“Weekly” is an English language paper with news of cultural and social activities in Amsterdam. This week’s “Weekly” has the following two-liner under the section “Festivals”, on page 22:
Naturally, I don’t mean to imply that disagreeing with particular EU entries and with countries’ internal policies or social and political situation is off-limits; in fact, I will very likely discuss here, sometime in the future, the problems and threats I see in the general political direction that some European countries seem to be taking. The point I’m making is that the absolute lack of context, discussion and motivation for this kind of statement turns what would potentially give rise to intelligent discussion into an offensive, random comment.
A final remark: someone told me I was overreacting, the statement wasn’t meant to offend, and “Weekly” is hardly a newspaper people would read to find intelligent information about current issues. This line of argumentation is, I think, very naïve. The kind of xenophobic rhetoric that a few years ago would have aroused the indignation of the whole society is now slowly beginning to be tolerated, and, though I’m willing to grant that there was no intended malice in the sentence quoted, I do think it’s everyone’s obligation to make sure they’re not feeding the monster. “Weekly” may well be just a cultural newsletter, but that doesn’t excuse it from the obligation to be responsible.
Poolse filmlente. A week-long festival of recent films from Poland, one of the more controversial new entries to the EU.Granted, this is a free newsletter, possibly not written by professional journalists, but the political reference is more than just poor style, or even bad journalism, it’s downright offensive. The “controversy” around Poland’s joining the EU, even if it’s a fact, has nothing to do with announcing a film festival, and therefore I have to infer that either (1) whoever wrote this has a position regarding the controversy, and felt like surreptitiously stating it, or (2) the writer doesn’t really have a position, but thought the sentence looked too short and thus added a random parenthesis. Either way, it’s an irresponsible act. For, whether the writer likes it, doesn’t, or doesn’t have an opinion on it, Poland is indeed part of the EU, and by taking a position or even merely acknowledging an issue, out of a proper context that explains it, the writer is being disrespectful of the Polish people and, just as grave, of the ideology that’s behind the EU.
Naturally, I don’t mean to imply that disagreeing with particular EU entries and with countries’ internal policies or social and political situation is off-limits; in fact, I will very likely discuss here, sometime in the future, the problems and threats I see in the general political direction that some European countries seem to be taking. The point I’m making is that the absolute lack of context, discussion and motivation for this kind of statement turns what would potentially give rise to intelligent discussion into an offensive, random comment.
A final remark: someone told me I was overreacting, the statement wasn’t meant to offend, and “Weekly” is hardly a newspaper people would read to find intelligent information about current issues. This line of argumentation is, I think, very naïve. The kind of xenophobic rhetoric that a few years ago would have aroused the indignation of the whole society is now slowly beginning to be tolerated, and, though I’m willing to grant that there was no intended malice in the sentence quoted, I do think it’s everyone’s obligation to make sure they’re not feeding the monster. “Weekly” may well be just a cultural newsletter, but that doesn’t excuse it from the obligation to be responsible.
2 comments:
Yeah, (3) might well be true... In that case, they certainly got what they wanted, at least from my part ;-)
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