Afghanistanism
October 9, 2001
The following interesting term was pointed out to me today:
"Afghanistanism - journalist's term for the avoiding
of local controversy by focusing news coverage on distant lands." -from
Descriptionary, by Marc McCutcheon, Checkmark Books, second edition,
copyright 2000 and from Phrase & Fable: "Afghanistanism
- Journalists' slang for unusual interest in events in remote parts of the
world over and above happenings at home. The term was first used in the 1950s
but acquired new relevance when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1980."
It seems the term no longer fits. If I had told you one month
ago that news of Afghanistan would soon be of paramount interest to each and
every American, what would you have thought?
Afghan people or Afghani people?
An interesting offsite link from Slate.com: It's
"Afghan people," NOT "Afghani people"
"May you live in interesting times."
"May you live in interesting times." Since
the attack writers have been starting their columns with this clichéd
"Chinese curse." However, it is not authentic. There is no such
expression in Chinese. Indeed, the slyly ironic tone of the saying indicates
more about the West's stereotypical view of the Chinese than anything else.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the pulp-fiction
view of the Chinese was of a nefarious, devious, inscrutable Mandarin. Such
a stereotype would be likely to say something like "may you live in interesting
times" while engineering an intrepid hero's downfall.
The reality is that Chinese sayings are most often verbose
and contain a tinge of humor. RGP.net
cites the following as a typical example: We can say we live in a civilized
world when a naked virgin can ride a pair of horses laden with gold across
the provinces of China unmolested.
A website
that explains Chinese sayings speculates the saying might be a variant on
the Chinese proverb that goes: I'd rather be a dog in peaceful times, than
live as a man (woman) in turbulent times. Chinasprout.com
also writes about
it, but has no idea of the specific source.
From Fortean Times
(issue 149, p. 12), a possible source for the saying: "May you live in
interesting times" occurs in Ernest Bramah's The Wallet of Kai Lung
(1900), a series of tales set in a wholly imagined version of China--hence
the belief that it is a genuine Chinese curse. It is the first of three progressively
more awful curses. The others are "May you come to the attention of those
in high places" and "May the gods grant your prayers". -Andrew
Barton in the Guardians Notes & Queries, 1 Mar 2001.
It is easy to see the ironic undertones of these curses and
how they would fit the Fu Manchu stereotype.
In a later Fortean Times (issue 151, p. 53), Peter
Hope-Evans writes: "Having read the reference in the Guardian,
I opened my copy of Ernest Bramah's The Wallet of Kai Lung to locate
it in its full contextual glory. It remained beyond my powers to find it--or
in Bramah's other books, Kai Lung's Golden Hours and Kai Lung Unrolls
His Mat."
So where does it appear first?
Concerning comments by Jerry Falwell and
Pat Robertson
[Believe it or not, many people thought Jerry Falwell might
be right when he blamed
various groups for causing God to lift his "veil of protection"
on America. Barbara
Jo King, a columnist in my hometown newspaper, The
Republic (Columbus, Indiana), wrote an article on September 15, 2001
indicating she thought Falwell might have a point. The following was my response
to those who might be inclined to believe Falwell. It was printed in the Republic
on September 22, 2001. I am not sure exactly what text they printed (the online
articles are for subscribers only), but the following is what I sent in.]
********
When our nation has been drawn together with a common cause
for the first time since World War II, it is wrong for someone to use the
tragedy to advance their own ideological goals. And even worse when they are
saying things that divide and blame innocent people for so colossal a tragedy.
Jerry Falwell could not be more wrong about the moral state
of the U.S. Abortions and out-of-wedlock births are at their lowest level
since statistics have been recorded, and feminism has not been a real ideology
since the late 1970s. Imagine, out-of-wedlock births are lower now than they
were at any time during the "idyllic" 1950's! America is more prosperous
than ever and the most powerful nation in the history of humankind.
As for Falwell's theory making sense to "Bible believers,"
the 5000+ people who died did not deserve this or have it coming. They were
not an Old Testament style sacrifice for sins. It is natural to look for patterns
and meaning in events and Falwell and Roberston were clearly overwhelmed.
They lashed out with unBiblical explanations that amounted to little more
than superstition. As with any crime, blame and responsibility for actions
lies with the perpetrators, not the innocent.
I do not know if most people back in Columbus know this, but
outside of America, our policies and way of life are often thought deserving
of cynical abuse. It is probably because we are the only superpower and are
viewed as the only nation that can do whatever it wants. Since the tragedy,
I have received scores of emails from friends and acquaintances around the
world telling me that today they feel like Americans in spirit and stand with
us in solidarity. People have come up to me on the street expressing their
sorrow. Even the most typically anti-America people I come into contact with
can only say they hope America strikes back hard at the perpetrators.
It is sad to note that back in my open and free homeland,
the only dissenting and cruel comments after the tragedy (and, indeed, on
the eve of a "national day of prayer and remembrance") came from
big-time TV evangelists. It is precisely this sort of intemperance that gives
modern-day Christianity a bad name.
********
Debunking the WTC/Nostradamus
connection
This widely circulated Nostradamus quote is a fake:
In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader
will succumb
Kevin Fox was the first to carry
this story on his site and later it turned up on the Urban
Legend Reference Pages and the Nostradamus
Repository.
Kevin Fox writes: ...the quote wasn't written by Nostradamus at all, but was
written five years ago by Neil Marshall, a Canadian high school senior in
his Critical Analysis of Nostradamus. In his paper, Neil talks about the 'infinite
monkeys principle'...
"If I make, say, a thousand prophecies that are fairly abstract, for
example: 'In the City of God there will be a great thunder,
Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader
will succumb'"
Let's quash this urban legend before it gets started!
The Yamamoto "Sleeping
Giant" quote
"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and filled
him with a terrible resolve" was never spoken by Admiral Yamamoto after
the attack on Pearl Harbor. It came from the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!
written by Larry Forrester, Hideo Oguni, and Ryuzo Kikushima. Yamamoto was
said to be jubilant after the attack and wrote a poem to the emperor to celebrate
the victory. Hundreds of websites still falsely attribute the quote to Yamamoto.
Below are some earlier, non-Pearl
Harbor examples of a "sleeping giant" quote.
Some sources:
The
Columbia World of Quotations, 1996 - Copyright (c) 1996 Columbia University
Press. It is the full online version of the print book--it is not compiled
from net users. You will find this book in your library's reference section.
The online title page gives more
info: "Edited by Robert Andrews, Mary Biggs, and Michael Seidel - The
65,000 essential quotations that constitute this authoritative collection
represent the research of 154 experts. Entries from more than 5,000 authors
and speakers are multiply classified into 6,500 subjects." Attributions
for quotes from films are typically credited by writers, directors, producers,
and the actor who played the role since the film that presents the quote is
the collaborative effort of a team of artists.
"The
Pentagon's little 'pearler'" by Tony Perry, Monday 4 June 2001 -The
following is quoting the US Park Service historian at the USS Arizona Memorial
and Museum at Pearl Harbor (a military fact-checker for the film Pearl
Harbor):
Yamamoto (played by Mako), the architect of the attack,
says at the end that he fears the attack has only "awakened a sleeping
giant". Martinez said he could find no historic documentation that Yamamoto
had any second thoughts until months later, when the tide of war began to
change.
The "sleeping giant" quote seems to have been an invention of the
1970 movie Tora! Tora! Tora!.
"It's as if the movie created the phrase and suddenly it came to be accepted
as real history," said Daniel Martinez, US Park Service historian at
the USS Arizona Memorial and Museum at Pearl Harbor.
Naval History Magazine, "Pearl
Harbor: Bombed Again" by Lawrence Suid:
Wallace placed Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the Japanese
task force, even though he did not accompany the armada. And the screenwriter
had the mastermind of the attack utter the now-infamous words: “I fear
all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant,” which in fact came not
from the admiral's mouth, but from the writer of the 1970 film Tora! Tora!
Tora!.
Who said it first?
Pius XII
"This period [following World War II in Latin America]
also saw the rapid expansion of the lay mission movement, which Pius XII called
`the sleeping giant.'"
-from Encyclopedia Americana, volume C
Napoleon Bonaparte
"China is like a sleeping giant. And when she awakes,
she shall astonish the world. Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803"
-quotation preceding"Red star rises," by Nick Walker, Amazing
Hong Kong magazine, October 2001 - This quote is worded very differently
in many different sources which makes me suspect it might be apocryphal.
