Intercultural Communication and War

¶ … Culture of Global Political Events Global political events are certainly affected by culture. The very conception of politics itself is widely predicated on cultural concerns, especially when considering international politics. Perhaps the ultimate manifestation of international politics is the instance of war, which occurs when differing countries are engaged in belligerent encounters with one another. Intercultural communications plays a large part in the various images and messages disseminated through the media regarding the cultural phenomenons that affect how these images and messages are portrayed.

A better understanding of the various cultures and their phenomenon could definitely improve the different intercultural communications and perceptions of martial events; a dearth of such understanding can lead to polarization and obfuscation of what these events truly mean to others. There are a number of examples that are indicative of the veracity of such a thesis, including the launch of the War on Terror, the domestic treatment of Muslims during this war, and the persecution of Jews during World War II.

The so-called War on Terror was inauspiciously begotten in 2001 when a number of jets were hijacked and crashed into prominent American targets. There were four planes altogether corralled for such a purpose: two demolished the World Trade Center, a third was headed for the Pentagon and the fourth was initially targeted for San Francisco. For many people, the horrors of these actions were unspeakable. In particular, the images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center and all of the destruction in their wake were immensely disturbing.

In the several days that ensued, the media would also depict other equally stunning portrayals. There were some television stations that showed foreign, Arabic people rejoicing in the streets at the destruction of the World Trade Center, chanting in phrases that were interpreted as "God is good." For many Americans, such imagery made a mockery of their losses. Improved intercultural communication, however, could have certainly influenced how many Americans responded to these events.

The people depicted in the media are from foreign countries in which the very name United States conjures up "media generated images" (Kapoor et al., 2016, p. 40) images of imperialism, global oppression, and bullying. Culturally, then, the U.S., its flag, and even its World Trade Center were symbols of this sort of oppression from what is the last remaining superpower.

The cheering of the loss of the World Trade Center was one of the few times in which these people were able to view some aspect of America not controlling other parts of the world. If Americans could have realized how oppressive and imperialist their government truly was, they would have been able to better contextualize this sort of reaction. In fact, they may have even empathized with it, since now they too knew what it felt to be targeted and abused by foreigners.

Nonetheless, a dearth of effective intercultural communication prevented this sort of understanding from taking place. Another specific example of how a better understanding of intercultural communications can influence how people respond to global political events of warfare pertains to the domestic treatment of Muslims due to the War on Terror. There are many Americans who conceived of the notion that this war was partly a holy war, and that it pitted Muslims against Christians.

Thus, in the wake of the aforementioned attacks and during the time in which the U.S. engaged in martial encounters in various parts of Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria, anti-Muslim sentiment was fairly high domestically. Most people believed that there were extremely belligerent notions ascribed to Islam, and that the religion itself was a cause for violence against non-Muslim practitioners. The media was responsible for disseminating the conception of fundamentalist Muslims as being the aggressors in this conflict and a threat domestically.

Subsequently, Muslims in America have experienced much more persecution in the aftermath of the War on Terror than they did prior to this martial encounter, because they are considered "people suspected of terrorism" (Abbas and Riaz, 2014, p. 69). This fact could have been prevented or even ameliorated by a better understanding of intercultural communication.

If the Western powers in this country had made more of an effort to communicate some of the basic realities of this religion, such as the fact that the political aggressors that represent it are in the minority, these misconceptions might not have occurred. Similarly, a greater effort to communicate these realities on the part of the Muslim community in the U.S. could have produced a similar effect. Another global political belligerent event that people likely would have perceived much more differently was World War II.

During this encounter, Germany persecuted and murdered numerous Jewish people throughout Europe as "the targets of the Nazi genocide" (Penslar, 2011, p. 423). Although it may seem difficult to fathom this fact now, prior to the Holocaust Jewish people were widely disparaged throughout the annals of history. They are the villains in numerous classic pieces of literature such as The House.