Page 251 - Cultures and Organizations

224 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

Uncertainty Avoidance, Xenophobia,
and Nationalism

In 1983 a sixteen-year-old high school student from Rotterdam, whom
we will call Anneke, participated in a youth exchange program between
Holland and Austria. She stayed with the family of a high school teacher
in a middle-sized Austrian town. There were Dr. Riedl and his wife; their
daughter, Hilde (of Anneke’s age); and two younger boys.
Anneke went to school with Hilde. Her German improved rapidly.
On Sundays she went to Mass with the Riedls, who were pious Roman
Catholics. Anneke was a Protestant, but she did not mind; she liked the
experience and the singing. She had taken her violin along to Austria, and
after school she played pieces for violin and piano with Hilde.
One day when Anneke had been with the Riedls for about two months,
the dinner conversation somehow turned to the subject of Jewish people.
The Riedls seemed to be tremendously prejudiced on the subject. Anneke
became upset. She asked Mrs. Riedl whether she knew any Jewish people.
“Of course not!” was the answer.
Anneke felt the blood go to her face. “Well, you know one now,” she said.
“I am Jewish. At least, my mother is from a Jewish family, and according to
Jewish tradition anybody born from a Jewish mother is also Jewish.”
The dinner ended in silence. The next morning Dr. Riedl took Anneke
aside and told her that she could no longer eat with the Riedls. They would
serve her separately. Nor could she go to church with them. They should
have been told that she was a Jew. Anneke returned to Holland a few days
later. 63
Among European Union members, Austria and other central Euro-
pean countries in the IBM studies and their replications scored relatively

high on uncertainty avoidance. In this part of Europe, ethnic prejudice,
including anti-Semitism, has been rampant for centuries. Until the 1930s
there was a large Jewish community in Vienna. Many of the leading Aus-
trian scholars were Jewish, among them Sigmund Freud. In 1936, Nazi
Germany invaded Austria. Large numbers of Jewish Austrians fl ed, many
to the United States. Those who did not perished in the Nazi holocaust.
64
Since 1945 there have been few Jews in Austria. Our true story shows that
prejudice can survive, perhaps even thrive unchecked, long after its object
has disappeared.
The Riedl parents in our story were programmed with the feeling that
what is different is dangerous, and they transferred this feeling to their