Despite this glaring failure of (some of the greatest business- and social planners that the modern-world-has-ever-known i.e.) the Japanese government and its economic planners to look into how to improve Kobe's aging infrastructure, very little had been done in advance of the 1995 quake on any older structures--including older highways and department stores. However, the Japanese as a nation responded in the traditional "Shoganai" fashion--an attitude of stoicism in responding to and cleaning up after that devastating quake. Afterwards, the Japanese then moved on mentally--till March of 2011--when the great Fukushima Quake and Sendai Tsunami once again awoke the nation's sleeping local administrative, national leaders, and corporate bigwigs from their post-Kobe stoicism.
INSHALLAH & THE MUSLIM ARAB WORLD
More Muslims live in Asia than on any other continent. One common expression that you will hear several times a day spoken by Arab Muslims (and most other Muslims world-wide) is "Inshallah", which is roughly translated as " If Allah wills" or simply " God willing".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ALzdm3h_E
At face-value, "Inshallah" [2] is a recognition of (all men) man's predestination or destiny. Religiously and respectfully, it is a recognition that man makes plans but a higher-being in-the-end sees and oversees what will take shape or form from such plans, dreams, and intentions of simple man.
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/inshallah/
On the one hand, "One's use of Insha AllÄ h indicates one's desire to succeed in an endeavour that one intends to embark upon. It indicates one's desire for God's blessing for an endeavour that one intends to embark upon. For an example, if one's goal has been achieved by other persons only with great difficulty, one invokes God's blessing before one attempts to achieve it. Muslims incant Insha AllÄ h in their speech about plans and in their speech about events that they expect to occur in the future. The phrase also acknowledges submission to God, with the speaker putting him or herself into God's hands, and accepting the fact that God sometimes works in inscrutable ways." So, if you are doing business with Muslims and making plans and agreements, you will hear the phrase "Inshallah" repeated numerous times--throughout and after the negotiations are apparently completed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha%27Allah
"In the Qu'ran, Muslims are told that they should never say they will do a particular thing in the future without adding "insha'Allah' to the statement. This is why "insha'Allah' [by Westerners] sometimes perceived as a way to shrug off a question." However, as noted above, East Asians (and many other Asians), such as those from Japan are also known to be apparently quite reticent to get to "Yes" and "No" during negotiations with Westerners, i.e. in terms of giving full- or non-commitment to taking part in a project or a deal.
http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/bp/app/fred/Catalog/0131738607/pdf/Ch.%205%20revised.pdf
In other words, this deference to a greater being or to a greater controller of one's destiny is almost universal from one corner of Asia to the other.
Likewise, it should be noted that "[s]ome Christians" should definitely not be "surprised to learn that a similar sentiment also appears in the Bible, in the Epistle of James 4:15, which says that people should remember that they never know what tomorrow will bring, so the will of God should always be acknowledged when making plans. This usage of Insha AllÄ h is from Islamic scripture, Surat Al Kahf (18):24: "And never say of anything, 'I shall do such and such thing tomorrow. Except (with the saying): 'If God wills!' And remember your Lord when you forget...'"
It is quite likely that up till the era in the West, which is now referred to as the Age of Enlightenment (circa the 18th Century), that the practice of saying "If God wills" when making one's promises or claims was still quite prevalent in Western Europe and in Colonial America.
On the other hand, since the Age of Enlightenment, a growing distinction in the West among many Christian groups and non-Christian could be discerned, e.g. to the concepts of predestination or destiny--and a man's ability to make choices for change, reform, or initiate an act of any new creation new projects, including nation state building. This meant that a shift occurred in Western thinking from the 18th century onwards which officially and in daily practice sidelined the dominant role that predestination and destiny had had in how Westerners perceived their world and their life choices which they face in the world as individuals, as families, and as national tribes.[3]
In short, in many ways, the sort of predestination which both Muslim and East Asian peoples is more like that of ancient stoics. Accordingly, it should be recognized that "[s]toicism is a pre-Christian philosophy. The ancient Stoics had no concept of grace or redemption." Moreover,"[e]vents in the world, on the other hand, including all the beliefs and actions of other people, are essentially not in our control. Such things as the weather, the stock market or the behavior of dogs, drivers or dot-com companies are ultimately not up to us."
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