but not excuse the existence of it. There is no excuse for culture shock.

Circumstaces beyond our control taught us that the other was, if not the enemy, certainly of a culture that opposed everything we held dear. She had been moved here from Southwest Asia less than a year before September 11,2001. My government had rolled machines of war on an unseen enemy and scrambled to send soaring the WMDs we deny others. Few of you reading this may understand exactly how frightening it was in the hours before the US government decided Radical Islam was the target of it's aggression. Those of you who did saw the armored trucks full of soldiers and the metal birds packed with explosives on patrol waiting for the order to fire at will. Those of us who did were born into a war against our own shadow.

It brings me pain to know that upon seeking refuge here and in service of our people she and her father became the subject of hate and ridicule. She had not chosen her place of birth, family name or heritage or complexion anymore than I had. Truly from the pan into the fire she has faught ignorance hatred and prejudice her whole life through. There is not a stronger person alive. I would have woefully missed this realization upon succumbing to culture shock had the will of the governments of our opposite homelands been stronger than love. So there is only one person alive who can make me fear for my life, and the culture shock is ongoing. She makes me live in fear of not living up to the full potential of human kindness and acceptance and compassion rather than death, because she taught me that honor for all life is what makes us human. Life without honor is worse than death.