File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0102, message 83


From: "Perryh" <perryh-AT-inco.com.lb>
Subject: About those 'uncivilized' and oft times 'bumbling natives'
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 17:01:33 +0200


And not a few other wild generalizations that you have been entertaining me
with lately.
I'm quite new to this list, and that was quite an initiation. For a while I
thought that my address was posted, although I now realise that amongst,
other errors, it wasn't/isn't and I was disappointed that no one had
even attempted to contact me off list (or on it for that matter) to actually
ask me if I was in fact a superficial, disrespectful, ignorant, ranting,
racist,
exploiting, patronizing, European, embassy party pool wallower, Hang on let
me check, there's no way I want to get anything wrong this time,  you aren't
very unforgiving, are you?
Except, for some of you, of yourselves.

I am not entering into the discourse 'dialgue', or dialogue, but I am going
to talk about the 'Message', something that a few of you seem to be even
more innocent of than I was, with what was undeniably, my flippant message.

I sent a message off, its true, god , I confess, mea culpa, I didn't check
it for any un-intentional ('albeit' or otherwise)  hidden messages. But
aren't some of you glad I did? It gave you the opportunity to whip out your
PC thought police badges ( you know, the ones you cut out of cardboard and
coloured in really really nicely) and just go for IT.  Look at the fun you
have had, what a wonderful opportunity you have had to climb up on your
soapboxes and grind you axes.(Jeez I must be careful here, that's getting
dangerously close to a mixed metaphor, -quelle 'oror - I wonder what the
price for that is? Pretty low I guess considering the flaunting of written
conventions some of you engaged in. )

Lets, now that our collective excitement has been exercised (or is it
exorcised?) and died down a bit, consider what's been said.
Patronising?
After what you have said about me I think it quite restrained.
And keep in mind Folks, I don't actually know who you are, so don't be too
quick to
tell me I'm running the line of the white mans burden, that's your
assumption, not my implication. Hell, you don't even know if I'm white or
not
do you?

Lets consider double standards.
How many of you checked your own messages for: clarity, gross assumptions,
flaunting of written conventions, hypocrisy, untruths, mass hysteria, and on
a lesser scale, punctuation and your spellchecks, particularly if you are
not working in your mother  ( I didn't say native) language, and you
actually have some true concern for your message, yourself as the sender and
respect for your reader?

Here is the part that I am taking some responsibility for, with my rather
simple (even simplistic) message that asked for some information, commented
on why I was doing it (how do you know I even work with Lebanese?) and said
that I found Damascus preferable to Beirut. I'll get to the punctuation
later.

I guess it was late, I had been working I was in a good mood. I work on my
own a lot, I chatter on the net a lot its often my only place to socialise,
my work schedule is fairly demanding. I was in a good mood (unguarded), Look
I apologise for this

I PROMISE NOT TO  FEEL GOOD AGAIN- EVER, OK??

I can only say that I was shocked when I opened up my mail the next night.
Slowly I started to notice what
had been done.And while I guess I can see why some of you may have been
inclined to interpret my tone the way you did, and I do most chastely
apologise for it, what you did next wasn't very nice.


One respondent accused me of usurping the concept of the 'dialgue' and being
disrespectful. Later the message broke down into, what has since been
pointed out,  some fairly wild connections.
Some 'dialgue'.
I didn't shoot any Iraqis, I didn't lead the bombers in, I am not an
American. Neither am I European, and I'm not Jewish either. I'm not
referring
to any of your nationalities, I don't think that's its relevant to know in a
list like this whether or not you're Egyptian or Eskimo, I don't care what
your tribe is.

I was also accused of inferring that the entire Lebanese people were too
stupid to get a netsearch together, and that the import of my message was to
imply that the Lebanese were uncivilised. Inverted commas were put around
the
word and it was then used  as if it were a quote. I understand that there
was an implication of tone here and that the implied tone was mine  .
But this was your 'word', friend, not mine. I didn't say 'civilized or
'uncivilized' or mention or even make reference to any one Lebanese, or
Eskimo.
After that I noticed that the quoted word started to appear in other peoples
mail In both the mail of my critics and the critics of the critics!!!

The next one I noticed was where the previous critic was complimented for
his opinions
'Well Said...'
'Poorly read' I thought and why if I was the only one clever enough to do it
was I applying to the list for help?
Well, I'll know better next time.

If  this person had read my mail instead of  grabbing the bucket of tar and
the sack of feathers and jumping on the bus to the bonfire he would have
seen my explanation for this, specifically.

Not very well read at all, Friend

Next came. Another person who went on to put my use of two
exclamation marks down to an implication that the Lebanese were 'bumbling
natives' and  were too bumbling to get a basic op together.

Now I got a few laughs out of the rather prolix piece, that struggled with
itself to see whether or not the message or the prolixity would come out on
top:
one laugh  was the image of the amazingly well dressed office staff where I
work, bumbling around in grass skirts with pony tails and bones in their
noses, but the even better laugh was that it could have been arrived at by
the use of two exclamation marks!!
That's pretty good insight, two exclamation marks= bumbling natives. Perhaps
that contributor would like to fill me and the rest of the list in on this
PC version of punctuation, god help me if I used 3 !!! (living dangerously)

Duck, here come the spears!!!

Dear Friends, I have worked in offices in a number of countries, and the
number of westerners, those amazing technocrats, who can't work their goddam
word processors, and often don't even own a computer, would amaaaaze you.
What beguiling innocence! What gloss you assume the west to have.

The only 'natives' I might have been referring to were those native to the
office environment.
Any of you work in offices? Any of you know how jobs get
dumped on those who are able, available and will actually do them? Mind I
didn't say office in Lebanon
This has nothing to do with 'Nativity'.

But natives are in offices I guess and they do bumble about, often their
degree of bumbling is proportionate to the amount of training their profit
minded bosses, of whatever nativity or colour, are prepared to invest in
them. This is uniformly low
throughout the world EAST WEST NTH STH.

I was further shocked, and I am not very PC, at how it was that the
contributor could assume to call other people on the list 'natives' (without
calling himself one I noticed).Or is it an assumption that the rest of you
non whitey- westerners (assuming of course that you are that) made and
decided to let  go, in the same way that Black Americans can call each other
nigger and its 'cool man'. A native 'in-joke'? A bit of nudge- nudge, wink
wink?
 But not you whitey, you watch out.

You seemed to unite kind of quick in the face of an assumed 'enemy', and
NO-ONE complained at being called a 'native' Perhaps I should subscribe
under a name that looks a bit more nativey, will that make my comments more
acceptable?

We all belong to one tribe or another and we all like to laugh at
the bumbling of one group of natives or the other. Whether its the bumbling
of the US presidential elections or some mistake that someone in a country
with far less resources and power has/ is made/making.

Its when you start using it to actually hurt someone that it becomes
an evil. It's that simple. You guys made some assumptions. I particularly
don't like that thing about the pool. You have roped me in with 'them' whom
I find a distasteful lot,  on the
thinnest of pretexts, like my punctuation.I also didnt care much for being
misquoted, you should know better. All of you.

God help local your colleagues if any one who does this sort of thing ever
gets into a position of authority. Pol Pot and Idi Amin ain't in it.


As for poor old Beirut, or the mangled, mis-quoted form 'old poor beriut',
( well, the sender described himself as 'a non- university professor')
Without implying anything patronising about it,  Friends, it is just that. A
bit pitiful.
 I do get a bit fed up with hearing it described as 'Beautiful'.
Without giving an opinion, lets look objectively at it. A war went through
it (remember?) the money has gone from it. Just Yesterday I read that the
Hezbollah accused the US of  blocking investment until the Leb's ejected the
Hez. Wouldn't surprise me if it were true. Or if it was called 'a routine
exercise' either.
No ones getting killed here at the moment, but the signs don't look good.

There is very little foreign investment, just
about no venture capital. In the area called the Green line that separated
the one side from the other (and I'm not falling into the trap of saying it
was Christian and Muslim), there has been a restoration of the expensive
parts of town, (I can hear some of you snicker, and I have to say with good
reason). Well the finance, which I understand was largely western has been
pulled on this. Probably for recent events down the road.

People moved out of town for safety during the war and built all over the
slopes of what were the rather nice mountains.Then came a building boom.
They are now covered with jerry built concrete 'modern'  apt. blocks. Many
unfinished and seemingly abandoned after 8-10 years.
The 'Paris of the East' has become just another
polluted, urban sprawl.Except its also shot up and falling down at the same
time.

Whether I stay in it or not is beside the point, you can't deny the truth of
what I'm describing.

Or my right to say it. Or is this a case of the emperors new clothes?

I do think Damascus more interesting, Syria has maintained it's culture, one
of the few place on Earth to have (not yet) coc-cola-ised. And here I will
criticise Lebanon, or the Lebanon that I have contact with. It has whole
heartedly abandoned its culture and shamelessly adores and apes the US. I
don't find this process attractive - anywhere.

How is it then that I was accused of being anti Arab for preferring one Arab
country for another? And PLEASE, I am talking about the Culture, I do not
want to get pulled into a Lebanon V's Syria thing here. As a tourist if you
like, I don't mind being called superficial. I am not even pretending to
understand the complexity of this issue.

I don't think it fair that some of you should call me what you have, and
if you are fair minded and consider  your own messages I am no more, and
perhaps less, guilty of the things that you have accused me of than some who
have been gleefully trtyihg to unmask and burn the witch.

This has been a bonfire, and some of you have been having a bit of dance,
not as natives with bones in your noses, and grass skirts, but as those not
prepared to be objective.


I guess this means you don't want to see me photies?


My inabilities to be concise I apologise for, but I believe there was a
point to be addressed, other than my hurt feelings.
(sniff)

Love,
Perry





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