When Knowing A Foreign Language Is Something To Be Ashamed Of

I think I have been rather beaten to this posting by Will Hutton writing in ‘The Guardian’: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/05/will-hutton-learn-foreign-languages  However, I guess there is no harm in me adding my perspective too.  As with Hutton, my thoughts were triggered by the fact that the two leading men aiming to be nominated to be the Republican candidate for the coming US Presidential elections, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich were attacking each other on the simple basis of whether they spoke French or not.  As the BBC noted last month, they probably both do: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16583813  Romney spent 30 months in Bordeaux and Paris as a Mormon missionary in the 1960s whilst Gingrich wrote a PhD on Belgian educational policy in the Congo 1945-60 and cites a number of French-language texts in the bibliography; he might not be able to speak French but we have to assume that he reads it.  I guess Gingrich is also ‘Dr. Newt Gingrich’ something else he is keeping quiet.  Gingrich has produced an advertisement which refers to Romney’s ability to speak French.  The reason for such an attack comes from what Republican politicians associate with Europe – the euro and all its difficulties; a strong welfare budget and an unwillingness to engage in futile military conflicts.  Like most Britons they do not seem to associate Britain with Europe.

It seems incredible that there is more to gain politically from disguising that you have intellectual skills and that the grasp of a foreign language is something to use as an insult to your opponent or at least something which you feel the electorate should be dubious about.  However, it is probably worth noting that both former President George Bush Jr. (2001-9) and his father’s Vice-President Dan Quayle (1989-93) both demonstrated difficulties with English and yet seemed sufficiently popular.  In Britain, Nick Clegg when he became deputy prime minister was viewed suspiciously by Conservatives less for his political views and more for the fact that his wife is Spanish, his mother Dutch, his father half-Russian and he speaks Dutch, French, German and Spanish; his children are English-Spanish bilingual.  In a continental politician such abilities would be commended or at worst seen as normal.  However, in the UK, as in the USA, learning can be seen as an electoral liability which is why I never saw reference to Dr. Gordon Brown or Dr. Mo Mowlem even though that was in fact the case.
  This is in sharp contrast to countries like Germany or many states in the Arab World.

Ironically Clegg is very much like the nobility and royal families of Europe of the 19^th century.  Queen Victoria (actual first name Alexandrina), born to a German family, married to a German prince, had children who married into the different royal families of Europe including those of Germany and Russia.  Victoria spoke German with her children and presumably her husband too.  At the time upper class people across Europe spoke French to the extent that you often cannot find copies of treaties Britain was party to actually in English (I have looked) as French was spoken so widely among the civil service and I imagine the entire diplomatic corps. Of course, there has always been one rule for the rich and another for the rest.  Whilst the wealthy of the UK including many members of the Conservative Party may look in disdain at our European neighbours let alone nationalities further afield and voice this attitude, this does not actually stop them from taking expensive holidays in exotic countries and mixing with the 'right sort' of foreigner; wealth is a language all of its own.
  I do not know when the attitude shifted, but to me it seems it came during the First World War as Britain looked on both its opponents and its allies with disdain and focused on things that looked 'unBritish'; even the royal family was compelled to drop the surname Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in favour of Windsor.   Throughout the 20th century foreigners seem to have lost the sense of being worthy rivals to being people who should at best be patronised and at worst attacked.  Perhaps it was the fact that Sir Anthony Eden, foreign secretary (1935-8; 1940-5; 1951-5) and prime minister (1955-7) did not reveal that he had a degree in Farsi (spoken in Iran) and Arabic and could speak reasonably good French in the documentary film, 'Le Chagrin et la Pitié' (1969) though he switches to English towards the end.  I always note that Eden could have understood the broadcasts in Arabic by his great antagonist Egyptian leader Colonel Nasser without a translator.  The fact that Eden had this knowledge yet it was effectively concealed probably shows the stage that knowing a foreign language in Britain was no longer seen as beneficial but suspicious. 

I would argue that the criticism of people for having language skills is part of a broader anti-intellectualism that has been common in the UK since the 1970s and probably quite a bit longer.  It is interesting that the website of the ‘Daily Mail’ has now just overtaken the ‘New York Times’ as the most often accessed English-language news site.  The ‘Daily Mail’ is clearly nationalistic, anti-European Integration and generally right-wing.  It tends to focus on glamour rather than intellectual issues and presents solutions to most of the world’s problems as based on getting foreigners to listen to British common sense.  Hutton takes a more specific focus in his seeking for an answer.

Hutton notes that there has been a fall of 21% in students applying for university degree courses in non-European languages, exceeding the general fall of around 9% in all university applications, despite the fact that having such skills makes graduates highly employable.  Part of the difficulty is the fall in the feed-through of students who speak any foreign languages, as only 43% of even GSCE level students study any language.  At ‘A’ level in 2011 only just over 13,000 students took French down 5% from 2010; 7,600 took Spanish; 5,100 took German a fall of 7%; Chinese was taken by 3,100; Polish by 458 and Irish by 339.  A key reason for not studying a language at university is that language degrees last 4 rather than 3 years so accruing more fees, though as with sandwich courses with industrial placements the fees may be reduced when the student is away from their home campus.

Hutton quotes translator Michael Hofmann who argues that only speaking one language traps you in a ‘cultural cage’ only able to perceive one position on issues.  Consequently he sees an advantage in terms of getting employment not simply through being able to talk to people from a different country but because you develop a flexibility of mind which allows you to adapt to different circumstances even if that is shifting from one company to another simply within the UK.  Hutton thinks that the lack of affinity for language learning stems from seeing foreigners as ‘invaders’, indeed some kind of benefit pillagers.  Whilst we like the fact that English is so widely spoken in the world (but still by fewer people that Mandarin Chinese) we do not like the fact that it makes it easier for them to come to the UK to work or claim benefits.  In addition, most British are not interested in going out to countries to assist in strengthening their economies to make even recession hit UK look less attractive.  While we may not have shaken off the sense of imperial superiority we certainly have lost any sense of a patrician approach which once was an element of British colonialism. 

Hutton feels the sense that foreigners are a threat is why those studying languages are so often ridiculed in the UK as if daring to learn the alien’s language makes you a source of suspicion, much as we see it doing in the USA.  Putting in effort to learn a foreign language, apparently shows that you are focusing on the wrong priorities because you are putting at least some emphasis on a different culture from your own and somehow that wanting to know more about another culture suggests you lack pride in your own.  As Hutton notes this cultural censuring of language learning runs counter to the best interests of those people choosing what subjects to study.  I had a friend who learnt Korean.  He seems to have been the first person ever to complete a Linguaphone course in that language as he noticed that tapes 3 and 4 in the set (this predated CDs let alone downloads) that he had bought were identical.  The company had recorded tape 4 but had been dispatching the wrong one in its place.  Anyway, he was so in demand that when travelling on public transport anyone in the UK or South Korea found he spoke Korean they would offer him a job.  Anyone who speaks fluent English and can get a decent grasp of Mandarin or Arabic or Russian or even Portuguese is liable to be in high demand and yet young people cannot see that. 

Weirdly the basic Chinese course from the Open University available on ITunesU is one of the top 3 downloaded courses but no-one seems to go beyond lesson one.  Perhaps as I have argued before the British have no language ability: http://rooksmoor.blogspot.com/2007/05/british-and-foreign-languages.html so the fall in students taking them suggests that they have stopped trying to learn the languages and humiliating themselves.  I have forgotten all the foreign languages I ever learnt and as it was only got 10% in my Chinese test after 18 months study.  However, I am not going to ridicule anyone who learns a foreign language or see them suspiciously.  It seems ironic that those who are so much more nationalistic than me are so hostile to language learning not realising that if you are ignorant of someone else's language and yet they know yours, it is you who is at a disadvantage.

'It's Right, Because I Say So': Twisted, Indignant US Commentary

I posted before about how sickening I found it that American commentators were online a) telling the rest of the world we should ignore the US use of torture as it was their business and 'hey, guys it really works so that is a reason to keep doing it' b) debating whether various practices that all but the toughest special forces personnel can withstand, were real torture. Pain, being unable to breathe or move and suffering psychological pressure, all of these things are torture when a person or a machine is used to inflict them on someone else, end of story.

What is interesting is that these very aggressive challenges to commentary by the rest of the world continue. US politicians have been happy to condemn states as being in an 'axis of evil' as the 'evil empire' and so on, with no expectation of come back, because they know they are right. In their view there is no possibility of disagreement, because you cannot disagree with the truth. Post-modernism is clearly not on the curriculum in the USA. It is fine for them to criticise others but they cannot take it back in return. This is a long-running problem with US society. I have often spoken of the US perception that they are living out the 'manifest destiny' that the USA was always meant to be of the nature it is at the moment, no other alternative was viable (though of course I and many other people have shown many that were), so again, even to question the nature of the USA is either madness or highly offensive. The USA sought exemption for its troops from any war crimes charges. George W. Bush was criticised for using the word 'crusade' when in 2001 he used it in connection with his 'war on terror'. However, it was clear that, even if he was ignorant of the fact, this was precisely what the US administration wanted. To contextualise it, in theory to kill is against the Ten Commandments of Christian (and Jewish) faith. However, in the 11th century when the first crusades to the Middle East were launched (and to some extent since the 8th century when the Reconquista against Islamic rulers in Iberia began) those going on crusade were exempt from being damned for killing non-Christians especially if seeking to gain control of Jerusalem. In the same way, for its actions, its reconquest, the USA sought exemption from earthly condemnation.

The muddying of religious and civil and military aspects has been an ongoing problem in the USA especially with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity in the USA from the 1980s onwards. Ronald Reagan certainly felt that 'good' Americans were part of The Elect, who he felt would receive divine protection in the case of a nuclear war. George W. Bush drawing even more heavily from this religious constituency seemed to believe like Richard Nixon saying in 1977 that 'when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal' but applied this to the USA as a whole. For some reason unlike people living one metre beyond the US-Canada border, and especially in US eyes those living one metre beyond the US-Mexico border, citizens within the USA have to be seen as special compared to the rest of us and exempt from the kind of controls we would be under.

This perception and the belief that the US way is the only truth helps explain the extraordinary reaction from even the Barack Obama White House. We know that journalists have only just scraped the surface of the level of torture that went on (is going on) in US bases, but for White House spokesman Robert Gibbs to condemn repeatedly the British newspapers as never having any truth in them is stunning. On what basis did he make such a sweeping opinion that truth is left out of British newspapers? The provocation for this attitude, which coming from such a high-level person is incredibly offensive to the UK as a whole, was an article about further evidence from the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq where we know US soldiers tortured captives. I am no fan of the 'Daily Telegraph' which is a conservative right-wing newspaper, but I have no reason to doubt the veracity of its stories. Imagine the uproar if a UK politician said that all US newspapers lied, based on reading a single article. There would be a major diplomatic incident. Of course, the USA can ignore any indignation even from one of its oldest allies, but from the UK perspective it is very much 'with friends like these, who needs enemies?' The double standard, that the USA should be exempt from criticism and any critics should be harshly treated was brought to a peak with Bush's 'either for us entirely or an enemy' attitude of the early 2000s, but it seems even Obama's very different government has a lingering attachment to such attitudes.

Of course the Obama administration is seeing some of this kind of double-standard, arrogant self-righteous attitude itself, notably over the proposal to have Sonia Sotomayor appointed to the Supreme Court. She has been savaged by leading Republicans as a racist, simply because she said a Hispanic woman would have a different perspective on things to a white man. She trod so carefully in her language to make quite an obvious statement. This division between 'white', more properly Anglo, and Hispanic seems strange to people in Europe. No-one in the EU would consider people from Spain or Portugal to be racially different from people from Britain or Germany or Poland or Sweden or Russia and certainly not to people from Italy or Greece. Saying this you do see weird references on diversity monitoring forms on which 'White English', 'White Scottish' and 'White Irish', etc. are separated out. People have got to stop thinking culture means race. Hispanics are whites with, in some cases, a different history to the Anglos, but in most cases a very similar history. As in apartheid South Africa, minor differences between people are emphasised in the USA in order to either assert or reduce rights.

Given that more than half the population of the USA is female (there are 0.97 men for every 1 woman in the USA) and Hispanics make up 14.8% of the population, the second largest bloc after whites (at 52%) and compared to pure blacks at only 1.4%, it would not be surprising to see at least one or two of the 9 justices being Hispanic and at least 5 should be women. In his history the Supreme Court has only had two women and two black men, the rest have been white men. The age range has been 32-65; the second youngest (the youngest in the 20th century) was 40. The fact that people say that Sotomayor should Anglicise the pronunciation of her name, because as Mark Krikorian writing in the right-wing 'National Review' has said, 'there ought to be limits' on making English-speakers adapt to Hispanic and other language-based names. Mark, do you realise how low that makes your intelligence level sound? Once people would be proud in their ability to speak other languages, now they cannot see beyond their racist attitudes and realise how much of an idiot their negative attitude makes them appear.

The USA is going to continue to suffer from the kind of attacks that we have seen this week because for too long Americans have been brought up with the attitude that whatever they do is correct and that any criticism is an offence which needs to be published. I am astounded at the US websites that go after liberals, Janeane Garofolo being a prime example, cross-referencing statements made years apart to somehow show some hypocrisy. They do not understand that the bulk of us do not give a damn, we believe that there are different perspectives on things and do not feel that someone expressing those opinions is an indictable offence. I suppose the right-wing feels it is justified by God and we know from history what that leads to, just look at the crusades, all Jews slaughtered in Jerusalem on its capture in 1099. I know many of these commentators would prefer some theocratic dictatorship for the USA, but they have to face up to the fact that they have been lumbered with a democracy and in a democracy, you seek to persuade people to your point of view, not attack them virulently just because they say something different.