If you have to deal with a village Moslem who knows the Koran, it is similar to coping with a good Christian in Bible Belt country. You must not say anything unkind about anyone or you might get scolded for your violation of religious principles.

I accepted a job in a Moslem area to try to stop petty theft from an American civilian organization. The company director advised me, "Even though these people are good Moslems, they are stealing from us because so many Americans are so insulting."

"No way," argued his assistant director. "They steal from us just because they are thieves and they are also resentful of our high incomes. They'll rob us blind unless we can find a way to search them as they leave work."

Politically, searching those peasant folk, other than by mere passing observation, was out of the question. We would have found ourselves in jail, expelled from the country, or worse.

I took a supervisor's position over a seven-man crew of locals to see if I could solve the theft problem. They were stealing food and some office supplies, I was told.

I worked overtime to win the confidence of those seven young men, four of whom were married. I hung out with them during spare time. They baby-sat my children. We sent gifts to their homes for their mothers, wives, and children.

After only a few weeks, I began to feel and sense the trust and brotherly camaraderie between us. Building such a relationship is comparatively easy in the traditional cultures if you have the time. By the severest Christian standards, these hardworking village Moslem folk were good Christians. If I said something snide about the ugly-acting assistant director who was harassing them, they still winced and made excuses for the man. But the theft continued.

American salaries on the job were approximately ten times those of the host-nationals for the same kind of work. Finally, in desperation, I persuaded the director to double their salaries, up to one fifth the salary of Americans who did the same jobs. Theft continued. The assistant director threatened to report us to the American embassy for inflating the local economy. We had been warned about that.

I persuaded the boss to raise their salaries again up to 30% of the Americans. Theft stopped. But why? I could not figure it out. The boss raised the salaries in his other two small departments with three and six local workers. All theft stopped.

After I moved to another city, I returned about a year later and visited the home of my most trusted employee on that theft case. He had changed jobs and moved up economically.

I explained my actual cross-cultural work and what had transpired on that job with him. After assuring him that I never wanted to learn who had been doing the stealing, I told him I needed desperately to know why it had stopped at 30% of the American's income. He explained:

"It was totally unrelated to the American's salaries," he advised casually. "The men with children, none of the single guys, were doing the stealing. We quit stealing when we could afford two things: three meals a day for our children and pencils for them to take to school. Our government provides everything else except pencils."

Years later in a distant country in east Asia, one of the hysterical charges by culture-shocked Americans against the host-nationals was that they are all thieves. And it was not petty theft that disturbed us. If we stayed out too late at night, we would not be surprised to find all our furniture gone with a thank-you note on the door for the fine stereo.

The American joke was that when the children in that country were born, their fathers gave them a pair of pliers to cut through protective wire around our U.S. military bases. "Then when the kids reach six-years-old, they turn in their pliers for tin snips so they can cut through the Quonset huts." (Always good for a laugh no matter how many times it was told.)

UGLY AMERICANS, AGAIN

I consulted a wealthy American businessman about loaning me some of his personnel to help conduct the research needed to combat the attitudes among the Americans about the local theft. He seemed like a nice fellow. But when I asked him for this help, he went into a rage. Here, in brief, is what he said:

Are you crazy, Humphrey? These people are klepto. We had things stolen out of the office until we finally started using an American watchman night and day: radios, cameras, toasters, clocks, everything that was not tied down, especially our personal belongings. Most infuriating of all, when we tore down the front porch to rebuild the office, we found a lot of the stuff under there busted-up where our locals had thrown it when they were about to get caught on the way out. These people are mean thieves. They really busted up that stuff. They decided that if they could not have it, neither could we. So before they threw it away under the porch they broke it up.

Next, the man changed the subject and went into this tirade:

If you really want to help these people, why don't you get the American government to teach them how to grow corn and wheat, and raise farm animals? All they eat, three meals a day, are those stinking turnips. And they think they are delicious. I have to eat with them often. All they eat are those damn turnips. Then I have to ride around with them all over this area in that jeep and all they can talk about are those turnips growing in the fields.
Did you ever notice that these people are so tight that they grow those turnips right up to the edge of the road: the roads don't even have big enough shoulders to park on. And they leave the turnips that grow nearest the road until last to pull; that's because the soil is poor there; so those roadside turnips grow slowest. And the way they brag about the farmers who plant those turnips! Each turnip the same distance from the next with never one missing-what a thing to boast about! Hell, who couldn't measure the same distance between turnips!

SURPRISE TEST FOR THE READER

That write-up of the comments from the angry (culture-shocked) business man is intended as a pop quiz for your cultural-detective work. As he continued to harangue, I realized that he was giving me some answers to the theft issue. Did you notice the clues? (I should remind you, also, that the host-nationals in every country I studied said that we overseas Americans do not respect them. In this country, it was the highest: 90%.)

ANSWERS

That story about the host-nationals breaking up radios and clocks and throwing them under the porch because they were about to get caught does not make sense does it? If a thief were about to get caught, he would not be making noise smashing-up metal toasters and things. So how do you explain those destroyed items under the porch?

Did you suspect vindictive theft?

That's what it was. Through three different host national interviewers, each anonymously consulting one of the workers in that business and paying each for an explanation without names of the thieves, each independently at different times got the same answer. After one or another of the Americans, all of whom were especially ugly in that office, had insulted a host worker, the latter destroyed some gear that belonged to the offending American and then threw it under the porch. Obviously there were many insults.

Next, regarding the turnips, if the local nationals were "all thieves" how does one explain those delicious turnips (delicious to the locals) growing right up to the side of the road all over the area and no one stealing them? In many parts of Missouri farm country, if apples or melons or any favorite food grows up close enough to the fence that a long arm can reach, they are soon gone. (And Missourians, of course, are more honest than other Americans.) So compared to Americans, one cannot say that those foreign nationals involved were exceptional thieves.

I used these arguments to upset the attitude among Americans that the local people were all thieves. It was persuasive when attached to the ideological materials. One entire isolated compound of American military men agreed to test the honesty (vindictive theft) theory simply by showing more respect to the people of one local village, mainly by just speaking to them and trying to talk to them. Theft did stop. The Americans even began to neglect the maintenance of their protective fences. Then, suddenly, horror of horrors: three truckloads of coffee were stolen out of the compound. And I don't mean just the coffee; it was trucks and all.

In a desperate effort, I started to organize an internal investigation, thinking that maybe the thieves were insiders, Americans. It happens. But before I could get back to the remote compound, a couple of mornings later, bright and early, the trucks were back, still fully loaded, just sitting there outside the gate. The villagers, not the local police, had chased them down. No questions were asked.

To avoid further incidents, however, I recommended that the compound quietly fix the fences. As a chaplain friend of mine used to say, "Tempting poor people is a sin." I thanked my lucky Oriental stars that the truck was not filled with "stinking turnips" instead of coffee in that tea-drinking land.

For you old Asian hands, please don't think you recognize the nation and business house above in the theft case. I changed many of the non-vital facts. One similar comment: if we Americans learned how to win back the mutual respect and friendship of just one Third World country, we could win them all. Panama and the Philippines make strategic sense for starters. Can the diplomats and business houses do this? Good question. Could the GIs, properly trained? No problem; absolutely no problem! When do those treaties of ours expire? What a Greek tragedy: this endless, needless story of the decline of great nations. A rise into cross-cultural maturity would be so much happier; not easier, mind you, but much, much happier. Meanwhile, of course, and closely related, we still have some domestic cross-group problems to solve.

Above from pages 279 - 283
Dr. Robert L. Humphrey's
VALUES FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM

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