Dear Friamers,
As we tried to cope with the week’s events this Friday, we found ourselves in disagreement about the degree to which the French, in particular, had endorsed multiculturalism. In that connection, I found myself humming the following passage from the French national anthem:
Aux armes, citoyens!
Formez vos bataillons!
Marchons! Marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!
The English is …
To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows
When I visited the French countryside many years ago, there were billboards with blond babies and messages like “keep france strong”. Not sure, if I were a brown person, how comfortable I would feel in a crowd of a million people singing those particular lyrics. Funny how these little antiquated expressions of solidarity can get out of hand.
Whuf!
Nick
PS Just to further the irony, the daily show (yes, yes, I know) reports that the day after the “Je Suis Charlie” rally for freedom of expression, the French police arrested a blogger for expressing anti semitic sentiments. In short, because of their history with Algeria, I am afraid the French have a problem as profound as our own.
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
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