Hi Bo and alii !
I'm back from Egypt, where I spent two great weeks. In case some people want
to know, yes, I was in Cairo on the 11th of September, and no, there weren't
any signs of popular cheer (none that I've seen, at least). Mainly, the
egyptians I spoke with understood the damage that had just been done to
tourism in Arab countries, and were, understandably, none too pleased about
it.
Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean people where especially full of
grief, either. But mostly, the scope of the horror shocked even the
anti-Americans, even though there was some remarks about how little such
horrors affected us (westerners) when it concerned the irakis or
palestinians. And you must admit that from a political point of view this is
right : compare the amount of effort that is done to help the US find Bin
Laden to what has been done to stop the Israeli/Palestinian conflict
(regardless of who, if anyone, would be advantaged).
Bo:
>If something positive will come from this monstrosity is that we -
>slowly - are becoming aware of the value base of our culture. In this
>country newpapers now carry editorial columns and articles about
>religious and cultural differences, something unheard of a few
>weeks ago.
While I understand what you mean, I'm not sure this is such a happy
development, considering the bias of most mainstream media. You see, most
media have an unconscious drive to extoll the values of the society they
originate from, to the detriment of other cultures. Mainly, the journalists
try to reassure themselves, and by extension, their public, that they live
in the *right* country. This is mostly done by showing how *strange* and
alien foreign countries are. Whenever french television shows anything about
the US, the UK, or Northen Europe, there is almost always an underground
theme of "weirdness". The violence of the USA, the social problems of the
UK, the "decadent" lifestyle of Scandinavians, etc.
I've had the occasion to watch (or read) British, Canadian, US and now
Egyptian tv programs and newspapers, and I noticed the same things, to a
bigger or lesser extent. The media present mostly a conformist view of the
outside world, and this view is nearly always tinted with "alien-ness". I
won't even go into the view we french have of arab countries, which is so
skewed as to be almost worthy of the accusation of racism (this also goes
for Israel, where 90% of what we've recently seen are ultra-orthodox
colonies in the Palestinian territories).
So when I hear that mainstream media starts airing comments about cultural
and religious differences, I tend to duck and run rather than cheer, if you
catch my drift...
To do this kind of work you need someone with a very cool head, and also
someone who knows what he is speaking about (talk about a rarity). More
importantly, you need someone who puts some value into the culture he is
talking about, either because he shared it for a time, or studied it for
some years. Otherwise, all you get is that alienness tainting everything it
shows.
While there *is* a huge gap between a french guy's values and an egyptian's
values (as conversations about religion and sexual preferences have shown
me), it isn't *that* difficult to find someone with a large enough mind who
will at least "agree to disagree", even though he might not even be able to
read and write. When talking about foreign values, it is also important to
hold one's own into perspective.
Cultural differences exist, but should be "integrated" before they are
judged. By this I mean you should first try to justify them (historically,
economically or rationaly), to "make them yours" before criticising them.
When the media get the job, they usually go directly to the criticism of the
most extreme behaviours to be found, sometimes without enough warning that
this is a *minority*, and not an accurate picture of the whole country or
culture.
The end result is all too often a very partial view of what makes a foreign
culture different from ours, without enough thought about what makes it
close to us.
What is frightening is that this isn't the result of a masterminded evil
plot to keep us satisfied and xenophobic, but a natural response of our
*own* cultural immune system ! Go to any developping countries and talk to
the tourists there and they have nothing but complaints about the food, the
weather, the hygiene, the people et caetera ad nauseam...
Journalists are only humans, and when they go somewhere, they are just as
inclined (if not more) to focus on what displease them, and just as blind to
the positive aspects of a culture. And so their cultural immune system, by
extension, becomes ours. While Noam Chomsky goes a bit too far into the
conspiracy theory sometimes, his book "Necessary Illusions" is a must-read
for an understanding of how the media works, and the *illusions* it
promotes.
To sum it up, I'd would say that talking about values is okay, IF you have
the right intellectual tools to do it. Otherwise it is a shouting match of
"mine is better than yours", and very little else.
>Yet, the search for an explanation still circles round the
>economical/political as if we only have these two "templates". The
>accusation of "unfair distribution of wealth" is prominent and
>sounds right, but in a recent TV debate one participator made me
>cock my ears. He said that even if all the IMF funds were given as
>alms, and if the World Bank invested interest-free it wouldn't help.
>Some cultures doesn't allow for any industry-shareholder-
>business...you know. He then referred to Europe, particularly
>Germany after WW2, with most cities a ruin heap, but a few years
>later a "Wirtschaftwunder", and said that the industrial production
>econmy - not mere commerce - is something that springs from a
>more fundamental value base!. I kept my breath and expected him
>to refer to Pirsig who says exactly this in ZAMM ... but no, not
>yet. someday.
While I mainly agree with the analysis that some cultures are better equiped
than others to develop and run industrial capitalist economies (the 'Lila'
passage about discipline and life in the city comes to mind), one has to
remember that :
1. Pirsig said that the most important progress of occidental culture wasn't
industrial capitalist economy but democracy and human rights, and I agree
with him.
2. these values mainly developped among a wealthy and litterate elite.
3. these values came to be shared by the majority only after a prolonged
effort to bring some culture to the people (by forcing parents to send their
children to school).
4. this prolonged effort cost a *lot* of money (even nowadays, France's
biggest expense, before Health and Defense, is Education)
5. most of these progresses only really came to fruition in the last century
Which means that :
1. what we've got to defend isn't the free market or the consumer lifestyle
but democracy and humans rights.
2. we must strive to promote culture in the largest sense so we'll have
"free thinkers" as partners and not talibans.
3. we should be patient : the right to eat every day comes before the right
of free speech.
Also, one must remember that cultures, like everything else on this planet,
change and evolve. And I would add, especially nowadays, where satellite TVs
broadcast cultural values all around the world, where Internet is
omnipresent (one has to see the hundreds of Internet cafes in Cairo or
Louxor to understand how quickly this world is changing) and where more and
more people live in countries they weren't born in. With such cultural
clashes (pious muslims next to cyberporn sites bieng just an example), I
wonder why things do not blow up more regularly, to be frank. Cultural
values all around the world are changing quickly, more quickly than ever
before, and humans only have so much "cultural stretchability". We can only
hope the world won't miss its next static latch and fall back into the Dark
Ages that have engulfed Afghanistan.
But for that, as Bo hints, the world (or at least, we westerners) would need
a real understanding of our own values, of their roots and conditions of
existence. Perhaps we would then be spared the idiotic messages about the
"clashes of civilizations", which send us back to the tribal age and ignore
the monumental changes that are afoot in the world.
Denis
PS : of course, I wholly agree with the current dismantlement of terrorist
cells. There is a difference between understanding what pushes people to
commit crimes and giving a criminal a gun so he can kill you. One hints at
intelligence, the other at monumental stupidity.
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