Cultural prejudice

You may remember the scene in A Fish called Wanda when Jamie Lee Curtis becomes totally wild when John Cleese starts speaking (fake) Italian.

It's an interesting thing to observe how some foreign languages carry with them their fare share of cultural prejudice, be they positive or not.

French and Italian for example are often perceived as being sexy to American ears which may not be the case with German or Spanish.

German sexyness? Hmmm... sounds unlikely doesn't it? Yet, German calls for other cultural values which certainly have certain sociological and historical grounds.

Languages as tools which raison d'être is to communicate are basically neutral in terms of associated values and cultural hints. Just like the many writing systems, Chinese ideograms, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Latin alphabet, Arabic or Nordic ones are neutral and don't carry with them any cultural underlying meanings. They're just written signs on stones, sand or paper like sounds are just... well sounds.

It's the peoples and their cultures which give the languages they speak such and such flavor which don't pertain to their languages in the first place.

It all has to do with the history and culture of the peoples whose languages we may find attractive, or not. History here is the key word which explains the nature of the perceptions attached to foreign languages. And to be more precise, the history our own culture shares with other ones.

One may object that the mere nature of some sounds makes them unpleasant to our ears but then again, it's a matter of cultural context and possibly personal tastes.

I don't feel particularly comfortable with Deutsch or Chinese sounds euphonically speaking but I nonetheless may associate these sounds to certain cultural standards.

At the end of the day, it all boils down to the clichés we associate foreigners with. French and Italian may sound sexy to certain American ears or romantic to Asians, they nonetheless carry with them other images which probably are not particularly sexy.

Now, who knows if a Japanese Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't wiggle on her bed when a Cambodian speaks (fake) Vietnamese to her?

They can't be that dumb

Like everyone else since the 9/11 attacks I've heard this story of the 72 virgins awaiting Islamist terrorists in the paradise their religion has in store for them.  

So I wanted to know whether that was true or a totally fictitious reading of the Qur'an by western media.

After a few seconds I landed on WikiIslam which, I suppose, is as reliable as Wikipedia. A few more seconds and I found here what I was looking after.

Indeed it seems there's a passage in the Qur'an which alludes to the possibility of a reward for Muslims sacrificing their lives for the cause of Allah. The rest is all made of interpretations by Muslim commentators who also believe there are God given eternal truths.

WikiIslam isn't extolling about this issue; it simply does the job Wikipedia does: The articles are neutral and documented.

Here is another article by an American with a typical American sense of humor that I'm very fond of. He makes very good points and isn't at all specifically critical of Islam per se. Actually, for what I understand the guy is an atheist.

"nonfundamentalist Muslims don't take the cosmological parts of the Koran any more literally than nonfundamentalist Christians take the biblical story of Genesis"

"But don't be too quick to judge. Christianity, after all, invented the idea of paradise in the first place."

Now the point I wanted to make is that I find it hard to believe that Muslim suicide-bombers engage in terrorism just because of this tall story of 72 virgins they'll get as reward.

To so believe amounts to deliberately ignore the deep political and historical reasons why fundamentalist Islamists engage into the Jihad.

I don't think the 17 terrorists who committed the 9/11 attacks did so for the sole purpose of getting 72 hotties in their afterlife. And the same applies for the Iraqis or Afghans who blow themselves up when fighting what they rightly consider invaders and occupiers of their country.

No, these guys aren't that dumb although you can't exclude the possibility that one simpleton is. But even Zaccharia Moussaoui wasn't that stupid. He was brainwashed but for what we know he wasn't enrolled by al-Qaeda with the promise of getting 72 big breasted babes after he dies.

So if it appears that there's some truth in this 72 virgin story, I suspect there has been some manipulation of these readings of a tiny part of the Qur'an in order to downplay the real motivations of Islamist terrorists.

Slaves

 

Don't be mistaken: Class struggle is still a daily reality in the industrial world. The haves want to have more at the expense of the have-nots.

This process is currently taking place both in France and in the U.S of America.

In France, like everywhere else, when progress occurs in the social situation of the masses, it is not due to a sudden and benevolent act of generosity from the ruling elite, e.g. the owners of the capital of course, but it is the outcome of a violent confrontation where the strongest wins.

Nevertheless, after the capitalists have been compelled to yield a tiny bit of their immensely huge wealth they have no other goal than to gain back what they deem an illegitimate -though legal- deprivation of what is "naturally" theirs. 

This thirst for reappropriation has been a permanent fixture in French history since the Revolution up to now.

The latest example can be observed with the full steam attack of the right-wing to scuttle and abrogate all the social measures that were implemented by the Socialists since F. Mitterrand was elected president in 1981. 

Namely the retirement age which he lowered from 65 to 60 has now been raised up back to 62. Also, the 35-hour workweek has largely been emptied of its contents and now another third-rate rightist politician questions the life-long employment guarantee for civil servants.

The point of the post is to highlight how hundreds of thousands of people who actually profit by these social measures complain that said measures bring France down to her knees and must be repelled. One  may wonder what the motivations of these voters are who want to be deprived of their welfare. Is it their own fate? Is it the future of the Nation?

The ultimate answer is that they've been brainwashed by the permanent and unrelenting propaganda campaign led by rightist politicians into believing that any social progress is detrimental to their personal well-being and that they must elect the sensible politicians (understand the rightist ones) who will protect them from the nasty and irresponsible policies of the Socialists.

In other words, the master tells his slaves what is good and what is bad for them. Coincidentally, the concept of what's good and bad is different for slaves and masters.

For what I know, the same is to be observed in the U.S where a major social advance such as the universal health care system which would benefit several dozens million American citizens is fiercely under attack by the Republicans. So much so that they've succeeded in making about half of the American people believe that the health care bill would be un-American, unconstitutional, dangerous, socialist, contrary to the interest of those most in need of this "universal" system etc. ad nauseam.

Once again, the wealthy tell the poor what is good and what is bad for them. And many of the poor believe what the master says...

It is impossible to convince a slave that he is being exploited by his master.

(It also raises the questions of universal suffrage and democracy but this is another story)

Never satisfied!

During the last American Administration, Republicans wouldn't stop lamenting how the rest of the world was against the US. They used to see anti-Americanism about everywhere. Numerous polls conducted the world around by the Pew Institute for example, showed that a large majority of the world population had a bad image of America.

To tell the truth, it looked like this image had lowered to an historically abysmal level. Globally speaking, the US had something like 25% positive opinions in the world.

Now, Obama has raised that number to about 75% positive opinions within less than a year. Talk of a success in terms of communication and image making.

And guess what? The Republicans aren't satisfied yet!

They lamented when their country was criticized and now they whine because it is praised, but not for the good reasons in their eyes.

Some people are born unsatisfied really!

American heat

There's something that doesn't fail to surprise me when reading the American newspapers or the numerous blogs that American citizens devote to the domestic politics: the ferocity each side seems to have in store for the opposite camp.

Wow! Looks like there's no lost love between the Dems and the Republicans. One may think it's quite normal that on this particular field when points of view diverge there's some heat to be expected but really, to this point of antagonism...

Of course, as a Frenchman what do I know about American politics? But if I try to compare with the traditional opposition between right and left in Europe, only far leftists would be so vindictive against far rightist, and conversely.

But these two extremes amount to about 10% of the voters in France whereas Democrats and Republicans make about, say, 90% of the voters in the US.

Is this virulence a good and faithful image of the American national mentality when it comes to debating and exchanging ideas? Or more simply is the pattern of thoughts so different that no comparison can be made between the way Europeans and Americans deal with their respective domestic concerns?