Cultural diversity in Europe. (Dis)advantage?
Gelegenheid:Thank you for your kind words and thank you, too, for a very interesting presentation. Wow, I didn’t know that Procter & Gamble was such a big part of my life. It got me thinking, how did I shave this morning? When did I do the laundry? Apparently, you are part of my life in many ways. It’s got me thinking about the role of your company in my family’s life. Anyway, fascinating presentation. I’ll pick up on a number of your points, if I may, during my presentation.
There will be no ‘death by power point’. I am from the old school: I just talk to you and I hope to capture your attention. I’ll do my best – not sure whether I’ll succeed. We will see at the end, when I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Cultural differences
It is a part of my day-to-day business to talk about cultural differences – to take into account cultural differences. If I want to be effective as a negotiator, if I want to be effective as someone who defends my country’s interests, I need to be able to take on the role of my adversary. This has been part of Dutch business culture for centuries. Why were we successful as merchants all over the world? Because we were able to adapt. We improvised all the time when we went to Asia or other parts of the world, and we adapted to local customs. We understood what local customs were and we saw business opportunities.
It’s not that different from diplomacy. You have your values, you have your interests and you try to promote them by understanding those people you need to talk to. We’ve come, in this modern world, to see this as an almost mechanical process. Especially in terms of language.
My colleagues in the Cabinet asked why we don’t all switch to English. Because that, excuse my English, is the lingua franca. But it does not reflect the reality for everyone. My colleague, Ronald Plasterk, was a leading scientist in his field, a world-leading scientist. Everyone in his field, his colleagues, always spoke English. They all needed to know English to understand their business, to understand the field they operate in. But they are operating in a straightforward context, the same scientific context. And it isn’t a problem if you use just one language then, because the context is the same. I operate in a completely different context from day to day.
Anyway, language is my first point. I remember when I studied languages at university. In those days – I’m talking about the first half of the eighties, about the time you were born probably – computers were just coming in; they said we needed computers to translate, we’d no longer need linguists. We could use a computer, which would be very easy. Of course the Swedes were the first who tried this. Electrolux, a Swedish company, tried it in a marketing campaign. They were looking for a slogan – in English – that sounded nice and that would sell vacuum cleaners. The computer came up with a wonderful slogan. I don’t think they ever tried it, but it sounds wonderful: ‘Nothing sucks like Electrolux’. The computer invented that wonderful slogan. I’m sure they might have sold some vacuum cleaners in English-speaking countries, because people would love the irony in this sense, although it was never meant to be ironic. But that is what happens when you operate out of context.
I’ll turn scientific on you for just a moment, not for very long – I shouldn ’t really insist on this, but leave it to people who understand it better. What I’ve always found very useful is Professor Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions for understanding how you need to operate. I just want to flag that, I shan’t insist on it, but it is something you as students should know and read, because it does help you to understand the field you operate in.
He uses five different categories to position cultures, which you can use to determine where you stand in respect of other cultures. His starting point is not a positive one. This is a big difference between us: he says that culture is a nuisance. It creates conflicts; it doesn’t help; he’d rather do without cultural differences. And while I can understand this from an analytical point of view, I find cultural differences enriching. A challenge.
Cultural differences are what I’m about. Without them, I’d be out of a job. So I need it. If you regard cultural differences as something that is interesting, intriguing and enriching and want to get to know other cultures, it helps you to understand your own culture better. If that is your starting point, it becomes really fascinating to be in my line of work.
Hofstede distinguishes cultures, first, on the power-distance index. How many people are involved in shaping power and formulating power at national level? Is this something done by the elites? Is this something that involves all of society? There is a large range of scores on this index.
Second, the degree of individualism also differs among cultures. Comparing northern European and southern European cultures already shows up differences in the status of individuals in society. If you compare these cultures with Asian societies, the difference of course becomes quite marked.
Masculinity versus femininity is a well-known dimension in international politics. People say Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus. Being oriented towards a more feminine society or masculine society – it’s a helpful distinction in determining where societies stand and how they operate. Women’s values and men’s values differ in terms of choices made by society.
Then there’s the uncertainty avoidance index, which is very important and fascinating. How much uncertainty can a society take? Two very brief examples. I lived in Russia for three and a half years in the early 90s: starting in 1990 and ending in 1993. They were very uncertain times. People lost all their savings due to inflation. Really all their savings. Their country was gone, their money was gone, their security was gone, the system was gone. Had we in t he Netherlands suffered the same sort of uncertainty, we would probably all have killed ourselves instantly. But the Russians somehow coped with all this, looked for new opportunities. It did affect society in the sense that they thought that this uncertainty, this chaos, was linked to democracy and market economics. So they distanced themselves from those values. That was their reaction. But they did hold out. They are so used to long periods of uncertainty.
By comparison, if you look at our prosperity, our economic position, our unemployment rate – 2.7% – if you look at our opportunities, we should be dancing in the streets here. But we’re not. We see danger everywhere. We see danger in our migrant communities, who do nothing but contribute to this society. So that is about the level of uncertainty you can handle. These differences are extremely important in understanding culture and society.
The second example I want to give is the different reaction in the United States, compared to Spain or Britain, to terrorist attacks. Foreign violence on American soil leads to a huge reaction in US society, whereas terrorist violence on Spanish soil – with their experience and their conviction in the vitality and strength of their society – leads to much less of a reaction. It is not just 9/11. You can go back to the Second World War and see the way the Americans treated their Japanese community after Pearl Harbour. Or go back to the beginning of the 20th century and see how, for a very brief period of time, the Americans treated their German community. Or look at the age of the communist scare, McCarthy and the way the so-called ‘red menace’ was treated. All these differences are interesting to look at.
And then of course, the final point Hofstede makes is the difference between long-term orientation and short-term orientation. If you have a short-term orientation, which tends to be typical of the western vision, you have a different uncertainty avoidance index than if you have a long-term orientation, which for instance guides the Chinese vision.
When we discuss Chinese reactions on the Tibet issue or what is happening today in the relationship between China and the Western world, we tend to see these issues in the context of the last ten or twenty years. When I talk to Chinese colleagues, they see them in the context of centuries. They talk about what was done to them by the Brits and the Americans in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They talk about the fact that they were forced to take opium in return for tea-trade, opium which led to havoc in Chinese society. Those are the references they have and if you are not aware of this, you’ll misunderstand completely the point people are trying to make. You’ll see them as people who overreact, because you don’t understand them. I think these are essential elements in cultural differences and operating in international politics.
I want to make a couple of points, starting with my experience in the European Union. First of all, I am still amazed, every day, by the cynicism in Dutch society regarding European cooperation. I think you and I should discuss this and see whether we can find common ground to tackle this cynicism. Because cynicism is always a negative force. It always undermines a society, and it is undermining Dutch society today. I would really like to hear your questions and your thoughts on this.
And look at what’s happening now in the United States. It is a strange phenomenon that we’ve experienced a bubble for the second time in one decade. We have no instruments to detect a bubble. You only start talking about a bubble after it’s burst. It is never called a bubble before then. Why not? This fascinates me. As a politician, we should be able to foresee or detect at an earlier stage what is actually happening in financial economics. That aside, why is it hitting the US so much harder than it’s hitting us? Twenty to thirty years ago, we would have been in deep trouble economically at this stage, but now we’ re not. Why is that? The answer is European integration. There is no other reason. The fact is that these 500 million consumers, this one monetary area, this stronger orientation on each other than on the outside world – 80% of our exports go to the EU – all this has created a sort of divide, so that we are no longer dependent solely on what is happening in the United States. We are more and more capable of taking care of ourselves. Of course we will see effects, and of course there is here and now financial equalising – which is probably necessary – but it will not affect the EU as much as people had anticipated. I am sure of that.
We will see more European integration in economic terms because of these external effects. But why is this not a unique selling point for European cooperation? Why is it that people don’t want to see this? I think the answer would be that it’s tied to a lack of optimism. You, whether you’re Dutch or not, are probably intrinsically cosmopolitan. You have an optimistic view, you want to be able to operate elsewhere, you want to be a world citizen. This is your aim. This is why you’re going to university. This is how you feel comfortable.
But many Dutch people don’t share your outlook. Their perspective is their own community, their own country. And their perspective is negative. Rightly or wrongly, many Dutch people believe that they are on a peak now and that it’s all downhill from here. Now, if that is the general attitude in a society, people become extremely conservative, not politically but in the sense of ‘if this is as good as it gets, I’d better save for a rainy day’. They do not look for change or accept change because change always, automatically, leads to a decline in their situation and that of their children.
If that is the attitude in society – and it is the attitude in many western European societies – it’s very difficult to get people on board for change. If you are afraid of the future, the effects of terrorism, the effects of globalisation and you don’t see the opportunities, then you don’t see the challenges – only the dangers.
In that context, and it is the context we operate in, people go back to where they think they can find safety. And safety is then sought in identity. But people, especially in my country, never used to look to identity and safety. Now that they are, they suddenly see their identity as something that has changed, that is in permanent flux. They can’t cope with that, so they look for something that is fixed in the past. And they become allergic to anything that diverges from that. That is one of the root causes of the problems we’re having with intercultural dialogue in the Netherlands, and also in Europe.
Having said that, what does this mean for how I operate at European level? First of all, the position of the Netherlands in the eyes of our colleagues in Europe has changed. We used to be extremely reliable – predictable, I’d rather say. Predictable because our long-term interests were clear in the political arena in the Netherlands, so they were also projected easily in Europe. We were seen as Europeans committed to the cause, committed to further integration. As beneficiaries of European integration. This is no longer the case. Because of our internal political and social turmoil, we are now seen by our fellow Europeans as a bit of an odd case. Where do we stand now?
In the past, as always, the image was too positive. It is one of the evidential truths of intercultural relationships that you need stereotypes to qualify the other. You will always use stereotypes, because that is the basis of classification. The stereotype of the Dutch was that we are forward-looking, progressive, open... That is true to some extent, but not to the extent that people elsewhere in Europe believed. Now we’re in the opposite situation, where we are seen as lost, xenophobic, dangerous. This is also an exaggeration and a stereotype, and it is not helpful. We need to find a new balance. We are not as good as we were portrayed then. We never protested of course! But we are not as bad as people tend to see us now. And this is also happening in our relationship with other countries, and at European level.
When I entered this field 20 or 21 years ago, I went to Brussels. The situation I described in Mr Plasterk’s closed scientific community compares with the way things were in Brussels. Decisions were taken in Brussels by people who understood Brussels, who came from those – at the time – ten member states, who understood how it worked, spoke the same lingo, had the same way of operating and took decisions right there in Brussels.
Now, with 27 member states since the enlargement of the Union, this has changed completely. I now operate in a completely different Brussels. We don’t take all the decisions there. We’re sitting at a table with 27 ministers: you can’t negotiate an issue back and forth with 27 people. You can only debate one or two lingering points, not everything. We used to be able to discuss everything. So what are we doing now? We’re taking it elsewhere. We’re doing business in the capitals. Not everything is done in Brussels anymore. And when you start doing business in the capitals, the cultural issue becomes more intriguing, more difficult, more challenging. You’re no longer operating within the micro cosmos of Brussels where everybody understands and plays by the same rules. This means that, in order to be effective at European level today, I need a much better understanding than before of how Polish politics works, how French politics works, how Italian politics works, how British politics works. If I have a better understanding of their politics and policies than my colleague does of mine, I am a more efficient negotiator. If I can understand, if I can see things from his point of view but he can’t see it from mine, I am a more efficient negotiator. That is what I try to do.
I was fortunate to be raised in several European countries whose languages I picked up along the way. Being able to operate in their language makes me a more effective negotiator. Because language, as I tried to explain, is not just a vehicle of communication and meaning. It’s not just about using a word in one language for a word in another language, and it means the same thing. No, the context is just as important. If I can operate within that context, I am a more effective negotiator. This is what we have seen in the presentation. If you want to sell a product and you can put yourself in the consumer’s shoes, you are a more effective operator. There is no difference there. No difference at all.
Finally, before I take your questions, I’d like to make a point that I always make wherever I go. I shall keep repeating this point, because I believe it is essential if we are to get out of this situation in Western Europe in which we regard each other with unease.
Cultural differences are going to be part of our lives much more than in the past.
You know, I come from a coal mining family. My grandfathers were coal miners. I was born in a region that always had migrants, especially from eastern and southern Europe. They migrated to the south of the Netherlands to work in the coal mines. When they came, they stayed. They couldn’t go back. They couldn’t afford to spend a holiday in their country. So they came and stayed and adapted. They kept their cultural identity, which over time of course changed dramatically from the culture in their home country, and they integrated.
Today, in our modern world, people don’t stay. They can live in two countries at the same time. We all can. This changes the old paradigms. There is a need to be more aware of cultural differences, to accept them and see them as an enrichment of our lives. If we don’t – if we see cultural differences as a threat to our position, we will cause more decline in Europe and we will not be able to profit from globalisation.
We are probably better placed than anyone else to benefit from globalisation. We have saved enough, we have enough knowledge, we have enough R&D in place, we have enough young people with talent. But if we are scared, if we are afraid to take this step, we will lose out. This is my main message. I am sure you will be receptive to it. I am sure we can have a debate about this.
Thank you.