Ear to the ground.

Communication skills

Recently I took my son and daughter and three of their friends for a short holiday with my elderly parents in Normandy.

One of my exuberant carload was Ange, the 12-year-old son of Congolese friends. It didn't take him long to demonstrate his ability to relate to adults. 'Here's one who looks you in the eyes when he talks to you,' my father remarked appreciatively. 'And you can understand what he says, too. Unlike others, he doesn't mumble!'

Lessons for life

On a walk in the countryside, as the other boys banged sticks against anything which made a noise, I asked Ange what he wanted to do when he was older.

He had already given the matter considerable thought. He had wondered about being a lawyer--or a stuntman. But, in the end, he had settled on the army. 'I like the discipline and the marching and I'm prepared to die for my country. And because one needs to have an aim, I've decided to be a general.'

Ange said he admired his father, who is often interviewed on the radio, because he had an effect on people's lives--'and I sense that he has an aim in life'.

'And your mother?'

'She teaches us about life. To wash up, cook, air our beds before making them in the morning. This means that later we won't be too hard for someone else to live with. Even when she comes home tired from work, she takes good care of us!'

Stiff joints, supple hearts

The other evening I rang Georges and Odette, now aged 80 and feeling the limitations of age all the more keenly because of their militant past.

Years ago, as young trade unionists, Georges and Odette came to an unusual conclusion: 'Criticizing the bosses all the time isn't going to help them to change: we'll adopt a different spirit.'

I often think of Georges and Odette when I'm tempted to despair of others. When I told Odette this on the phone, she said that they had also decided to cultivate 'a bias towards benevolence'. 'For example, when things don't work out quite as we'd like at hospital, we try not to blame the nurses. We tell ourselves that there are often things we don't know about, maybe there's someone in a worse state than we are. I admit it isn't easy.'

Odette complained of the stiffness of her joints, but I envy the suppleness of her heart, always open to change.

Starting on time

I recently took part in some days of reflection on the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds. One morning, Hatem, a Tunisian university lecturer, talked about some personal experiences which had marked his life.

He described how when he was in his twenties he had had to catch a train from Paris to the south of France to give a talk on Islam. When he arrived at the station early in the morning, his train was pulling out--carrying his travelling companion who had his ticket. Distraught, he rang a friend, Gerard. 'What do you want me to say?' Gerard replied. 'You're always late.'

'I was livid,' remembered Hatem. 'A fine response from someone I saw as one of my best friends! I felt Gerard was not only unfriendly but also racist.'

Responsibility

This experience made our friend think. 'I realized that I often justified my lateness by circumstances--the train had gone, and it wasn't my fault. If I couldn't find a valid reason, I'd say, "It's fate!"

'The society I come from is also like that: in spite of the great riches of our past, the Arab world lags behind in several respects. We blame other people: colonization, the Americans.... This may be partly true, but what is our part of the responsibility?'

He described a similar incident at about the same time with another French friend. 'Nowadays I am careful in my reactions to Westerners,' he said. 'Over-sensitivity can be destructive. It often rules the relationships between the Arab nations which are punctuated by outbursts followed by embraces. One day you're angry, the next you reconcile and sign agreements, the day after that you take offence again.... What solid foundations are we going to give to the great community which we dream of building?'

Our friend's honesty helped to anchor the discussions at our seminar in the simplest realities of life. Rather than making us judgmental, his experiences evoked self-recognition--and a desire to look more clearly at our own personal and cultural flaws.