Page 418 - Cultures and Organizations

Intercultural Encounters 383

to members of the moral circle. Territorial expansion of one’s own tribe
by killing off others is not only permitted but also supposed to be ordered
by God. Not only in the land of the Old Testament but also in many other

parts of the world, territorial conflicts involving the killing or expelling
of other groups continue to this day. The Arabic name of the modern Pal-
estinians who dispute with the Israelis the rights on the land of Israel is
Philistines, the same name by which their ancestors are described in the
Old Testament.
Territorial expansion is not the only casus belli (literally, “reason
for war”). Human groups have found many other excuses for collectively
attacking others. The threat of an external enemy has always been one of
the most effective ways to maintain internal cohesion. In Chapter 6 it was
shown that a basic belief in many cultures is “What is different is danger-
ous.” Racism assumes the innate superiority of one group over another
and uses this assumption to justify resorting to violence for the purpose of
maintaining this superiority. Totalitarian ideologies like apartheid imposed

definitions of which groups were better and which were inferior—defi ni-
tions that might be changed from one day to another. Culture pessimists
wonder whether human societies can exist without enemies.
Europe, except in parts of the former Yugoslavia, seems to have reached
a stage in its development in which countries that within human memory
still fought each other have now voluntarily joined a supranational union.
Africa, on the other hand, has become the scene of large-scale war and
genocide that some have compared to the World Wars of its former colo-
3
nizers. A functioning supranational African union still seems far away.
While cultural processes have a lot to do with issues of war and peace,
war and peace will not be a main issue in this chapter. Wars represent
“intended conflict” between human groups, an issue too broad for this

book. The purpose of the present chapter is to look at the unintended con-

fl icts that often arise during intercultural encounters and that happen
although nobody wants them and all suffer from them. They have at times
contributed to the outbreak of wars. However, it would be naive to assume
that all wars could be avoided by developing intercultural communication
skills.
Owing to advances in travel and communication technology, inter-
cultural encounters in the modern world have multiplied at a prodigious
rate. Today embarrassments like those between Morier’s English Elchi
and the courtiers of the shah occur between ordinary tourists and locals,