hhhhhhhhhh
When you’re french, or “occidental”, and you live in Lebanon, and you start speaking arabic to anyone who lives there, they react as if it’s something so great and uncommon (even if you have a low level of arabic). That’s cool. It feels nice to be a foreigner in Lebanon, if you have a minimum of knowledge of their culture.
On the contrary, when an arab comes to France, and lives there, for some reason he has to speak perfect french or he will be despised.
Today i was at the bank in Paris and a guy came to do some… bank stuff, and he had a big accent and not much vocabulary, and the employee at the bank was very… well. Just imagine a snob/mean face.
A month ago i was at the bank in Beirut to do some bank stuff and mentionned my level of arabic wasn’t good enough to have a serious-business discussion, so… well, the employee spoke to me in french.
In the same spirit :
An occidental person in an arabic country will not consider one second that wearing a short skirt might be offending to some pious local people.
BUT ! In France, a good bunch of people find veils on women’s hair offensive.
Sometimes i wonder who’s tryin to impose its truth on the other.
The occident has been showing off its self proclaimed moral superiority for centuries now, and they’re complaining that a group of fucked up minds blow themselves off in our capitals ? They should just try to see the world from a different perspective and see what they’ve done.
Our enemies are ourselves, and only ourselves.
Category: writings 8 comments »
January 14th, 2010 at 11:49 pm
well said :)
January 15th, 2010 at 1:53 am
Given I am a Lebanese living in Canada, I can’t agree more with what you just said.
January 15th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
hah it’s funny. here in chile, if you are of german ancectory people hail you (no pun inteded) as if you’re the greatest thing, with the notion that germans are hard working people with extremly high moral, they are gods. if chileans come to scandinavia they have to work as low payed domestic help. It’s ridiculous, really, the earth was taken from the indigenous and given to the german immigrants, and they had a different capitalistic view on how to manage the soil, and the german immigrants got this reputation. anyway, a digression. my point is, the history repeats itself but I think it is gonna change with our generations and the generations to come, that consist of people from mixed cultures and races, and possibilites to travel and learn to see these things and possibly do something with it. Or maybe Im just too naive and hopeful :)
January 15th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Having worked in an arabic country, I can say that even being open minded and interested in the arabic culture, it’s difficult to understand different point of views and situations, until you don’t live for some time in another country. Or at least, after that time you understand things much better.
I find the differences stimulating, the good and the bad ones, even to appreciate the good things of my own country that I tend to forget.
January 16th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
“Our enemies are ourselves, and only ourselves.”
Absolutely true!
January 18th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
hey. a nice post, i found this through dA. and i found you via deviation search for “damascus, syria”. but of course i know your person in dA, it was a nice surprise that you are also into this area that i am planning to visit. i am going next month. unfortunately just syria though it seems, as getting the visa to lebanon seems complicated atm (via sweden, and the website is unclear about details).
anyway, cheers!
January 21st, 2010 at 7:17 pm
classic description of different aculturation policies. been described many many times before and will be many many times in the future cause this won’t change that easily. Why? simply because the notion of total aculturation into one big french nation has been developing for centuries, getting support from the presumed french cultural superiority and strong national feelings. Unfortunately, one generation won’t change that, especially with current french imigration policy. Sorry for being pessimist.
January 31st, 2010 at 10:58 pm
we’re always our worst enemies, love. always. nice to hear those things about lebanon, though.
hope it’s still fun for you!