France quarrels with America not because the pair are so different but because they are so alike (from The Economist, 20 December 2005, article headlined "French anti-Americanism, spot the difference").
A couple of months ago, in a pique, I wrote something. I decided to just file it, not print it. But after reading the above article in
The Economist, I've decided to print the piece as I wrote it then, with added comment after it. My writing concerned an incident in a restaurant and was as follows:
The question he asked was simple. Ultimately, whether I had a match.
The young, fairly unkempt, but still presentable young man needed to light his cigarette.
I was sitting at my spot in the restaurant-bar I frequent. I had been writing and had just placed my laptop in its case. I was not leaving however. Engrossed in thought I was about to take pen in hand and outline my thoughts on another article I needed to write. For some reason I have a habit of jotting down, with pen in hand and on paper pad, not an outline but a series of words, phrases, random thoughts on a subject I am to write, rather than doing the same on my computer. Why I do this I'm not sure. It seems to separate me from the mechanical, I guess. Also I'm freer to enjoy my pipe and, in this, perhaps reflect more clearly, I guess: not very logical or efficient, just a habit, but comfortable... overtime, so perhaps useful.
I was attired casually as usual. And with my black cowboy (some call it that) hat cocked atop my head. Incidentally, my western (also southwestern and even rural southern United States) shlyapa is not a Stetson as some Ukrainian and Russian speakers have assumed and asked about. Rather it is Ukrainian made by my friend Vlad, who makes a hobby and part-time business of producing them. I attended the wedding of Vlad and his bride Katya (also my good friend) about four years ago. About half the scores of guests were in "cowboy" apparel. Vlad the groom was hat to boots and dignified Porter Wagoner in between - attired all western. The wedding and the celebration afterwards was traditional Ukrainian. Katya was "kidnapped". She had to be ransomed. There were protagonists to protest the wedding and the rights to the bride amongst the repeated loud cries after appropriate toasts... gorka! gorka! gorka!
The young man asking for the spichka was not impolite.
I told him, firmly: "No".
I had earlier had to borrow matches from the bar. The bar usually has long cigar matches. Nice for lighting cigars as well as pipes. But they were out of those. The bartender however was able to produce an almost empty box of regular matches. I was grateful. I also knew I had to ration them. We pipe smokers use a lot of matches. And even pipe-smoking-designed mechanical lighters are poor substitutes for matches.
But still, I was both selfish and petty in refusing the young man, I guess.
Now this particular bar is frequented almost exclusively by people who speak Ukrainian or Russian. Most of them, by my observation, are smokers who carry those little BIC-like lighters, and sometimes even matches.
The young man, seeing me in simulated Stetson, perhaps concluded that I was not likely a native. And he, being a foreigner himself, perhaps felt more comfortable in approaching me rather than others.
Maybe, he thought, I might be American. Likely? I could have been French, I guess.
So his humble request was made in ... French.
I ... "Pardon?" (I don't speak French.)
He, then, something like, and in good but accented English, cigarette forward and out in my face ... "Can I have some fire?"
Me tersely, again..."No".
He left fairly abruptly. He showed no particular annoyance. More like surprise.
I thought. I looked in the matchbox. I had six matches left. Not so many for a pipe smoker. But, I should have shared.
I was petty.
He was French.
•••
And that's the piece I wrote. A day later I was sorry I wrote it. So I may be part of the problem of "the French and us".
The Economist article begins:
NESTLING in a valley near Aix-en-Provence, Plan de Campagne is a familiar French landscape. A strip of garish hoardings on stalks reaches into the distance. Le Plan Bowling,
a 30-alley indoor centre, squats near the El Rancho Tex-Mex grill, a clay-coloured mock hacienda, complete with cactuses and sombreros. Two McDonald's fast-food joints rival Buffalo Grill, where poulet Kentucky and assiette Texane are served under a red roof topped with giant white buffalo horns. All this is ringed by vast parking lots, crammed with gas-guzzling 4X4s. Welcome to France, cradle of anti-Americanism.
The article goes on in similar vein.
It compares the urban and rural populations of each of the two countries. They are similar. The ordinary people, if such can be generally defined, seem to like similar things in both countries. A like of similar television programs and movies. Similar music, etc. At the ordinary level neither population is particularly consumed by politics or rivalries.
While French ministers of cultural affairs (I don't know the proper titles or particular people and such) may take offense at a perceived invasion of American products and brands, French people will buy them if they are attractive, useful, competitive in price, etc.
No, it seems our rivalries are really at a more distant and higher level. The Iraq War has been an irritant both to the French political class as well as at a certain level with the general French population, but not much more so than the British and less than the German and some other European countries.
We Americans have our fair share of objectors to the same war. Many even who were against the war though think that French, German and Russian objections at the United Nations level had as much too do with economics (financial deals undone or not consummated with the Iraqi government) and exposure of many politicians in those countries to potentially embarrassing disclosures for perhaps indiscreet financial transactions.
Most in the United States are not so disposed as those in the European Union to believe in super world organizations and government rules (i.e. the United Nations). We don't give up our on Constitution, rules and law so easily. It's a matter of freedom, not nationalism or isolationism. Plus, we who think about such things wonder about the stretch of the EU with parliaments and rulers and rules and law that seem so distant from the lives of the voters in what are supposedly independent countries. We wonder if the voters really want this.
This is not to say that we don't see merit in joining together to better organize trade and break down barriers to such. We see merit also in easing travel rules between generally small but geographically close countries. We see some reasons for the euro to facilitate exchange, but where the countries are populous, as are France and Germany, we wonder how that works. If one has 25 or more countries with different taxation systems, how do they mesh this with the validity and viability of bond issues? How does a central bank really work effectively in these circumstances? Maybe it's just a matter of properly analyzing risks and setting proper interest rates? Seems to me risky in the long run though.
And this brings me to a related thought concerning Ukraine and some of the other Eastern European countries, some of those that have joined the EU already, and some that seem to want to join. Particularly as to Ukraine, with its newly found independence, why should Ukrainians give up sovereignty to the EU and Brussels? Ukraine, since the age of nations began, has never, until recently, been an independent country.
The obvious answer is that Ukrainians can benefit from trade and the financial wealth of EU countries. But maybe the price is too high; then there is the EU's declining population, its financial stagnancy (caused by distance from the voters, differing tax systems and characterized still by trade disputes).
So I digress from "the French and us".
So why do the French and the Americans at a certain level not get along.
Mutual jealousy? Maybe, maybe something more. Differences in philosophy stemming from different revolutions of 200 years ago, and beliefs concerning interpretations of the Enlightenment?
I don't know. But I think those thoughts are far from the minds of common, ordinary people in both countries.
Anyway, wish now I'd shared those matches.
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