Lost In Translation
By Manoj Nair The Times of India | November 19, 2005 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1300572.cms La Haine (Hate), a film by Mathieu Kassovitz about the lives of three young men from a Parisian suburb, begins with an old joke about a guy who, falling from a skyscraper, repeats to himself: "So far so good... so far so good". At the end of the movie, which for most of the time moves forward with a rioting immigrant population as its backdrop, the joke is said again: "It's about a society falling... so far so good... so far so good... so far so good". The narration goes on: "It's not about how you fall. It's about how you land". The joke and, in fact, the entire premise of the film is an apt allegory for France's failure to assimilate its so-called visible minorities (second and third gene-ration immigrants from north and sub-Saharan Africa), inhabi-ting its suburban ghettos into its culture and politics. Popular figures from these communities are either footballers (it began with Les Bleus winning the World Cup in 1998) or musicians. And even in the case of the latter, stars like M C Solaar, Salif Keita, Rachid Taha, Angelique Kidjo or even Yousou N'Dour are not mainstream. They are more popular outside France. Within, their listenership is restricted to ethnic groups. Recently, a British musician now settled and working in France told this writer there is a perceptible racial division between the popular music genres in France. The film La Haine was made in 1995, the year Jacques Chirac came to power. And about 10 years later France is once again hit by riots that have their origins in the country's banlieues. The world at large is trying to trace the roots of this unrest to Islam. France has the largest Muslim population in Europe. Apart from unemployment, France's current problem lies to a large extent in semantics. Take the word banlieues for instance. The English equivalent for it is suburb. A suburb is a residential area outside the city. Anywhere in Britain or North America it is a generous expanse of habitat with lush lawns and modern facilities. Why, even in India, suburbs evoke similar pictures. Les banlieues, on the contrary, are not full of cosy homes for well-to-do people, but are composed of matchbox-like high-rises full of France's poorest jostling for space. >From this French cultural escalator has emerged another phrase: Les Exclus, a term often associated with those who live in les banlieues. It means those who are denied an active role in the cultural space and have no access to affluence. So, in France the term banlieues raises negative images of drugs, crime, violence and Islamic fundamenta-lism. It would be inappropriate to say banlieues mean suburbs. One can imagine how much the 'visible minorities' have been marginalised. Thus, laid on this Parisian table is a clear issue for correct translation and gaining mutual knowledge so that banlieues begins to mean suburb. Italian author Umberto Eco visited India just two weeks before the riots broke out, to chair a roundtable on 'Strategies for Acquiring Mutual Knowledge'. During the session he spoke at length about the care one must take while translating texts. He said that while translating, specially from one culture to another, extreme care should be taken in making the text accessible to the language it is being translated into. It is all a question of negotiation. And he feels there has always been an element of scepticism in how the West negotiates with Islam. "Islam has always influenced Europe and in fact, it is Islam that differentiates northern Europe from southern Europe". He cites the examples of Spain and Italy: "Spanish music and architecture have unambiguous Islamic influences while Italian Renaissance art drew heavily from the religion". He also points out that Spain and France have been at variance with how they have accepted Islam. The results are apparent. The problem with this argument is that the West spends a lot of time, energy and money to learn other cultures, but allows few occasions for other people to study western customs and practices, causing alienation. It only results in ethnic, social and economic separation. The organisation that brought Eco to India, Transcultura, has been campaigning for alternative anthropology and "is constructed on the principles of reciprocal knowledge, respect and mutual enrichment, it develops metho-dologies of transcultural analysis applicable to different situations and intercultural contexts". The Italian semiotician feels such anthropological studies remove counter-positions of Us and Them. In the 80s and 90s, the banlieues caused much anxiety in France. It spawned the fear of the Other the French men and women living a few kilometres away from Us, the rich citizens. What has happened now is the outcome of what has been brewing over the years. Most ethnic conflicts, therefore, have their foundations in the baggage of prior knowledge that comes with what we have read and seen on television and cinema. The basis for understanding all cultures is to make the correct translations, the right adaptations. That determines, first, if you'll fall. And if you do, how you land. So far... not so good. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> AIDS in India: A "lurking bomb." Click and help stop AIDS now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/VpTY2A/lzNLAA/yQLSAA/uTGrlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -- This is ZESTGlobal. Post articles on international affairs to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTGlobal by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTGlobal/join/ Yahoo! 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