Contrary to common proverb, history does not repeat itself. In fact, as Civil War historian Bruce Catton wrote (“Glory Road”), “History does not have to go logically, and its inevitables are never really inevitable until after they have happened.”
This thought came to mind while contemplating the controversy over Iran, its nuclear energy program and the preliminary agreement its leaders reached on April 2 with the P5 1 group of nations — the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (U.S., U.K., France, Russia and China) plus Germany.
Supporters of the deal, including President Obama, call it a history-making step toward arms control and peace. They point out that the present Iranian government has never directly or openly attacked any other country; that its leaders say their nuclear energy program is for peaceful purposes and have signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and that the program can’t be stopped altogether by any means short of a war, which the agreement supporters don’t, and feel nobody should, want.
Opponents, including Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters, evoke pre-World War II British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his appeasement policy toward the German Nazis, which we can see in hindsight helped lead to the war’s start. The opponents say the promises of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim fascists can’t be trusted; that Iran’s government is a leading covert sponsor of terrorism and an openly anti-Semitic and Israel-hating regime; and this deal is likely to lead to an aggressive Iran armed with nuclear weapons, leading to a nuclear Mideast arms race and threatening Israel and others.
Both sides seem to think they know exactly what is going to happen. Worse, they interpret this business in Western terms, believing that the Iranian leaders are going to understand this deal and to react the way Western leaders would or would have based on Western history.
Cultural anthropology demonstrates that culture shapes human perceptions of reality and reactions to other humans’ actions. Two books particularly show that U.S. and European leaders and observers likely do not see things the same way Iranian leaders do.
David Pryce-Jones’ “The Closed Circle” and Raphael Patai’s “The Arab Mind” are both about Arab culture, but much of what they say is equally applicable to non-Arab Muslim countries and cultures like Iran and Turkey. Both writers emphasize that all these are “shame-honor” cultures that have values completely different from those of Israel and the United States.
“Acquisition of honor, pride, dignity, respect and the converse avoidance of shame, disgrace, and humiliation are keys to Arab motivation, clarifying and illuminating behavior in the past as well as in the present,” wrote Pryce-Jones. “What otherwise seems capricious and self-destructive in Arab society is explained by the anxiety to be honored and respected at all costs, by whatever means.”
In that light, perhaps Iran’s leaders are seeking nuclear power, maybe leading to nuclear weapons, less out of Western motivations than Middle Eastern ones. That is, Iran’s leaders might be seeking to acquire honor for themselves and impose “humiliation” on Israel and the United States, and do so at relatively low cost.
And that is not only why Iran’s leaders likely will find ways to work around whatever agreements they reach with Western nations. It is also probably why modern Turkey’s government refuses to acknowledge that its ancestors committed the Armenian genocide, which began 100 years ago last month. It is also probably why the Palestinian Arabs continue to refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
The culture of the West considers it noble for people to admit mistakes, shortcomings and even sins and crimes, and publicly to repent of them and try to repair the damage. Western people also often consider it noble to acknowledge that opponents may have some right or justice on their side, and to reach a compromise with them. But in Middle Eastern cultures, according to these authors and others, to do these things is considered not noble but humiliating and to be avoided at all costs, especially when demands to do them are made by outsiders.
George Bernard Shaw in his play “Caesar and Cleopatra” has Julius Caesar poke fun at another character by saying, “He’s a barbarian; he thinks the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.” It is easy to laugh at other people for that failing, but in fact peoples of all cultures, including our own, tend to think their own culture and values are the only “natural” ones. They’re not. As Patai wrote, “both peoples and their leaders are, as a rule, prisoners of their cultural values.”
And that is a big part of what makes me feel uncertain about the results of this whole process, and I am unable to join with the U.S. and Jewish supporters or opponents. The Middle East is not 1930s Europe. History can show what can possibly happen, but never what is definitely going to. I could wish all the commenters would be less certain and more wary of their own judgment as well as those of their opponents.
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