|
_____________________ |
______________________________________________________________________ |
|||||
|
Volume 6; Issue 3 |
April/May 2003 |
|||||
|
_____________________________________________________________________ Middle Eastern Culture: A
Special Ops Presentation By Paul Lawrence _____________________________________________________________________ |
||||||
|
If you haven’t heard, President George W. Bush has declared the war in Iraq officially over. Yet, there are still battles being fought right here at home. In fact, if you look closely enough there are some minor skirmishes taking place right here at the Technical Center. Furthermore, its important to recognize that war is not always fought in a foreign land using field artillery, aircraft and smart bombs. Rather, there are subtle battles that take place within a work place, among coworkers and with customers that can be just as damaging to our ideals of freedom. From a Cultural Diversity perspective, a war of words, covert operations and strategic hits to a coworker’s character or beliefs can cause mass casualties in the daily operations of any organization. One of the most lethal weapons of mass destruction ever devised by man is the ability to use a human smart bomb commonly known as an “uneducated belief” that is comprised of such ingredients as gossip, biases, and misconceptions. Such a weapon, when unleashed, causes a chain reaction with an organization that leads to the organization imploding in on itself! To prevent such a weapon from being deployed at the Technical Center, the Center’s Cultural Diversity Committee has scheduled a presentation otherwise known as a “special operations program” on June 18th at 1 p.m. The presentation will take place in the Technical Center Auditorium. The Special Ops Program will focus on the Cultures of the Middle East. At this program, employees will be briefed on Middle Eastern myths, biases, discrimination both in the U.S. and abroad, and cultural issues that effect our relationship with people from the Middle East. The speakers for this presentation include: Lobona Ismail, founder and president of Connecting Cultures, Manji Singh – Sikh from the Media Watch and Resource Task Force, and Helen Hatab Samhan, executive director of the Arab American Institute. Together these speakers will provide you with a broad, yet focused appreciation of Middle Eastern Culture and some of the cultural dynamics that affect us all. So make a note and set aside some time for the afternoon of June 18th to attend this Special Ops Presentation. Together we can learn about the Middle East and reduce the biggest tragedy of any skirmish – that being casualties from friendly fire. Think about it!
|
||||||
| _____________________________________________________________________ | ||||||