From the moment we enter the Peace Corps we are warned to be culturally sensitive. Defer to local norms and beliefs. Take time to get to know cultures and communities before you try to change people or customs or habits. Gain trust, especially of your host families and counterparts.
Furthermore, we are warned to remain apolitical with regards to Nicaraguan politics. As representatives of the United States we cannot afford to have the Nicaraguan government believe that as an institution we are working against them. We are specifically prohibited from writing political or cultural criticism on our blogs or through other public means.
This pillar of the Peace Corps manifests itself in a number of ways, some problematic. I myself am guilty of a number of them. First of all, we are warned to be so sensitive with our host families and we do not stick up for ourselves. We completely mistake disagreement with insensitivity. If we don’t eat something or the food they are constantly serving us is not healthy we need to say something. But we don’t. That’s just the culture, you know. If they are encroaching on our privacy, being rude, disturbing us, or doing any number of other wanted actions, many Volunteers just deal with it rather than starting a dialogue with their host families or other community members.
However, we can change our host families, and many Volunteers do find better housing than what the Peace Corps initially assigns to them. However, it is much more difficult to just get up and change counterparts. Our counterparts drive us up walls. They are late. They don’t show up to events. They don’t let us know when things get cancelled, and then we show up, sometimes spending money to get places, and no one is there. They ask us to do things for them. They continually exhibit bad practices in their professional work. The list could go on.
Me with my counterparts. I have this crew trained!
I’m sure that you will be shocked to hear that I feel that many Volunteers do not do a good job directly addressing these issues. We are so completely over sensitized that we are afraid that disagreeing or challenging them will upset them and then they will not want to work with us anymore. That is just asinine. We are in the business of changing people’s behaviors. Of course there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to go about doing that, but from what I have observed Volunteers let their counterparts and other community members walk all over them. We need to do a better job of asserting ourselves. We need to learn to say, “No.” We are qualified, trained individuals. We are community members too. We have committed to living in these communities for two whole years, and we become deeply attached to them. Setting boundaries and challenging beliefs and habits is the first step to making progress with our counterparts. If we want to make progress and help Nicaragua we need to recognize that disagreeing and challenging is not the same thing as disrespecting and disliking. If our counterparts take it that way, so be it. We can find others. I would rather try and fail than not go through the right motions in the first place.
It is clear to me that culturally, Americans have become too sensitive. The current “trigger warning” and Title IX battles being fought on campuses across America are just one piece of evidence for me. Facebook for me is evidence exhibit A. Time and time again I see someone publically disagree with someone else and then they are immediately degraded and profanities are fired at them simply for having respectfully disagreed.
As a society, we need to remember that challenging and disagreeing is not disliking or disrespecting.
This is not just a problem in development and for Peace Corps Volunteers. I see it in societal discourse and politics as well. Groups claim certain cultural norms as sacred (religion, “American ideals,” the family, etc.) and refuse to hear any arguments against their personal ideas and beliefs. I see the polarization of politics and Congress as coming in a distant second to the polarization of society. No one wants to disagree with anyone anymore in a meaningful way, and when they do they are vulnerable to be viciously attacked. Something that shocks me time and time again is how few comments I get on this blog. I know that most people don’t read my whole articles, but some people do. Plus, I express controversial points, and I am sure that on more than a few occasions I have said things that were just plain out wrong. From time to time I get more info on certain subjects and I realize that some of my initial facts were not correct. However, other than likes on Facebook, the occasional share, and e-mails from friends, I rarely if ever get substantive comments. I welcome them, and I certainly will not dislike you simply for disagreeing with me or challenging my frame of thought. In fact, I will probably like you more! Blessed be the few friends that I actually have, because they know more than anyone how uninhibited I can be in expressing how I feel about something.
The Peace Corps, and probably the US government as well, at an institutional level, can also be way too hyper-sensitized. I can completely understand the Peace Corps’ desire to continuously be able to serve and maintain good relations with host countries. The Peace Corps may also have security concerns for Volunteers. They have taken this to the extreme and censored all political speech by Volunteers. With some of the articles that I write on my blogs and the opinions that I express I run the risk of the Peace Corps sanctioning me. Indeed, Volunteers have been asked to resign from service in Nicaragua because of articles that they have published.
Making host countries believe that we are apolitical and completely support their political decisions 100% is unrealistic. Government officials know that people all over the world have differing political views. Furthermore, they know that their parties’ stances may very well be opposed by the US government, US news media, and US citizens, including those serving in their country. Disagreeing is not disliking, nor is it disrespectful! Recognition of that truism should be a prerequisite to the Peace Corps serving in a country. Furthermore, if a government stands firmly opposed to contrarian ideas, I am not sure it is a good country for the Peace Corps to work in. A government opposed to other ideas seems like a government opposed to change. Sustainable development is extremely difficult in institutions systematically hard-wired not to change.
Definitely agree on the over sensitivity part – I was virtually silenced by hyper-“progressive” young person I met at a Birthday dinner because she did not like that I said I am perfectly fine with calling Islamic terrorists Islamic terrorists. She says calling certain terrorist groups Islamic terrorists is gratuitous – this has been the position of the Obama administration and it misses the mark. There are religion terrorists of all stripes in the world (now and in the past) including Jewish, Christian, Hindu, and yes Muslim. If you kill in the name of religion to spread fear and panic think that is grounds to call you a “fill in the name of the religion” terrorist.
Any who I agree more broadly our societal discourse outside of this pseudo ationalistic American movement has become sanitized. There is a growing intolerance on the left to dismiss any challenges to its general world view especially regarding cultural appropriation, race relations. On NPR this afternoon they were interviewing a Native American rapper who credited the genocide of his people by the white man for his own personal depression.Perhaps this is completely sensible to some, but I think this bares scrutinizing. Bizarre and strange no one asked to elaborate on that viewpoint.
There is no longer any tolerance for intolerance which paradoxically is troubling because it replaces one form of discrimination with lazy group think. The justification for supposed injustice cannot be credited as self-evident. Asking for evidence for a viewpoint to challenge a “micro-aggression” or another vague disrespect is pointed to as the exact problem which is the cause of the issue being examined.
Getting back to PC I get the reasoning behind their policy. You are a guest in some ways viza vie the US govt. Accepting that any improvements/changes will be on the host (community/institutions) terms is a necessary precondition to long-lasting changes. I am adopting this viewpoint from my own experience, strictly in the economic realm. I am guessing skills transfer / idea transfer is the most realistic positive outcome of most volunteers service.
Please excuse typos on my phone.
See you soon bud.