This may seem like a minor point here, but I think it illustrates something:
Say what? I just finished writing a doctoral dissertation in history, and several secondary materials I used for it were in French or German, untranslated. Sure, there weren’t a lot of them, but…I was writing my dissertation on ENGLISH history! As for the history of other European countries, let alone the history of other regions of the globe, I would say that it is nigh-on impossible to understand it without a good knowledge of the relevant native language. History is about the last field where knowledge of English alone is considered a serious weakness.
Where am I getting here? Aldebaran, you claim to be a historian. Personally, I don’t see that in your writing. I, along with countless others in my field, have learned to weigh material dispassionately (as opposed to unpassionately). Even if we personally despise a country, person, or idea, we are able to write about the subject using only proveable facts and arguments. Yes, bias may creep in, but usually we strive to minimize it, whereas you often seem to embrace it. If you claim to be a researcher, do here what you do when you write an historical essay: research more than you write.
Well, it seems to me that this little episode really did give us all a little lesson about bigotry and racism.
Not the lesson it seemed to present at the outset, but perhaps a bigger and more interesting lesson.
What if the woman had claimed that the assailants where jewish, and had carved a Christian cross on her belly? The face of the Buddha? L. Ron Hubbards butt? What then? Which ethnic group would have been filthy then?
Even if the story had been true, the actions of a presumably mentaly disturbed armed robber is hardly an indictment against an ethnic group that numbers in the hundreds of millions, any more that the actions of John Wayne Gacy prove that all circus people are sick freaks that should all be locked up.
By the way, I hope nobody took real offense at my snide remarks about the quality of that poster’s French. I don’t demand that every American learn French - what would be the point?
What does bother me is people who pick up a few words of a foreign language in order to insult native speakers and assume a patronizing attitude - basically, “lol, I learned your stupid language just like that, proves your stupid and you suck!”.
There was an extreme right-wing American blogger a few years ago that had a kind of anti-French blog that he translated into French - don’t know if it’s still around.
If you still want to do that, well, whatever blows your skirt up I guess, but at least learn the basic present tense forms of the most common verb - it’s always in chapter one, book one of any language course and really not that hard to remember. Or cut and paste an insult from a French web page - it’s got the best insults in any language I know, for crying out loud.
By the way, I’m not French, though my brother is married to a wonderful French woman and we try to speak the language as much as we can. They’re bringing up their children (one of whom is born in California by the way) bilingual - he speaks Swedish to them, she speaks French, and they don’t seem to think that there’s anything strange about it.
In my experience, French people, like people anywhere, come in all possible flavors, and then some - from the nicest, most saintly people you can imagine (like my brother’s father-in-law) to the greatest assholes (like an emigré landlord I once had) and all points in between. Like any nationality, though, almost all people are nice if you get to know them and treat them with a minimum of respect.
Tensions have mounted between France’s five million Muslims and 600,000 Jews as Middle East conflict strained relations. Some disaffected young Muslims have sought refuge in an Islamic identity rejecting France and its secularism.
SABRA AND SHATILA STREET
One police intelligence report last month said more than half of 630 “sensitive neighbourhoods” had turned into ethnic ghettos where Islamist preachers stoked anti-French resentment.
Another official report showed religion was increasingly a source of tension in new towns France built outside its urban areas to keep low-cost housing far from its chic city centres.
The Education Ministry said last week Muslim pupils often tried to impose Islamic norms in state schools, demanding everything from headscarves for girls to fasting during Ramadan for anyone of Muslim origin, whether religious or not.
A militantly pro-Palestinian group called Euro-Palestine won more than five percent in June’s European Parliament vote in suburbs near the train line where Friday’s attack occurred.
Last week, it staged a guerrilla action to rename a Paris road as Sabra and Shatila Street, recalling the 1982 Beirut massacre of Palestinians by Israeli-backed Christian militia.
It said it was protesting against a city decision to rename another road in honour of Zionism’s founder, Theodore Herzl.
Not all racist attacks have been by Muslims against Jews. In recent weeks, neo-Nazis have spray-painted swastikas and hate slogans on Jewish, Muslim and Christian cemeteries in the Alsace region bordering on Germany.
France saw more racist and anti-Semitic acts in the first half of 2004 than in all of 2003, latest official figures show.
I’m afraid another ‘hate against Jewish people campaign’ is on it’s way.
And I’m damned if I’ll let it.
And then? I argued mostly with this american girl. And I explained why there was a point in mentioning she was american. Believe it or not, the racial issues aren’t perceived in the same way all over the world, and it’s because she was american that I expected she would get what I mean if I replaced “arabs” by “blacks”. I wouldn’t have said that if she had been, say, Italian.
And as for the part you underlined. Once again, believe it or not, these aren’t arguments you’d commonly hear over here, because people are way less religious. Same with the “Mahomed was a pedophile”, that I read frequently, but only on american boards.
I also mentionned french people, canadian people and an algerian, but for some reason you took issue with me criticizing an american, or took issue with the idea that people in other countries won’t necessarily have the same perceptions nor use the same arguments that american people, or something similar.
Should I avoid to mention the nationality of anybody, because someone could take offense? Or am I allowed to criticize only french people?
Do you really think I would need such a long post to make an “american are stupid” statement? I just would have to find some link to something stupid an american had done and write “Look how stupid american people are!”. I wouldn’t even have needed to actually search for a link. The Pit being full of rants about stupid things done in the US by americans, I just would have to post a “stupid americans” comment in each of them.
On the other hand, caught in your paranoid attitude, you jumped on the occasion to take some cheap shot at some french people (I didn’t check your links, and don’t intend to, given the irrelevance of your post and your attitude) just because they happen to be from my country. I couldn’t care less about other french people having said or done idiotic things. I’m not the one oversensitive and ludicrously defensive when it comes to my country or citizenship.
Though since I now remember when I noticed your screename and why (you were defending the use of torture in Abu Ghraib, for those who wouldn’t know), I can understand why you’re so defensive about “stupid americans”. It’s probably not related to the “american” part.
For the past two years, the Arab world has become increasingly dominated by government-incited Jew-hatred. Holocaust denial is now mainstream, even among Arab intellectuals
Once again, I’m not Jewish. I’m a hard left-winger. I can read too.
I’m not denying there’s a problem with certain Muslim youths displaying anti-Semitism, but your cite seems to indicate they’re not the largest group responsible for the unfortunate rise in 2004. Now, I’m as horrified by this new wave of anti-semitism as much as you are, but I’ll -to use your words- be damned if I’ll let it be painted as a primarily Arab problem. In fact, I’ll go you one further. Post-9/11, racism and xenophobism has been on the rise across the board, be it anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, or anti-Western. The world seems more on edge, more unwilling to trust. Perhaps explainable from a sociologic point of view, but a very worrying trend nonetheless - a trend that is not limited to Muslims alone. So, FWIW, the two cents of another left-of-the-middle non-Jew.
Coldfire, The only thing I’m anal about are haemorrhoids.
I am not saying anti-semitism is exclusively Arab or muslim. Nor did I ever say that. I’m merely answering DMC’s post, who complained he [she?] is
not seeing evidence of it from my cites.
And I so agree about the intolerance of people vs other peoples these days. It’s scary.
I’m a he, and I said that your cites as you had posted them did not appear to show anti-semitism among Arabs. I then clearly stated that there was plenty of anti-semitism to go around, thus negating the need for additional cites. If I call someone on the carpet for a correct statement based on falsehoods, proving the correctness doesn’t eliminate the falsehoods.
The problem I had was with your particular cites, not your message above those cites, which I thought I made quite clear.
Mods - I’m only going to rebut this once, so just let me get my two cents in I’ll let **Aldebaran ** rave all he wants.
The truth is, Babelfish and cousins do a MUCH better job of translating than I do - among other things, they don’t screw up verb conjugations like I do. No, my spoken and written French is not particularly good. If you want proof I didn’t use Internet translators, there it is.
No, it’s not very good - but nonetheless I manage to communicate.
Yes, but it deteriorates rapidly when you’re upset. Hey, I don’t acuse YOU of using Internet translators, nor do I get pissy when YOU fuck up in a language not your native tongue. And no, you are not always clear in what you say, and some of your later posts in this thread are proof of that.
It’s “chatroom”, by the way. Anyhow – bolded parts my emphasis –
Right in the OP - Clairobscur states he is in a French-speaking chat room where, presumably,* everyone is speaking French, *and runs into these statements made by an American who is presumably speaking French, just like everyone else there.
Yeah, my written French might suck, but your English comprehension needs a little work, Aldebaran. Presuming **Clairobscur ** conveyed what he intended (and, if anything, his English is better than Aldebaran’s), the logical conclusion is that the American girl was operating in French.
Then you zap back with “obviously if she’s an American she knows only English”.
That, sir, in the face of the circumstances presented, is a statement indicating prejudgement of an individual based solely on country of origin - a form of bigotry.
Yeah. I do. I live in this country. Have you even visited the United States?
If English is the only language in the US why the fuck does the local office of department of motor vehicles in Indiana - HARDLY a cosmopolitan state - offer driving tests in Spanish, French, German, Serbian, Croatian, and - get this - ARABIC? If you have ever been to New York City, LA, Chicago, Detroit, or other large urban area you can’t walk down a street downtown without hearing a dozen other tongues.
The census data on 18% of US households using a language other than English at home has already been posted. That’s not counting the millions who study other languages either because their school district requires it, or as part of obtaining a college degree.
Your statement that Americans know only English is just plain fucking ignorant of the actual state of affairs. Once again, you are judging people based solely on country of origin, in flagrant disregard of all other facts.
Gee, I dunno - if her name was “Gonzalez” or “Hernandez” I’d think knowing Spanish was perfectly normal. If the last name was “Nguyen” Vietnamese wouldn’t be a shock. I wasn’t surprised to find the lady with the last name of “Tekchandani” at work spoke Hindi. Can’t count the number of people I know who speak Polish or Russian or Croatian or Serbian or Czech as either first or second languages. One of the tech guys in the computer area at work is fluent in German. Hell, I know people who speak Irish Gaelic fluently, now there’s a somewhat obscure language.
We have one of the highest proportions of immigrant-citizens on Earth - where the FUCK do you get the idea no one here knows anything but English?
Maybe you think you know what the US is like - you don’t. I invite you to come visit for awhile and get some FACTS.
She’s American, so you expected her to see the folly of her bigotry by replacing Arabs, a foreign and brand new nussaince with blacks, a domestic and classic nussaince - scratch that - THE American nussaince. WTF were you thinking again!? (That’s why people should stop dragging black people into every single irrelevant argument as an E-Z onmi-example and try to argue a side on its own merits)
Judging by the reports I’ve seen today, it appears this may be, at least in part, a mentally ill young woman with a history of … what would you call it? Persecution? Paranoia?
Mehitabel mentioned “Tawana Brawley” and, since we have a fair number of non-US folks here, I just wanted to make sure they knew what the reference was. Ms Brawley showed up one day in a dissheveled state claiming she had been assaulted by skinheads or some other known-to-be-racist group of people, and part of the show included swastikas on her belly and other body parts. Turned out to be self-inflicted. The girl was messed up, what can I say? But the incident wound up fanning the flames of various sorts of hatred and misunderstanding and other bad things.
I’m wondering if this recent situation is something similar - a woman with some seriously messed up mental workings looking for attention of some sort. How unfortunate that she had to throw fat on the growing fire of ethnic/religious/other conflicts. Whatever her intention (assuming she was even thinking very far into the future) this will only inflame ill-will and bad feelings. And goodness knows there are enough of those in this world.
I love how this incident has shown that there are clearly French anti-Muslim sentiments as evidenced by the fact that there was such wide-spread condemnation of this act precisely because of who supposedly carried it out and you say that we should take notice at all this horrible anti-semitism. What about French xenophobia; disallowing religious displays in school, etc?
It’s like when Susan Smith killed her kids but said that somebody black kidnapped her and her kids and everyone believed her. Then the complete story comes out, and now your saying that we should be concerned about black people committing acts of violence against white women and their children? Huh? Even though the case at hand tends to suggest the opposite?
Le Yikes. I think rode that train line, very late at night, just three weeks ago–with a friend, both of us Jewish (American, though). Everyone else in the car was black, with African costumes. Most were women.
I’d like to put in a sober observation that the hotel staff, who were largely Arab, did everything they could to harass us, incidentally. They “forgot” our room service orders, told us that the things we ordered–only the things we ordered–were not available in the restaurant, left unasked for cots and cribs in our rooms, repeatedly turned off the air conditioning in our rooms, locked us out of our rooms, messed up our hotel bills, forgot to leave towels, and ignored “Do Not Disturb” signs–at the very beginning, before I’d learned to bolt the door, one walked in on me while I was naked. Maybe it’s because we were American, or maybe the hotel staff really were that incompetent, but there was a large group of Israelis who ended up at the front desk every night, to get their electronic keys fixed along with us, and apparently no one else in the hotel had this problem–because no one else was there.
