I was out with a Sudanese friend yesterday when the subject of racism towards people with African ethnicities popped up. Well, actually that wasn’t the core subject. We were talking about the contradictory attitude of retarded people who are racist towards blacks but yet still love, and I mean love hip-hop and reggae. I’ve personally come across a few such idiots. They never fail to amaze me.
I still don’t really get it. If you hate or look down on a certain group of people, how can you happily consume their creations?
This reminds me of a scene in the movie Hart’s War, set in Nazi Germany, when the character played by Bruce Willis, an American prisoner of war, entered the office of his Nazi captor only to be surprised by the Jazz music playing in it. Besides the fact that it was the creation of an inferior racial group according to Nazi ideology, Jazz wasn’t looked upon favorably back then under Hitler for other reasons.
For the architects of the Third Reich, jazz was an especially threatening form of expression. Not only were its creators - and many of the most talented European jazz artists - at the very bottom of the Nazi racial hierarchy, but the very essence of jazz - spontaneity, improvisation and, above all, individuality - represented a direct challenge to the repetitive, uniform pulse of Germany march music and indeed everyday life.
The Nazi captor believed in Hitler’s ideology and yet, secretly enjoyed Jazz music.
I can’t help but notice the same basic mindset in the region I come from. “… Jews are such demons man. Oh hey, by the way, wanna head to Starbucks?”
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Good one… like me and my redneck buddy eating falafel and drinking coffee while dissing them “damn ayrabs”
Hehehe, well just for the record, I don’t think you’re retarded, racist or an idiot Halalhippie.
why is being able to separate a person from what they do, retarded? IF anything it’s smart, it means that despite the fact that you dislike someone, you’re still able to extract anything good that they have to offer. This is done to excellence with America, everyone (me not included) hates america but noone has a problem with eating at TGIF (foul food), watching Lost wearing Nike studying at the American university and queuing outside its embassy for a visa!
“why is being able to separate a person from what they do, retarded?”
Interesting way of looking at it, but I personally think it’s one big contradictory pile of poopoo.
“Interesting way of looking at it, but I personally think it’s one big contradictory pile of poopoo.”
That makes me wonder…
Are the people that I hate (”Muslim” fundamentalists and Arab nationalists) producing *anything* that I might want (or even anything at all)?
What about the Arab world? Is the Arab world producing anything of value (currently) that has not been in the region before they existed and that is not extracted using non-Arab technology and useful only because of non-Arab inventions?
thanks drima for your insightful reply. You’re disagreeing because of the negative context in which this has been raised. It’s a perfectly sound argument, you’re just too quick to poo poo things.
I can think of at least one thing the arabs are good at: hospitality. few do it better.
“I can think of at least one thing the arabs are good at: hospitality. few do it better.”
That’s true, but it’s not something that could be exported and bought by enemies.
To be quite frank, those for whom the Arabs were enemies in the last century, the Jews, did NOT enjoy Arab hospitality much.
I think that is an important point. Some people find that their enemies produce useful things. Others find that that is not the case. Perhaps one should consider whether it might not be a mistake to be an enemy of someone who can produce what one wants. And perhaps people who produce are not looking for enemies and do not choose them?
let me hazard a guess here Andrew, you’ve never been to the ME have you?
America is an enemy yet personal relations between americans and arabs are very good and they enjoy a lot of good hospitality.
“Let me hazard a guess here Andrew, you’ve never been to the ME have you?”
I have.
“America is an enemy yet personal relations between americans and arabs are very good and they enjoy a lot of good hospitality.”
Very good. But those personal relations are not really export goods and the relations I enjoyed with Arabs outside Israel was that they tried to kill me by firing rockets at my university.
You see, Anna, the problem is not that I haven’t been in the middle east, the problem is that I arrived when Nasrallah called on Jews all over the world to come and be murdered by him.
Perhaps the customary good hospitality of the Arabs outside Israel was represented by Saudi Arabia’s calling the war an “adventure”?
I am sorry, Anna. I know about Arab hospitality, I have myself enjoyed it in Israel. But when somebody tells me that Arab hospitality is an outstanding feature of the Arab world during a time such as this it seems to me as if somebody told me in the 1930s that Germany is the country of thinkers and poets.
Perhaps we can get back to the hospitality issue once they don’t try to kill me any more?
At the moment EVERY other people seem more hospitable to me, although I know that Arabs are known for their hospitality like Germans are for Goethe.
It seems to me like Arab hospitality is alive among Bedouins, but among most Arabs it is certainly not as prominent a feature as certain other traits.
Have you ever been to Europe, America, or Israel so you can compare hospitality in those places to Arab hospitality?
I can assure you that Europe will treat you better than the Arab world treated me, regardless of whether you are American, Arab, or Jew.
(Well, the French are known to be rude. So they say. But not rocket-firing rude.)
You say you’ve been to the ME. I’ll hazard a guess that you haven’t been outside ISrael. Right?
Andrew, you’ve latched onto my throwaway comment. The discussion started off with recognising good in those who you hate and I answered along those lines. I’m not the postergirl for the arab cause, I just wanted to point out to you that arabs can and do put aside politics and have good relationships with some political enemies.
I am sorry to hear about your experiences and they do go someway in explaining your reactions but those hostilites can be explained by the fact that Israel is at war with Hamas. et al. I’m sure you’d agree that there are european countries that have treated jews far worse in the past and they weren’t even at war with ISrael. I am not in anyway making light of the matter, just putting things in context.
I have been to eastern and western europe as a matter of fact. Europe has many wonderful qualities but European hosptiality is an oxymoron. I couldn’t get out of eastern europe fast enough, due to the fact that I missed seeing people smile. Israel, I haven’t been to but I have been to some orthodox jewish towns in europe and it’s kinda obvious that the name of the game is shutting people out. Body language and general unwillingness to mingle aside, there was some event that a friend and I tried to get tickets for at a synagogue and we naively queued up for ages only to be told that non jews were not allowed. Sorry, but you excel at exclusivity not hospitality.
“but those hostilites can be explained by the fact that Israel is at war with Hamas. et al.”
And Arab attitudes towards their “enemies” are the reason for that.
Just like Germany did not represent thinking and poetry during Nazi rule, the Arab world today does not represent hospitality.
People who try to kill me are NOT hospitable people, no matter whether their ancestors once possessed that characteristic or whether they still practice it for selected audiences.
If you arrived in eastern Europe, and they didn’t try to kill you, eastern Europe has already shown itself more hospitable than the Arab world to me.
“I’m sure you’d agree that there are european countries that have treated jews far worse in the past and they weren’t even at war with Israel.”
I agree that there are European countries that once did and tried to do to Jews what Arab countries are doing and trying to do now.
There are two differences.
Those European countries many times succeeded.
And most of those European countries have owned up to their mistake.
I find a Germany with whatever past, a Germany that owns up to its sins and now treats everyone with respect, much more hospitable than an Arab world that claims hospitality but tries to throw Jews into the sea (after running them out of their countries).
“and I tried to get tickets for at a synagogue and we naively queued up for ages only to be told that non jews were not allowed”
That is weird. Tickets?
I can now think of one thing Arabs produce that I buy. My butcher is an Arab.
However, he is not, to my knowledge, an “Islamic” fundamentalist nor an Arab nationalist. And his employees appear to be Albanian or Bosnian. Plus the halal food he sells is mostly from Denmark.
I stand by my assertion that my enemies do not even make anything I could possibly use. And I think that is the important thing.
The reason some Nazi finds the culture of at least of his enemies useful is because the Nazis were _wrong_. That’s why they themselves noticed that the “lower races” produce useful and good things.
But Arab nationalism and “Islamic” fundamentalism produced and produces NOTHING of value, not to its supporters and not to its enemies.
And the rest of the Arab world does not currently feature high marks on the useful production scale either.
Arab hospitality is a product of Arab culture. And it’s excellent and remarkable. But it is NOT currently something that is very useful to me.
As I said, I have experienced Arab hospitality in Israel. And in fact, when I’m in Jerusalem I always stay in an Arab hotel, because the Jewish hotels are, how shall I put it, populated by rude staff.
But what I got from Arabs outside Israel was rockets. And it had nothing to do with me being at war with them. It was THEY who decided that they wanted to be at war with me. And that is the opposite of hospitality.
“And Arab attitudes towards their “enemies” are the reason for that.”
As usual Andrew, your views are highly skewed. Yes Andrew, we are all the antisemitc villains that you paint us. I’m usually right about people with views like yourself: armchair critics who’ve never actually mingled with said villains. Although I’m not arab, I know Egypt is classed as an Arab country, so I’d like to point out that Egyptian jews were part of the fabric of society until Israel decided to do war. I don’t like to say that Egypt was hospitable to jews because they were not regarded as guests and they did not regard themselves as guests. Perhaps next time you’re in Israel, you should go and speak to a bunch of them.
However, when a country declares war, it is natural that the citizens of that enemy country will no longer be welcome. And if you stay true to the facts, you will discover that the nationalites of other aggressor countries were also expelled, along with a few other random ones. The whole victim mentality is tiring, Andrew. Today, Israel gives as good as it gets and a whole load more- hell has no fury like a jew scorned.
I actually don’t see any contradiction here. The Arab hospitality is outstanding. Jews have nothing approaching it even remotely. Mizrahi Jews may have something like this but it’s plain obvious that they have picked it up in their original countries and brought here. It’s not something Jewish because otherwise Ashkenazim would have had it too.
On the other hand whenever Arab fight their civil wars or just wars they always end up with such atrocities that are hard to believe. I would say that Arabs are emotionally intense people and it goes both ways - both when they are hosting you as a guest and when they fight you as an enemy. It’s also easy to see that this is part of their culture - Arab music is very emotionally intense and judging by translations their poetry also seem to be more about strong emotions than about nuanced sentimentality. I would believe that people who grow up in such a culture would have general tendency to be thrown off balance on the emotional side.
nobody, how refreshing to read a fair, reasoned and positive comment from the other camp on this blog. I do wonder why we’re the only ones with the reputation for being crazed haters with some of the comments on here. I’m assuming you are from the other camp, and I’m also assuming that you have been at the receiving end of the hospitality you speak of, which again is good to hear as it shows that civil relations are alive and well. Sorry to keep talking about camps but unfortunately this is the modus operandi on these blogs.
I do agree that the arab culture does go to the extremes of the emotional spectrum but whether increased emotional intensity makes you a worse enemy is a little debatable. IF anything, I think those lacking emotion make more fearsome enemies. The 11 million people who died in the holocaust did not die at the hands of people renowned for emotional intensity.
I am israeli if this is what you mean by the other camp. Though I would not define myself in general as a big fan of the Arab/Muslim civilization. But indeed I was occasionally on the receiving end of Arab hospitality when I lived in Jerusalem.
Here in Tel Aviv I am socializing with a couple of Arabs from Jaffo too, though these are very urban and assimilated Israeli Arabs. They can barely read Arabic, they can only speak the language. Dunno how much they are representative of the Arabs. But in general I would agree that Arabs have something with hospitality. I have no objections to this aspect of the Arab culture.
But as I said all this goes very well with the reputation of crazed haters. Israeli Arabs seamlessly combine both qualities. Israeli Arabs for example are always in a mess with each other. Say, one of these guys is from Lod. Mistakenly I thought that he was born here in Jaffo. When I told him this, he said, “What??!! I look like one of these thiefs from Jaffo??” Or if you talk to somebody from Taibe he has always something to say against those from Lod or from Haifa. Tribalism rules the world over there.
And of course Israeli Arabs have inter clan feuds that can drag on for generations. It’s simply unbelievable. Occasionally it ends in gun battles and mass scuffles.
I remember one day I and my friend drove to Abu Gosh to have humus. And precisely at that time they had that feud between two brothers who had their humus restaurants across the street from each other. Every minute somebody was stopping us to say that we should go to that one on the right side of the street, but not on the left side and vice versa. It appears that the whole village was taking part in that feud. The whole place of a few thousands people was split by this humus feud. Never saw such a shit in my life.
“I’m usually right about people with views like yourself: armchair critics who’ve never actually mingled with said villains.”
Right. I should have mingled with Hizbullah?
I shared a dorm with Israeli Arabs while Hizbullah was firing at us.
If that makes me an armchair critic, so be it.
“Although I’m not arab, I know Egypt is classed as an Arab country, so I’d like to point out that Egyptian jews were part of the fabric of society until Israel decided to do war”
And you would tell a lie. Israel did not “decide to do war”, Egypt did. And Egyptian Jews had nothing to do with it. Neither Israel nor Egyptian Jews attacked Egypt or anyone. And the idea that Israel WANTED a war with Soviet-equipped Arab states whose armies alone outnumbered the entire Jewish population of the middle east is preposterous.
News flash: trying to kill Jews constitutes anti-Semitism, not hospitality.
I can see that you WANT Arab culture to have a certain feature, but that doesn’t make me a liar or armchair critic for pointing out that it doesn’t.
Arab culture as practiced by Egypt with regard to Jews and Israel has NOT been an example of good hospitality and a lack of anti-Semitism.
I told you that I have experienced Arab hospitality. I know it exists as a feature of Arab culture. But it hardly applies to Hizbullah and Egypt’s attitude towards Jews or any of the examples you gave.
You tell me that Arabs show hospitality even to their enemies. All I am asking is that those Arabs who think that I should be their enemy stop trying to kill me, and I promise I will believe any story about their hospitality that you want me to believe.
Andrew,
Drima Hamidoush and I did invite you to bring your national dish and meet us in Sinai, you never showed up.
Nobody,
haha, makes for entertaining conversations. It must be ever so hard not to have a few digs at them, here and there while pretending to be ignorant of their feuds.
Andrew,
consider sending in some suggestions,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TFf897bUW2Y
“Drima Hamidoush and I did invite you to bring your national dish and meet us in Sinai, you never showed up.”
When was that?
And, do you realise that the national dish of Ireland is colcannon?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colcannon
Also, is the Sinai safe for Sudanese?
“consider sending in some suggestions”
I have seen it and I have the greatest respect for queen Rania.
However, I believe it’s the prejudices Arabs have against others, especially Jews, that are the problem, not western stereotypes of Arabs.
When I was in the middle east I first stayed in a Jerusalem flat shared by a Jew and an Arab, then finally in a Haifa U dorm shared with an Arab, and at last I stayed in an Arab hotel in Jerusalem. The entire time I used taxis to travel (it’s cheap in Israel) and the taxi service I used most often was an Arab firm operating out of Nablus (in the territories), partly because I found Jewish drivers too reckless.
Whatever prejudice you want to think I hold against Arabs seems only to kick in when they try to kill me, not when I interact with them socially. (They were not the same Arabs, of course.)
colcannon, i never knew. you guys really like your potatoes don’t you- i’m sure if we drown it in enough gravy or something, we won’t be able to make out the taste. just make sure you bring the irish coffee to wash it down with. Don’t think the colcannon will beat our molokhia though- a green soup of slime like consistency.
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