Arabic-L:GEN:'west' Response

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Thu 30 Nov 2000
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: 'west' Response

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1)
Date: 30 Nov 2000
From: djust at netvision.net.il
Subject: 'west' Response

I suspect that there's also an inherited historical prejudice here.
If you take Western Europe as the center of the world, Russia, Iraq
and China are indeed well to the East.  Don't forget that we live in
a world in which world maps almost always have Western Europe top-and-
center.

The following three points may also amuse you:

1.  Reread Thomas Mann's *Magic Mountain*, Mr. Al-Amri!  Mann makes a
big deal about the dichotomy between the "civilized West" (a real and
repeated quote, I think), where people usually address each other in
a formal "you" derived from the plural, and the (?) East, where
people address each other in the singular, giggle and have noisy sex
in the neighboring room, etc.  It's been many years, but as I
remember the archetype of the latter was Russia, even though Russian
does distinguish between formal and informal "you".

2.  In the modern State of Israel, there's an locally important
cultural distinction between Jews of the Western ethnic groups and
the "Eastern Ethnic Groups" (a common idiom).  It has always amused
me that the latter include Jews from Egypt, Morocco, Libya, Algeria,
etc., which last I heard were far to our west (unless a major
earthquake has recently moved them).

3.  (Related to 2) I have heard a few times people in the Tel Aviv
area speak in an explicitly derogatory way of "Asians".  The people
doing the talking were of undoubtedly Asian ancestry, and had lived
in Asia for tens of years if not their entire lives.  I sometimes
wonder if they thought of the fact that these conversations were
themselves taking place in Asia.

Thanks,
David.

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End of Arabic-L: 30 Nov 2000