I have recently become a grandfather. Even though Kiara lives in Dubai, we have been lucky enough to spend her with her twice already. Life and its development is such a miracle, so wonderful to behold. Having said all that, how parents can find the energy required to get through those months is an extraordinary part of that miracle and a part I’m grateful not to have to endure again.
Everything in the makeup of small children is designed to grow and to learn. It is remarkable to see those tiny limbs learning to achieve small breakthroughs and to observe those young eyes absorbing everything around them in order to feed the developing brain with the information it needs to learn. Observing Kiara it became easy to understand how important a supportive environment is to a new baby, right from the very start and probably also in the womb. So much of our destiny is determined in the first phases of our lives.
I spent a lot of the time with Kiara recalling the first months and years of her mother. At the time I was blessed to have a job where I could spend half of my working week at home, so I could participate and observe more than most fathers of my generation. A particular tendency that came to mind was the way children go through a phase when it seems virtually their entire vocabulary consists of the word “why”.
It was so tiresome, constantly trying to find new explanations for everything around us using language that a young child might comprehend and learn from. Luckily the phase only lasts a year or so: perhaps the child starts to realize that the parent doesn’t have so much to offer, or is becoming too frustrated to give of their best and might start punishing them in other ways for their curiosity.
But of course there is a reason for the choice of question. Asking why is the most efficient way to learn the most, and as part of the miracle children are somehow programmed to understand this. There also realize that asking why repeatedly can help to deepen that learning, because answers can move beyond the superficial towards deeper insights. The parent becomes tired (again), but crucial wisdom is being imparted through the process.
It is strange how later on we tend to forget the value of asking why. There are one or two situations where I have retained the good habit. Whenever I was involved in any sort of root cause analysis, I developed a good habit called “five levels of why”, in other words asking why something may have occurred at least five times to establish deeper truths.
Last weekend a car driving on the wrong side of a small street in Brooklyn crashed into another car, causing the death of a child pedestrian. Why? Well the car was on the wrong side of the road. Why? Maybe the weather was bad or lighting or signalisation was not good. Why else? The car and driver had been flagged for over 150 violations over the last five years yet were still on the road. Why? Now it is starting to get interesting.
I also found the why question very useful when interviewing people for jobs. Candidates tend to prepare a series of pat answers to questions they expect, and interviewers often feed those questions, with long enough preambles for the candidate to be able to navigate the course. Hearing what a suspected might be a superficial answer, I would just simply ask: “why?” The question was always unexpected and always revealing. Good candidates might need to pause but could then articulate something to develop their previous answer. Unqualified candidates could not.
This past week has seen a lot of introspection in the US brought on by the twentieth anniversary of 9/11. I have been impressed by a lot of the commentary. The PBS news hour, as usual, has led the way. One of their leading journalists, Amna Nawas, is always piercing in her interviews. During the pandemic we have become used to her home, and the two spaces she uses to broadcast there, one with a sober green background in a corner of what may be a living room and the other probably an office. The office has a prominent poster on the wall, with all the common interrogatives listed in last print, no doubt a treasured aide memoire from her early days as a journalist. Of course the why question sits proudly towards the bottom of the list.
Yet for all their excellence, even the PBS news hour often neglects to ask that why question, or at least fails to employ it enough times. There were strong panel discussions with military and diplomatic officials, but mainly they focussed on how the USA reacted to 9/11, the justifiable moves and the mistakes made. As usual on Friday David Brooks made intelligent observations while Jonathan Capehart bored with inanities – how did he get that job?
But for all the strong journalism, I don’t think I ever heard anybody asking what for me is the most revealing and valuable question: why? Why did Al Qaeda attack the USA? The USA security had become complacent and because various regimes were permitted to harbour extremists. Why? Bin Laden exploited those weaknesses with an admittedly brilliant plan, which in the end achieved its goal of destabilising the west. Why? Bin Laden and his coterie were evil. Why? Now it might start to get interesting.
Intelligent and ambitious Sunni Muslims have not had a legitimate political outlet for many generations. Too much misogynistic and proselytising dogma has taken root in mosques and governments, and not enough poverty reduction or education. Muslims have grown up angry from listening to true stories of an insulting lack of respect against their kin. Western policy moved from harbouring despots during the cold war, through disinterest and triumphalism, towards the hypocrisy of defending a so-called rules-based global order that was empty and optional for its own people.
Ah, now we are getting somewhere. The harbouring of despots contributed to the lack of political outlet. The harmful dogma was tolerated because parallel dogmas of other religions bankrolled politics in the west. The rules-based order is unchallenged propaganda, while any remaining high ground has been surrendered in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. There is little attempt to understand the cultures and wishes of foreign nationals.
The saddest outcome of the last twenty years of folly has been that all of these root causes remain true today; indeed they have all become more entrenched. Creating policies to address them is tough: nation building is usually mishandled and is inherently arrogant. But such policies can only emerge if the lessons from the past are actually teased out. And that only happens when the adults learn from their own children and grandchildren and are humble enough to ask the why question, again and again and again. Let us pray that it does not take another twenty years before such a process can start to occur.
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