| Chapter 2: | The Challenge of Globalization |
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provides understanding of different cultures, and results in true respect for other human beings.
The student of international business programs at the university level could profit from an internship experience abroad. According to Simon (1998), students should be encouraged, and ideally required to experience studying abroad. He further stated that if he could wave a magic wand, he would require foreign language study for all degree recipients. According to Baron (2001):
America has a problem of linguistic security. We don’t understand the languages of our attacker. Just a week after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was offering $38 an hour for translators of Arabic or of Pashto, the language of about 35 percent of the people of Afghanistan, including the Taliban. Many in Afghanistan, where bilingualism is widespread, understand both …
The weakness is not new. The FBI acknowledges that before the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 it had tapes, notebooks and phone taps that might have provided warning signs but it hadn’t been able to decipher them because they were in Arabic. The first step in addressing our language deficiencies is a national recognition that they exist. If we really want to understand the words of our enemies — not to mention those of our friends — we need to put more emphasis on learning languages (p. A19).