A scorpion wanted to cross the River Nile. Unable to swim, he asked a frog to carry him over to the opposite bank. “No way!” said the frog. “You’ll sting me and I’ll drown!” “Of course I won’t sting you,” said the scorpion. “I’d end up drowning myself too.” So the reluctant frog let the scorpion climb onto his back and started to swim across the river. Half-way across the scorpion stung him. “Whoa!” cried the frog. “You said you wouldn’t sting me! Now we’ll both drown. What did you do that for?” And the scorpion replied: “But that’s nature.”
The central theme of the fable is that nature will prevail. But at the same time it suggests that outsiders can’t understand the nature of others. Just as the frog didn’t understand the nature of the scorpion, foreigners can’t hope to grasp fully what makes people in other parts of the world tick. This lesson is important at all sorts of levels, for those who have friends, those doing business and those trying to decide policy. We might think we’re saying the right thing and getting the tone and content right, but we could be making enormous blunders.
We come across contradictions and paradoxes in many cultures. For example, many Westerners living and working abroad find a contradiction between attitudes to getting things done and driving on the roads. On the one hand, foreigners have to get used to things taking time: from a bureaucratic decision to getting someone to repair a broken pipe, we know the well-worn answer “Bukra insha’allah” or even, “when the apricots ripen”. But on the other hand we find local drivers are far from patient on the streets; once behind the steering wheel, patience goes out of the window and there is no readiness to give priority to others.
Such contradictions also apply to the drive for political reform that has swept the Middle East in the last 2 years. On the one hand, people who have lived with autocracy, corruption and a lack of economic opportunities are impatient for change. If you need the dignity of putting bread on the family table, the need for a job is immediate and all-embracing. On the other hand, building trust in new institutions cannot be achieved overnight. So how do you balance the inevitable drive for change against the crucial importance of getting it right?
In approaching these issues, outsiders have their own culture, history and values in mind. In many cases such changes in Europe took centuries. And some values are human values: that the voice of the people must be heard; that institutions should be fully representative; that creating jobs and economic opportunity must be at the forefront of economic policy; and that international law and respect for human rights should be adhered to. In this respect the demands and expectations of people in the Middle East are no different from those of the rest of the human race.
But politicians, diplomats, academics and businessmen travelling in different countries must not see these issues through the prism of their own background and experience. We must approach them with an appreciation of the unique local history, traditions and culture. We should be wary of making judgements based on Western history and political experience. And for the same reason, we must avoid suggesting that there is a Western model of democracy that will meet the expectations of the Arab street.
Democracy has to be home-grown. If the people of the region want to share experience, ahlan wa sahlan, but the key decisions are up to the people.
Understanding the local culture – and accepting that we might not understand it – is the best way to avoid painful surprises. So just as the frog came in for an unexpected surprise, it was his failure to understand the scorpion’s nature that brought him to a sticky – or rather a soggy – end.