Protocol training keeps blunders at bay

Dubai: Diplomatic faux pas stories make great news and often great laughs, but they can also be the cause of great embarrassment for governments and statesmen, and can in extreme cases damage bilateral relations.

US President Barack Obama's recent bows to the emperor of Japan and the king of Saudi Arabia were the source of controversy at home, and pictures of Pakistan's welcoming of the Czech prime minister with a chequered flag two years ago spread on the internet virally.

To ensure that such blunders don't happen, governments often have protocol departments that are tasked with keeping up to date with customs, sensitivities and symbols of other states.

These departments have to deal with every detail about a visiting dignitary's culture and expectations down to the length of a handshake and eye contact.

VIP management

"An American handshake is a firm grip, two to three smooth pumps and then you let go. The French have a quick, brisk stroke and then they let go. In the Middle East, it tends to be longer, lingering and a softer handshake," says Pamela Eyring, director of the Protocol School of Washington, which is holding courses in international protocol in a temporary tie-up with the Dubai government's protocol department.

The course is catering to businesses, academia and the protocol departments of two of the UAE's emirates, but also has attendees from Ethiopia, Switzerland, Singapore, Spain and the US. The course details VIP management and how VIPs should be ranked and grouped.

"You might have royal families, other heads of state, community figures and religious figures. How do you group these people in a positive way?" she says.

She notes that in the Middle East, those who are tasked with taking care of protocol issues have no training in the field. "There's no protocol degree," she says. "They might be taken for their skills and their common sense, but aren't trained".

‘Scar tissue'

In those cases they have to learn from their mistakes, or "scar tissue" as Eyring puts it. With an eye for diplomatic blunders, she says they happen everywhere, even in those states that are regular destinations for statesmen and diplomats.

She points to a series of recent faux pas by the American government. The sending of an iPod to the Queen of England was one. "Not only did she have one already, but it reflects the casual nature of Americans, and not everyone is like that". The other blunders that caused a stir in American media were two cases of Barack Obama bowing, first to the Saudi king and then to the Japanese emperor.

While the Japanese do bow in greeting, she says, Barack Obama's bow went too far: "It was almost a complete bow, one that only Japanese citizens would do". Considering that it was an equal head-of-state to head-of-state meeting, the depth of the bow indicated subservience.

The bow with the Saudi king, too, was out of place since Arabs do not bow at all.

East Asians, Eyring notes, are perhaps the most sensitive to protocol. They often make an effort to learn customs other cultures, and expect the same in return.

Gift giving to heads of state and dignitaries is a category of customs and protocols in itself. Clocks and knives, for example, can be construed as an implication of the end of time or the severing of a relationship respectively. Some heads of state can only accept gifts up to a certain value, and if expensive gifts are sent, it puts the recipient state in an awkward situation since returning it could be considered rude.

The goof-ups

November 24, 2009: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcomed in Venezuela with Iran's imperial national anthem, of the previous, overthrown Pahlavi regime.

October 6, 2006: Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, greeted with Czech flag in Poland.

March 2009: US President Barack Obama gifts British prime minister 25 American movies on DVDs with North American region codes, that do not work in the UK.

June 2001: US president George W. Bush calls Spanish Prime Minister Aznar ‘ansar', Spanish for ‘goose'.

November 2000: German chancellor Gerhard Schröder accidentally extinguishes the holocaust memorial flame at the Yad Vashem museum in occupied Jerusalem.

January 1992: US president George Bush vomits on the lap of Japanese Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi during a visit to Japan.

oops!