The Britain I have seen and the Kurdistan I belong to

By Shivan Fazil:

Obviously, there are perceived cultural differences between the two. In this article I highlight the differences that I have experienced as a resident in the UK. Referring to Edward Hall, the American anthropologist, who classifies culture as high context and low context, I will try to compare them with regard to context, interpersonal relationship, space (personal space), and time (punctuality).

Context: In Kurdistan – which I belong to – less attention is given to the message or the event itself. Instead more significance is given to the things surrounding the event. The context of the message, action or event carries more attention than the actual event. This is evident in the media, especially during coverage of incidents of social violence. But, in Britain, the message carries its own significance and is valued most.

Interpersonal Relationships: In Kurdistan there is strong dependence and ties to relationships. For instance, in businesses and contracts people tend to know who they are dealing with, their network and their family. In fact, sometimes having a connection (wasta) determines the legitimacy of your paperwork. Another example is marriage where, not only do the bride and the groom have to agree, but so do their respective families and sometimes even their other relatives.

Moreover, there are strong dependencies on social restrictions rather than legal restrictions. What the group or society thinks restrains people more than the law. Sometimes,when someone does not break the law, this is really because they think it will bring shame to their family or their tribe. Likewise people are labelled due to their ideological tendencies.

However, British people are less tied to relationships and they are more independent, i.e. they live and operate on their own. The tribe or family that one belongs to does not count; what counts is the legitimacy of the cause only.

Personal space: Due to greater dependency on group thinking, people in Kurdistan lean towards a stronger sense of group involvement or closeness to people and less respect to privacy. People stand closer to each other and they pay more attention to the body language. Paying more attention to what surrounds the message than the message itself, is another example of context.

Unlike Kurdistan, in Britain the individual has more personal space and freedom. This is an important factor for innovation and thinking. This is why most of the progress comes from western societies, at least in recent times.

Time: In Kurdistan there is a polychronic attitude to time, in which people think that events and things have their own time. There cannot be a standard system for time. You can’t emphasise or expect punctuality from people because things happen when they are supposed to happen, hence you cannot control the time. Much of the bureaucracy and lack of productivity that exists is due to a lack of punctuality.

However, the British emphasise punctuality and they do not accept excuses for being late such as it was due to traffic or “I slept late”.

In conclusion, both high and low context cultures can have their advantages and disadvantages. In high context cultures such as Kurdistan, change comes to the society pretty slowly because the class and family structure is pretty rigid. The system is so strong, this makes it difficult to change. It makes people feel bound and restricted about what they can do and what they want to change.

But there is a better feeling of security and family and society connectedness. There is also much less of the sense of alienation that exists in low context cultures like Britain.

Shivan Fazil Sabr: MSc. Advanced Computer Networks, University of Derby, UK and BSc. Information Technology, University of Kurdistan-Hawler, Kurdistan. He is the author of ‘Cloud Computing Security’, recently published and now available via Amazon.

Twitter:@ShivanFazil ; Facebook: ShivanFazilSabr