Love them sterotypes

[Mike B.]

Here is an excerpt from the ArabNews.com

It is an English news daily from the Saudi government.

It uses the Mayflower as a metaphor for the US:

"But what of the small minority on the other ships who resist setting sail on a new course in uncharted
waters, driven not by their own best interests but rather the forces of piracy? Yes, they acknowledge,
their own ship is not the best place to live a life. But they are nevertheless proud of the fact that it is
uniquely theirs, built by their forefathers and proudly maintained for generations against all the odds
and against the elements. And after all is said and done, they have 4,000 years of history, not a mere
200.

Most importantly, they feel that they are a distinct people, who have beliefs which to die for would be
better than to sacrifice.

Moreover, they have gotten wind of the fact that the New England coast for which they are bound is
not the same place where the Mayflower first landed.

They know their ship will likely be hacked to pieces once they get ashore, and they will thus be robbed
of the opportunity to leave if they do not like what they find there.

They have also heard tales from some of those who earlier fell into the trap, but later escaped.

They reported that, rather than resembling the Garden of Eden the evangelical infiltrators on their ship
are forever preaching about, New England is in fact a place where one in five of the children live in
poverty; where less than four percent of the population owns more than 80 percent of the wealth;
where the prisons are overflowing with largely non-violent offenders; and where the pinnacle of
civilization is taken to be the presence of a McDonald’s at one end of the street and a Hardee’s at the
other."


It is often said the Americans do not know enough about the outside world. I agree that is a fair charge.

However, from what I am reading from many Arab news sources about the US is mostly a bunch of sterotypes. Does anyone in New England really think the pinnacle of civilization is two fast food places on a street? What the bigot who wrote this did not understand is that New England has a long tradition of poetry and literature...

As far as the 200 year thing...That is really lame. I suppose Sauid history is only 80 some years old because that is when they were independent from the Turks. We were first a British colony, so we can go back through that...I mean we can all trace our roots back to the start of Western Civilization.

I agree we need better understanding of other cultures, but the Arab world too seems to really need to also not use so many sterotypes...

[Michael Redman]

Yes, everyone bashes our ignorance, and displays their own at the same time. That's the universal human characteristic, I think.

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Mike B:
Does anyone in New England really think the pinnacle of civilization is two fast food places on a street?

I should hope they think it's the presence of a Barnes and Noble store on the high street! :D

Think about it, isn't there something inherently civilized about an establishment that offers the full spectra of published material, and affords the man on the street the freedom to partake of it unaccosted and with refreshments close at hand? Now there's something you can't do in Saudi Arabia!

Disclaimer: This might just be the Cafe Mocha grande withdrawal symptoms talking.

[Tmy]

I dont believe they have Hardees in New Endland. At least nowhere near Plymouth.

[Fade]

Funny. It's odd that tourists will often complain about how a given country isn't enough like theirs, and will complain when tourists to their own country aren't enough like them.

It's raging hypocrisy, but I suppose everyone is guilty of it. I, for one, think it's silly to consider any arab country (except perhaps the lovely country of Qatar) to be as civilized as any western nation. I guess our freedoms, our ready access to information, our right to vote, and our ability to feed our children are all inherently evil! [/tongue in cheek]

[JAR]

I agree. I'm never sure what people mean when they say that Americans have no culture. Isn't any type of custom a form of culture, including going on this forum to read and post messages. Perhaps they mean the aspects of the American ethnic group are new. But that can only be partly true considering that Americans speak languages and often practice religions that predate the existence of the U.S.

Perhaps they mean that too many of us don't speak our ancestral language. But neither do the French. The French our mainly descended from the Gauls who spoke Gaulish, a Celtic language, not Latin(from which French is derived from).

To confuse things even more, the French get their name from the Franks, who spoke a West Germanic language like English, Dutch and German. So the French get their name from a group of people from which their language is not derived from.