Incurious George

IN THE NEWS
I'll confess something: I don't understand people who lack curiosity. Perhaps it's a failing of mine that I can't understand (or, to use Weber's stronger, German term, verstehen, connoting something like "getting under the skin of") someone lacking an interest in things that are innately curious, or important enough to demand dedicated attention. Like any virtue, curiosity is something that you often need to foster in people, if it doesn't arise in them naturally. Depending on your vocation, curiosity may be something that you must have--much like a judge needs a combination of compassion and realism, or a doctor needs both empathy and detached objectivity.

One of the most encouraging moments I saw after 9/11 was the surge in public interest in Islam, the Middle East, terrorism, US foreign policy--all the ingredients of a great national (and international) tragedy. Suddenly, Amazon.com was overrun with orders for books on the subject. Hallway conversations at work were dominated not only by the familiar, "Why do they hate us?" question, but other, equally significant queries, such as, "How could we have not seen this coming?" That question, of course, put the responsibility squarely on the informed electorate--the very people who suddenly realized that they had been willfully ignoring some very real, very grave threats to the United States.

At my own work, I took some time to share what I knew about the topic, particularly after the invasion of Afghanistan. How did a country as distant from us--a poor, landlocked, unhappy place peripheral to our interests--suddenly become the nexus of all our fears and outrage? What did we not know about this place, and what were the risks we faced by not understanding it better? The one "teach-in" I did was very heavily attended. What heartened me, more than anything, about this evening was the intelligence of the questions I got. Suddenly, the polite but anonymous crust of the workaday world crumbled, and I saw many of my co-workers for the first time as the curious, concerned, and compassionate people they really were beneath the daily action items, meeting minutes, and e-mails.

I had, perhaps naively, hoped that this curiosity extended into the halls of government. Bush was suddenly eager to be seen with moderate Islamic leaders. He not only described Islam as "a religion of peace" (a bit of rhetorical pablum, but perhaps needed at the time), but he also sprinkled a couple of quotes from the Koran into his speeches.

Unfortunately, this effort to look interested in Islam didn't last. You might give a C- Yale student and consummate corporate citizen like Bush a free ride, if the rest of his Administration demonstrated some continued interest in the faith, politics, and daily lives of the people who either applauded and supported al Qaeda, or at least tolerated their existence. Unfortunately, in almost three years since 9/11, we've seen no evidence of this necessary curiosity about Islam and the Middle East in the Bush Administration.

When you think of someone you really understood that part of the world, the person who immediately comes to mind is T.E. Lawrence. The paragon of the government liaison who "went native" in order to work with local allies, Lawrence not only lived alongside his Arab colleagues in their joint fight against the Ottoman Turks, but he also lived as an Arab. He spoke, dressed, and lived, as much as possible, like a bedouin warrior. Needless to say, that approach got results, both during the war and afterwards.

Of course, Lawrence wasn't an enthusiastic supporter of every aspect of his government's Near East policy. In fact, he was outraged by the corrupt and inept approach the British government took in establishing the new state of Iraq. In a report to Parliament that many bloggers and other Internet sources have cited recently, Lawrence said, in his conclusion,

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. all experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?

Lawrence spoke with undeniable authority on the subject. Not only did he know the Middle East, but he also knew the Hashemite dynasty whose son was being put on the throne of Iraq.

Could you point to an American T.E. Lawrence who speaks with the same authority? Obviously not. Since leadership does indeed begin at the top, Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and others deserve the blame here. None of them have demonstrated publicly an interest in the Middle East or Islam. None of them are learning Arabic, throw quotes from the Koran or the Hadith Reports back in the faces of the ugly Islamist demagogues who denounce us, or even encourage Americans to read a good book on any of these subjects. Someone, in some position of authority and responsibility, must show this curiosity. Otherwise, any public diplomacy we might attempt will fall on deaf ears--and, of course, in the hard road ahead to defeat al Qaeda and other enemies, we need the Arab and Islamic populations to listen to what we have to say. We have to show some interest in them, and some real depth of understanding about them. Not every person in the world wants to reproduce the subculture of the American boardroom and conference call, the environment that gave birth to the people in the current Administration. (Actually, not all Americans want to share in this Weltanschauung either.)

In short, we need leaders who both say, "You're right, America, we're too incurious for our own good," and then take steps themselves to learn something they didn't know already about Islam and the Middle East. Average Americans were already willing to admit their personal failures in this regard; unfortunately, that sentiment has faded somewhat, since our leaders don't seem very troubled by their own deficiencies in this regard. Not everyone needs to be a modern-day Lawrence, but many of them should look as though they wish they could be that person.