Tin-Tin in Iraq in ICS

We discussed "Tintin en Irak" in my French class today, it reminded me of ICS, because I think that a lot of what we talk about is the way that the accounts of the same event differ across Eastern and Western culture. This is a comic about war in Iraq from French perspective. How a story changes when it is told in a foreign language and a less traditional media…

The story was published illegally and can only be found online. You can read it in French here. How do YOU think this version of the events in Iraq compares to the way that Americans construct the war?

The Human Fanon-inom

“Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from underdeveloped peoples. The ports of Holland, the docks of Bordeaux and Liverpool were specialized in the Negro slave trade, and owe their renown to millions of deported slaves. So when we hear the head of a European state declare with his hand on his heart that he must come to the aid of the poor underdeveloped peoples, we do not tremble with gratitude. Quite the contrary; we say to ourselves: “It’s just reparation which will be paid to us.”
-Frantz Fanon

I believed Appadurai’s claim that violence (or at least awareness of it) increased in the 1990s during the “high time of globalization;” however, it is clear that under colonialism there was a significant amount of violence across cultural, political, religious, and state boundaries. In Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, the process of globalization was one that created difference and bred hostilities.
The process of colonization and then decolonization were violent and bloody. There were genocides in Africa against full tribes and countries of people torn apart during the “scramble for Africa.” Additionally, there was more violence and terror under the rule of these European colonizers. And countries, like Algeria, faced massacres and terrorist attacks throughout the process of decolonization. All of this violence occurred before the 1990s. I think this means that Melissa was absolutely right for making the comments she did in class when she opposed the perspective of Appaduari. The Fanon reading makes it clear how the process of globalization started way before the 1990s as did the violence that Appadurai claims accompanied it. I’m glad Melissa stood up to the Appadurai reading and showed us not to take it as the whole truth.

Overall, this reading was a little over my head. The themes discussed and the writing style were hard for me to follow and even harder for me to grasp before having the class discussion. This question of what it means to be human and the processes of dehumanization, oppression, and exploitation are interesting and I think that they draw on my experiences in classes outside of the world of ICS. They touch upon my studies in Paris about France and Africa, how the French invaded, how they ruled, how they left, and how the people of these countries interact in the modern world (think the conflict of Algerian identity and Franco-Algerian relations, a subject I explored for my final project last semester in ICS). It was a truly unique opportunity for me, an American to learn about Africa from a French perspective because I have so many other conceptions of what happened (and what constitutes history) in Africa. An example of this was how all of the French students knew about the Fachoda incident and I never even heard of it. When it comes to stories of imperialism, Africa, and colonization, perspective and national origin plays an important role.

Fanon also makes me think about the different processes of dehumanization enacted by the Nazis upon the Jews and other victims during the Holocaust. I just read Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz and an important distinction that he makes in the book is that to be human is two things: to have the will to resist, and to help others in your same position. This idea of humanity as a process of helping others is a stark juxtaposition to the violence that Fanon advocates to have humanity advance. Regardless, the question of dehumanization has been important throughout history and is something that I think our generation does not address like past ones, because we have a different concept of human rights and international politics. We have been raised in a world which appears to have a defined conception of what it means to be human and which has a strict list of features which define human rights: the universal declaration human rights (something which we studied at length). My country project during ICS 125 also revealed that these issues of human rights and the reporting of them are absorbed in issues of tradition and international legacy. More complicated than I initially thought.

It also struck me that Izzi brought in an original copy of the book by Fanon that was one of her parents. It must have been a completely different talk about this book when it was first published. The people reading it witnessed the conflicts that Fanon talks about. They saw the tail end of decolonization. How do they think about humans and the provocative stance that Fanon takes throughout his piece? Maybe I’ll ask my mom.

There are two types of authors we have read so far this semester. Those who are very angry and frustrated about the changing and intermingling of cultures like Ugresic. And the ones who are more optimistic about the changes that can happen and the improvements that can be made, like Berreby. Fanon, who wrote many years ago, is one of the former. He is angry and frustrated throughout his piece and attempts to justify the violent acts which are committed against colonizers who are painted in negative light as oppressors, repressors, and exploiters of the people being colonized. I wonder if those being oppressed today would express this same advocacy of violence to become human again, has our logic as humans taught us that two wrongs don’t make a right….

An American in Paris or How I Bought A Murse

During my time in Paris last year, I experienced a sense of US and THEM. It is interesting to me how much the way that I dressed determined the way that I was perceived and how I was able to enact a high degree of personal agency in changing which line of the US/THEM I found myself standing in.

Upon my arrival, I stuck out like a sore thumb. As you can see from this picture, I was pretty American looking: with my backwards hat, fleece vest, baggy clothes, and overly enthusiastic facial expressions. I expected and initially embraced my American-ness; however, it started to impede me improving my French and making French friends. The longer I was there the more I wanted to practice my French and see if I was fluent. Most Parisians, seeing that I looked American, spoke to me in English. I finally broke down and asked my host family why they thought I looked so American. The answer: my clothes.

My clothes had been keeping me outside of the group of US and made me a THEM, just like the other “human kinds” Berreby explores in his chapter Understanding the Tribal Mind. Parisians would make initial judgments when they looked at me and they would label me as a THEM. Someone who couldn’t speak the language, who didn’t understand the culture: an outsider. I knew it was time for a wardrobe make-over. I had to become a THEM, no matter what.

It was a struggle to try on my first pair of skinny jeans (both literally and figuratively) but I noticed a change in the way that people approached me when I traded in my GAP blue jeans for my H & M black ones. There were less sideways glances and noses in the air when I got on the metro or when I walked into my classes. Next I traded my bulky backpack for a Longchamp briefcase (affectionately nicknamed the “murse”) and lastly I abandoned my Northface fleeces for a more mature black military-ish peacoat. By my last few days in Paris, I had completely transformed (my long hair also fit in with the bohemian teenagers I became friends with). I felt Parisian and I felt like a member of the group of “US”, fully embraced by other French people: no dirty looks or mocking American accents. It felt great to belong again.

Then I experienced a reverse culture shock upon my return to Duke in January. I came back to all of my American friends, some who stayed in Durham and others who were abroad as well, and I noticed that I looked like a THEM again. My transformation was ill-received: how could I wear my skinny jeans and v-neck t-shirts amongst a fraternity of pastel polos and khaki shorts? Instead of adjusting myself like I had in Paris, I explained to my friends that this is how I dressed, that my time in France was important and that I liked feeling European. The feeling of being a THEM faded and I was welcomed back into the US. “The feelings that you belong is something that comes and goes” (Berreby 214) and it might have meant that my “murse” didn’t belong, but just as I have been an US before I left for France, I still was when I returned. I took control of the US-THEM code, just as Berreby says that each individual has the power to do, and I was able to maintain an US feeling even though I might have looked like a THEM (and I still might). These groupings of US/THEM can be artificially created and the differences that the mind (and the eye) sees may not be as much as a reality as we think on first glance.

A Russian, An American, An Enforced Identity: Antibes

After today’s class when we discussed The Culture of Lies by Dubravka Ugresic, I immediately thought about an experience I had when I was in high school when I lost control of my own identity and it was imposed on me by others.

When I was fifteen I spent part of my summer studying abroad in the south of France, in a beach-town called Antibes. Instead of doing the “boutique” American programs that my other friends did where they lived with other students in dorms and barely took any classes, I enrolled in an international program that required a homestay, hoping to gain more than they had. I was supposed to master the language and dive, head first, into the French culture.

In my apartment, I lived with three other students (from Ecuador, Sweden, and Germany), my host parents spoke no English and they babysat for two Moroccan boys all day every day. Upon arriving at the Nice International Airport and meeting this group that almost felt like a walking advertisement for United Colors of Bennetton, I knew I was in for an interesting experience. Pillowtalk and dinner conversations during my three week stay ranged from cultural comparisons and popular culture similarities (and cross-overs) to our impressions of France and our host family. There was little tension in the house of Paul and Marie-Therese and we all thought of each other as individuals seeing beyond our cultural and linguistic differences. Class was an entirely different experience.

For the first week, everything went well: we were unified in our desire to learn more French and more about the French culture despite our differences. My class was composed of kids from all over Europe and the world: Spain, China, Germany, USA, Argentina, etc…Our unity started to fall apart the day that Cédric asked us to identify stereotypes about different people’s cultures and say whether or not we thought they were true. Everything seemed pretty tame when Europeans were discussing other European cultures. The Spanish and German students talked about dialects and rap music. Then Yuriy, a Russian boy, decided to talk about American stereotypes. The mood changed drastically.

He explained, in his perfect French accent, that he thought all Americans were selfish and wasteful. He was thorough in his analysis providing statistics about the amount of gas we use, the types of food we consume, and the way that we watch TV and buy into popular culture. He was brutal in his attacks and my French retorts fell on deaf ears. All of the Europeans seemed to agree about Americans and the five of us in the class couldn’t defend ourselves. Instead of being another student in Cédric’s class just trying to improve my French, I became an American student in Antibes. Suddenly, I embodied McDonalds, baseball, the mid-west, and even George W. Bush for the 15 other students in my class. Despite the fact that none of these things were part of my life, they came to define my identity.

I was not American the way that they thought I was. I am from New York and I don’t identify with any of the traits that Yuriy accused me of having; however, there was little I could do to change the minds of my classmates after Yuriy planted the seed. Whenever I would mispronounce a word or answer a question incorrectly, I would catch the rest of the class giving me dirty looks revealing that they weren’t surprised I couldn’t speak French well since I was American or that they weren’t surprised I didn’t understand French culture because I was American.

This experience could have broken me down and made me feel like learning about other cultures was a lost cause since others would always think of me as an American instead of anything else. However, they made me more passionate about French and understanding French and other cultures. I had to find away to gain agency in defining my identity if I wanted it to be American, French, or completely individual. I would no longer let “American” define me or serve as a modifier to my name when I introduced myself to others.

This is similar to the way that Ugresic lost her identity when Yugoslavia broke up and she was forced “to be born again in the creation of the Croatian state” (Ugresic 210). And a second time when the European Union was formed and Croatia was excluded. Without having any control, say, or personal agency, she twice had others tell her was she was: Croatian and a non-European. An outsider.