Intercultural Communication and Translation News

A “cultural cloak of sensitivity” is preventing figures in authority, including police, teachers and social services, from protecting basic human rights for fear of upsetting certain ethnic minority communities, David Cameron warned yesterday.

In his strongest attack on multiculturalism, which he said had created a “cultural apartheid” by allowing communities to lead separate lives, the Conservative leader claimed that society was caving in to “extreme elements” who should be sidelined. Cameron cited two examples:

· authorities often turn a blind eye to forced marriages – schools in Derby have recently refused to put up posters about the issue – amid fears that they might be perceived as racists;

· Victoria Climbié, the eight-year-old who was tortured to death by her aunt and her aunt’s boyfriend, was not properly protected by social services because they did not want to offend a family that had recently arrived in Britain.

Read more > Cameron 

A breakfast seminar on ‘cultural intelligence’ showing how organisations can improve cross-cultural communication and harness the diversity of their employees, will be held in London on 29 April 2008.

Called Cultural Intelligence: Making cultural difference an advantage, not a problem, the seminar has been organised by drama-based learning specialist Steps Drama.

Aimed at managers and HR practitioners in multinational organisations, it will combine presentations, advice and live action drama sequences to introduce the concept of ‘cultural intelligence’ and to show how it can be applied to improve cultural perception and to resolve cross-cultural friction points.

Amanda Leacy, a Global HR Director at Accenture, responsible for IT Delivery Centres in 15 worldwide locations, will explain how cultural intelligence is integral to success when running a global network of teams.

To bring the learning points to life, professional actors from Steps will present short scenarios showing cross-cultural team members in a fictional organisation – with different expectations, attitudes and assumptions – trying to use and apply the concepts.

Read more > Cultural Intelligence 

Rastafarianism is a religious movement born out of the black slums of Jamaica which harnessed the teachings of the Jamaican born black nationalist, Marcus Garvey and conditionally uses selective Old Testament Christian writings to support its teachings and practices. Born in 1887, Garvey’s influence on the poor black slave descendants in Jamaica came to its peak in the 1920′s where his message of encouragement and calling on black people to take pride in themselves won some fanatical supporters. Although historically Marcus Garvey was a political leader interested in making the black race economically equal with the white, in oral tradition he has become a divinely anointed prophet.

With the crowning of Ras Tafari Makonnen on November 2nd 1930 in Ethiopia, many believed Garvey’s prediction of a black king crowned in Africa who would be a redeemer and liberator of the dispossessed black race had come to fruition. Makonnen claimed for himself the titles of “Emperor Haile Selassie I, Conquering lion of the tribe of Judah, Elect of God and King of the kings of Ethiopia.” Ethiopia holds great significance to Rastafaris who believe in a coming judgement day when the righteous will be called home to Mount Zion (identified with Africa) to live forever in peace and harmony. Marcus Garvey, although no admirer of Haile Selassie, as he observed that slavery still existed in Ethiopia, continued to be revered by the fanatical Rastafarians despite being a Roman Catholic by birth who never spoke out explicitly to support the growing movement.

Read more > Rastafarianism

Farhad Heydari lays out the complexities and the basics of doing business in the Middle East, whether in its more worldly or more insular regions.

In the early stages of David Lean’s Academy Award-winning 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” Peter O’Toole as the larger-than-life T.E. Lawrence is lectured by General Allenby’s cunning political consultant, Dryden, on what life is really like in the desert. “Lawrence, only two kinds of creatures get fun out of the desert— Bedouins and gods, and you’re neither. Take it from me,” he goes on to sermonize, “for ordinary men it’s a burning, fiery furnace.” But O’Toole, playing no ordinary man, is unperturbed by the harsh assessment and matter-of-factly retorts: “No, Dryden, it’s going to be fun.”

Perhaps he was on to something. In little more than 50 years, most of the tiny Gulf states that ribbon the northern coast of the Arabian Peninsula have morphed from a backwater of loosely organized trucial sheikhdoms, once nothing more than dhow-speckled pearling and fishing villages, to slick, tax-free hives for the mega-rich, anchored by the world’s largest oil producer next door— itself undergoing something of a measured transformation.

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Kristjan Mar Hauksson  of Multilingual Search writes:

The world’s largest search engine misses out on localization, how? Spelling error, I’m I feeling lucky button was changed to “Freysta gæfunnar”, the problem is that there is no y in freysta so the search engine that has 50% of the Icelandic population searching is greeting the Icelandic nation with a spelling error! Pls. Google fix this it is hurting my feelings!

Companies are aware that knowledge workers are key to the success of the Dutch economy and, focusing on this growing community, a new congress ‘The Impact of Expats’ aims to cover everything which companies in the Netherlands bringing knowledge workers into the country need to know.

ZuidasThe success of the Dutch economy is knowledge-based and Dutch business and industry know only too well that it is the presence of highly skilled workers in a city which increases its capacity for innovation and makes it attractive for new business.

Amsterdam, with its highly rated quality of life, cultural diversity and lively reputation is becoming increasingly popular with skilled internationals seeking to develop their careers abroad.

Read more> Expatica

Zut alors! The popular British cartoon and television series “Mr. Men” has come up with a malodorous Mr. Rude who speaks with a bad French accent.

“Pardon me,” says Mr. Rude in comedy Franglais as he breaks wind when his finger is pulled on a game played on the television show’s website www.mrmen.com.

“Ohhh, don’t seem so surpriiised,” Mr Rude exclaims when loud noises and a noxious-looking gas erupt from his behind. “I’ll geeve you rude,” he tells children as he blows a raspberry in a promotion for the new series which will run on British television on February 25.

The French embassy in London declined to comment to Reuters on whether the coarse Mr. Men character, the only one on the show with a foreign accent, would offend.

But a source at the embassy told Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that this kind of humor won’t go any distance toward easing a centuries-old rivalry between the two nations.

Read more> Mr Men

Ex-pats living in Spain are being recruited and trained to work as remote telemarketing staff for English businesses because there is a shortage of suitable candidates in the UK.

Call centre staffing company Sensée has hired 10 sun-soaked British workers as telesales agents for Sense On Hold (SOH), a UK-based company providing marketing to callers while they are waiting on hold. The agents will never meet their new bosses at SOH, as all elements of recruitment and training take place online.

The move reflects the growing number of employers using mobile workers for traditional, office-based jobs.

Read more> Expats 

Many employers are risking migrant workers’ wellbeing by not providing adequate health and safety training warned the Institute of Occupational Health and safety (IOSH).

It said many non-English speaking migrant workers are especially at risk as H&S training is usually delivered in English. IOSH recently conducted a pilot study into how H&S training is delivered to migrant workers in the food processing sector.

Half of the 26 companies polled admitted their H&S training did not address how non-English speaking workers were informed, instructed or trained in H&S issues and practices.

“The evidence from the food and drink sector is that too many employers are taking risks with their migrant workers by not offering proper training in H&S issues,” said IOSH policy and technical director Richard Jones.”Within this sector only 42% of employers provide English lessons to staff.”

Read more> Migrants 

A “growing amount of research” is examining whether small cultural differences play a significant role in health care disparities across the U.S., USA Today reports. Although, new government-sponsored studies are being conducted to determine if cultural training can help health care personnel and physicians relate better to minority patients, “no study has proven cultural competency training works, either by improving doctor-patient relationships, increasing patient compliance or reducing disparities,” according to USA Today.

Ramon Jimenez, chair of the diversity advisory board at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, said that analysis of the issue is the first step in finding a solution to the problem. “Cultural competency will have to be on everybody’s radar screen for generations to come,” Jimenez said, adding, “When the day comes that the melting pot is truly a melting pot, then we won’t need this, but that day isn’t here yet.” Jimenez noted that physicians need time to learn how to interact with different patients under different circumstances.

Read more > Public Health