Reflection
Globalization has created a need to understand other people’s cultures, beliefs and conceptions. Therefore, global perspective is among the most important things that dictate interactions within the global setting. Global interactions are also dictated by global awareness which includes understanding local and global issues and how they are connected and global engagements which influences people’s willingness to participate in resolving global issues.
Global Perspective
My global perspective increased based on my experiences in global learning. To begin with, studying abroad increased my cultural awareness because I had to study the culture of France and Morocco to coexist in the regions peacefully. I also developed various skills from the experience I had studying abroad. One of the skills was conflict management. Interacting with people from different cultures may create conflicts, particularly due to misunderstandings caused by differences in values and beliefs (Herzog 25). In my case, I often conflicted with those around me due to comments made about my dress code or religion. I had to manage the conflicts on my own, especially if they occurred in school to avoid losing my study visa because I was relying on it to continue living in the foreign county. Thus, I was able to enhance my conflict management skills. Another skill developed from studying abroad was interpersonal intelligence. According to Behjat (352), interpersonal intelligence is the ability to interact with and understand others effectively. When I moved to France and Morocco for my international business studies, I had to make friends to adapt faster to the new environment. It was not easy for me to do so because I was a foreign student and did not share the Muslim values and beliefs of the people in the region. However, constant engagement in verbal and nonverbal communication with others enabled me to form connections with those around me, and I was able to make new friends to help me adapt to life in the two countries. I also developed good networking skills because I had to identify and connect with other international students to make my life manageable in foreign countries. I advanced my social skills to make new friends and maintain meaningful connections with other students with similar interests.
Besides studying abroad, my internship programs also played a vital role in developing unique skills and competencies. For instance, I developed time management skills because I had to follow a strict schedule in the workplace. Working as a sales representative in a car yard helped me improve my negotiation skills because o had to convince customers to purchase a specific car when they visited the yard. Success was also measured based on the number of successful sales hence pushing me to work harder to deliver results and use proper convincing tactics to close sales. My global perspective when working at the car yard also changed because I had to constantly deal with customers from different backgrounds, some of whom assumed that the cost of the cars at the yard was adjusted to increase profitability rather than factoring in facts such as the fact that most of the cars in the yard were imported and only a few were locally used. My religious studies increased my interest in understanding the religious practices embraced worldwide to understand the integration of religion and culture. I was more interested in understanding some religions that are considered parts of people’s culture, such as the Muslim religion and Buddhism. The study of rituals and myths further expanded my interest in understanding the cultural practices embraced in different regions to create a distinction between rituals and mysticism and determine how myths affect our perception of various rituals. I also developed an interest in controversial cultural beliefs that create conflict between religious and unreligious people, such as rituals that may be considered evil. My interest was to determine why a ritual would be regarded as evil and the underlying factors dictating whether a ritual is acceptable or unacceptable in society. This issue is yet to be resolved because I have not yet completed my research in the area.
Global Awareness
The global learning experience has played a significant role in enhancing my global awareness. For instance, it has enlightened me on the role of religion in shaping global interactions. As a student in Morocco, a Muslim-dominated country, I got first-hand experience of religious discrimination by observing how minority religions in the country were treated. There was limited freedom to express religious beliefs among minority groups, not because of the laws in the country but because of fear of how the Muslims would react. For instance, as a Christian, I felt that I should not share my religious beliefs with the Muslims because we may conflict on some values and beliefs, resulting in an intense conflict that could have lasting impacts on my stay in the country. I concluded that the freedom of religion is still a global issue in Muslim-dominated countries and needs to be debated on a global platform to enlighten people from these countries on the need to embrace other religions.
Studying various religious courses made me develop a new perspective on the relationship between culture and religion. I observed a close connection between the two, particularly when considering the Muslim faith. Islamic culture is embraced in countries such as Morocco, where Islam is the dominant religion. People have to adhere to specific Islamic cultures, such as dress codes. The culture is so engraved in society that foreigners are forced to embrace it to avoid conflict. For instance, I observed that female international students had to adhere to the dress code in the country to avoid confrontations with the locals because the country has already aligned aspects such as the dress code with Islamic teachings, thus making it a requirement to observe such rules. Studying abroad also expanded my global awareness by exposing me to global issues outside my daily experiences. For instance, when studying in Morocco, I visited some regions where people live in extreme poverty. I developed an interest in determining the factors leading to such extreme poverty levels in the country and established a connection between religion and economic development. It was interesting to learn that the Islam religion in the country could be one of the factors contributing to high poverty levels in the country because of high illiteracy levels, particularly among women who are brought up in a society where women are required to stay at home and take care of their children while men are required to work to support their wives and children. Such a mindset limits opportunities for women hence creating gender inequality.
I developed an interest in studying how the Holocaust has shaped the modern view of religion and the appreciation of minority religions in modern-day society. Although the Holocaust was one of the darkest moments in religious history, it has played a vital role in shaping the modern-day religious sphere. I was particularly interested in determining how the events of the Holocaust created a paradigm shift in the interpretation of religious beliefs and integration of religion in people’s daily activities. It was fascinating to imagine that there was a time people were being killed for expressing their religion. I am yet to establish the rationale behind the Holocaust because existing literature does not clearly explain how Jewish religious beliefs posed a threat during the World War to prompt the Nazis to kill them. I have also been researching events similar to the Holocaust to understand the extent to which the wrong perception of religious beliefs could have lasting impacts on society. For instance, Muslim beliefs have been associated with terror attacks, but there are some assumptions that the Muslim beliefs encouraging terrorist activities are misguided and are spread by a small fraction of the religion hidden under religious convictions to promote their agenda. Therefore, I feel that there is much to be done in research on the relationship between religion and global issues such as insecurity and poverty. The research should be more inclined towards identifying religious misconceptions that have laid a foundation for the growth of insecurity and poverty and how they can be eliminated.
Global Engagement
Global engagement requires understanding the relationship between global and local uses and how people from different cultures can work together to resolve the issues. My deployments in Iraq have exposed me to global issues such as insecurity, discrimination, and poverty. During my first deployment, I was shocked to see how some people in Iraq live in extreme poverty and rely on foreign aid to get basic needs such as medical care and food. The observation was shocking for me because I have been brought up in a society where people work hard to afford basic needs. I developed an interest in determining the relationship between insecurity and poverty and was shocked to discover that the two are aligned. One of my discoveries was that insecurity creates fear, thus forcing people to stay at home to protect themselves. Therefore, they cannot leave their safety nets and work to earn a living and have to rely on government aid and donations by well-wishers to survive. This discovery changed my mindset on the role of individuals in addressing global issues. In as much as people may be willing to help eradicate issues such as poverty and insecurity, they may be restricted by those in power hence the need for increased global engagement to increase the force behind change. For instance, activists, particularly those pushing for equal rights, have demonstrated the power of global engagement in eliminating issues such as discrimination. Similar movements can be created to advocate for the implementation of security measures in regions with high insecurity levels. However, there is a need to first address local issues such as poor governance and discrimination to create a common voice of change from the grassroots.
My experience in France and Morocco enlightened me on the importance of intercultural relations. I imagined how hard life could have been for me if I had not developed intercultural communication skills and learned the dominant culture. I believe that intercultural relations create a foundation for global engagement because people from different cultures have to work together to resolve common issues. For instance, America has been actively involved in solving conflicts in Iraq by deploying soldiers to fight extremists in the region. Being part of the team deployed in the country made me appreciate the role of global engagement in local, global, international, and intercultural problem solving because I envisioned how the situation would have been if we had not been deployed because the extremists were killing innocent people daily and the people had no way of defending themselves. Therefore, there is a need for countries and cultures to maintain peaceful coexistence to exchange ideas and share resources needed to address local and global issues.
The concept of global engagement is broad ad requires understanding various cultures for practical intercultural problem-solving. Cultural beliefs and practices dictate people’s behaviors and beliefs. Therefore, cultural awareness is needed for efficient intercultural problem-solving. Before moving to France, I studied the country’s culture by reading articles and books about it. I was confident that I had acquired enough knowledge to help me coexist with the people in the country. However, when I moved there, I learned a lot about the French culture that was not covered in books and articles. I concluded that cultural awareness cannot be acquired through studying. Experiencing the culture first-hand is needed to understand important cultural values and beliefs. Unfortunately, this is often ignored in global engagement because most people rely on the general information shared about a culture without considering hidden cultural practices and values that the authors may ignore. Therefore, the foundation for effective global engagement is direct interaction with people from different cultures.
My experience as a student studying abroad also exposed me to specific barriers that could hinder intercultural problem-solving. The main barrier is the language barrier which is common in global engagement, especially when dealing with local illiterate communities. For example, my experience in Iraq was quite challenging because most locals cannot speak English, and others do not even understand the language. Therefore, we had to look for a translator whenever we needed to communicate with the locals. The language barrier could limit the willingness to engage in intercultural problem solving because of the difficulty in expressing opinions. For instance, when I was studying in France, I overlooked many problems faced by students, especially international students, because I could not clearly communicate my views in French to gain the support of local students to create a better learning environment. I plan on researching how global engagement can be enhanced by leveraging social media platforms that give everyone a voice to express themselves. Social media platforms also give people a chance to translate content into a language they can understand, thus enabling them to participate in global problem solving by commenting in the language they can clearly express themselves. Global engagement should also be regulated to avoid giving an upper hand to a dominant culture in intercultural problem-solving.
Works Cited
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Behjat, Fatemeh. "Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences: Do they really work in foreign-language learning?" Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 32, 2012, pp. 351-355.
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Herzog, Christina. Intercultural Communication Conflicts. GRIN Verlag, 2010.