Racefail: now by e-mail!
OK, still no promised catch-up post, but multiple posts in one day nonetheless. Because I just have to rant about this:
An otherwise relatively sane and reasonable (to my knowledge, anyway) acquaintance just sent me an e-mail forward, the least annoying aspect of which was that it was completely untrue and had already been debunked on Snopes.com. The most annoying? Well, I'll just link you to the Snopes page on it and let you do the math.
Herewith follows the response I would like to send to said person, but probably won't.
Dear ______,
Thank you for your lovely e-mail about the supposed plans to have the national anthem sung in Hindi at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Please do not ever send me anything remotely like it again. Here's why:
On the bright side, I am now more motivated than ever to eventually take the Hindi course on Livemocha (once I have finished all their Spanish and French courses and made some headway on Dutch, that is). Just so I can translate "O Canada" into Hindi. Because really, someone should.
An otherwise relatively sane and reasonable (to my knowledge, anyway) acquaintance just sent me an e-mail forward, the least annoying aspect of which was that it was completely untrue and had already been debunked on Snopes.com. The most annoying? Well, I'll just link you to the Snopes page on it and let you do the math.
Herewith follows the response I would like to send to said person, but probably won't.
Dear ______,
Thank you for your lovely e-mail about the supposed plans to have the national anthem sung in Hindi at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Please do not ever send me anything remotely like it again. Here's why:
- As you know by now thanks to someone else pointing you to the article on Snopes.com, it's a steaming pile of crap. But really, that's the least of my reasons for not wanting to receive stuff like this. I wouldn't be a receptive audience even if it was true. Read on for why.
- True fact: not everyone that looks white is entirely white, and not everyone that is entirely white automatically agrees that OMG-evil-immigrants-are-tainting-the-purity-of-our-language. In other words, do not assume that just because I have the complexion of a cave fish and sunburn if I look out a window, I am at all likely to be in sympathy with your racist paranoia.
- For that matter, everyone in Canada who is white, or even mostly white, has this in common: they're immigrants, or at least descendants thereof. English is not one of Canada's indigenous languages. Neither is French. So this is not about Real Canadians[TM] vs. Evil Immigrants - it's about more recent immigrants vs. less recent immigrants.
- Translating something into other languages is not offensive, disrespectful or anything of the sort, unless you for some reason believe those languages to be inferior or unworthy. If you do, that says more about you than about the languages in question. Personally, I'd be all in favour of the national anthem being translated into as many languages as possible. If you're such a Canadian patriot, why on earth would you not want the entire world to be able to hear about how great Canada is? Makes no sense to me.
- If you really want to "keep the national anthem the way it was written!", better learn the French version. That's the original. The English version you're so avidly defending is... a translation. Oh, the horror!
- I have established a new policy: complaints about how immigrants need to "learn the language" will only be listened to if they are delivered in Mohawk, Ojibway, or some other indigenous language. People in glass houses really shouldn't throw stones.
- On a related note, if you're going to complain about how "Immigrants, not Canadians, must adapt!", I shall give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're referring to the way that your own ancestors "adapted" upon arriving here, and would like more recent immigrants to take your land, kill you, and put your kids into special schools where they'll be sexually abused and beaten for speaking their own language. Your willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of tradition is truly admirable. Here, have some of these blankets.
- Finally, let me just say that I'm kind of disappointed that the rumour isn't true, because I actually think that "O Canada" would sound awesome in Hindi. Especially if they did it up Bollywood-style. I am now envisioning a mix CD with a version like that, a German neo-mediaeval one with bagpipes (maybe by Tanzwut - if they can do it to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", they can do anything), a salsa version in Spanish, and all kinds of others. Seriously, that would rock.
On the bright side, I am now more motivated than ever to eventually take the Hindi course on Livemocha (once I have finished all their Spanish and French courses and made some headway on Dutch, that is). Just so I can translate "O Canada" into Hindi. Because really, someone should.