Service members embrace Afghan culture

Lt. Col. John Newman has never been to Afghanistan, but learning about the country’s language and culture has opened his eyes.

“I don’t leave for another couple months,” he said. “There are some things I want to study, certain phrases I can learn that will help me.”

For 10 days, Newman and other service members leaving for Afghanistan participated in a cultural awareness program offered at IU in partnership with Camp Atterbury, an Indiana training and mobilization center. Each day participants took Pashto or Dari language classes, depending on where they will be deployed, for six to seven hours and finished in an hour-long cultural briefing.

Many of the language sessions were taught by Afghan-American professionals or volunteers from Bloomington, including instructor Mohamed Ajab.

A Residential Programs and Services employee, Ajab said he heard about the program from friends in IU’s Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region and was asked to help teach a language.

“I like teaching and know many languages,” he said. “I’m so happy to be teaching the language.”

Ajab said he taught Dari all 10 days of the program, a total of almost 100 hours.

“They’re smart, doing good,” he said. “They’re very educated people, are learning fast.”

Afghan language and culture training is required across the country for service members, Newman said.

“We can’t force the American model on another country,” he said. “We want to work within their culture. By understanding their language and culture, we’re able to do things that don’t offend them, can achieve goals by avoiding conflict.”

One of the program’s instructors lived in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union’s occupation of the country, and there is a huge difference between their occupation and that of the United States, Newman said.

“They understand that we are there to help them,” he said. “We don’t want to take over their country. A lot of people don’t understand the mission.”

Newman will be part of an agricultural team that will teach Afghan natives how to farm and manage their water — “all that stuff that we take for granted in America,” he said.

Currently, much of the farming in Afghanistan is of poppy plants, which Newman said terrorists in the country use to fund their efforts.

“They have all that money but can’t go to a market to buy food,” he said. “We’re teaching them farming at a basic level. War is not always about going in and blowing up targets. This is more of a war on poverty.”

Newman said because of the cultural awareness taught in the program, the people of Afghanistan will be more trusting of the servicemen and -women deployed to their country. In the program, participants are taught the customs and history of the country along with ways to be polite, such as how to act if a service member is invited to dinner.

“It ends up being more of a spirit of goodness and trust,” he said. “When it comes to the end of the day, trust is one of the most important things you need in that environment.”