hmmm.. the new racism?
Well I feel like an idiot for not guessing this at the time. Apparrently the slur to make a calm frenchman morph into crazy frenchman was not so much a racist one.. well, not exactly.
According to today's SMH the "headbutt incident" was possibly triggered by the french/albanian *thanx kate* being called a terrorist
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-cup-2006/i-didnt-call-zz-a-terrorist/2006/07/11/1152383711330.html
It's an interesting thought. One i've had many times over the last couple of years. Now that people are generally aware of the danger of making racist slurs in public it seems that the easiest way around this is to call someone a terrorist. Which, let's face it, is generally always motivated by underlying racism.. yet dicks like bush and howard have made the "terrorist" label a socially acceptable way of being as openly racist as you like. As long as it's "justified" by danger, real or imagined, to.. well, anyone.
I remember chatting to a friend of mine one time who is muslim and used to wear the headscarf. Post 2001 she stopped. Why?? Because even in the supposedly enlightened (ha!) environment of sydney uni she used to get people being offensively rude to her. Because only terrorists wear any sort of head covering, everyone knows that. And I remember being shocked in the last few years that it's become acceptable to be shockingly discriminatory to kids, adults, all australian citizens based on the fact that they may choose to wear cultural clothing in the shape of a headscarf.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally naive about the very real extremists in every society. Weirdly enough I apparently went to preschool with one of the london bombers, and one of australia's only "terrorist" suspects went to high school with my little bro. But I also know that in reality the real nutters tend to look exactly like anyone else on the street.
Interesting times..
According to today's SMH the "headbutt incident" was possibly triggered by the french/albanian *thanx kate* being called a terrorist
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world-cup-2006/i-didnt-call-zz-a-terrorist/2006/07/11/1152383711330.html
It's an interesting thought. One i've had many times over the last couple of years. Now that people are generally aware of the danger of making racist slurs in public it seems that the easiest way around this is to call someone a terrorist. Which, let's face it, is generally always motivated by underlying racism.. yet dicks like bush and howard have made the "terrorist" label a socially acceptable way of being as openly racist as you like. As long as it's "justified" by danger, real or imagined, to.. well, anyone.
I remember chatting to a friend of mine one time who is muslim and used to wear the headscarf. Post 2001 she stopped. Why?? Because even in the supposedly enlightened (ha!) environment of sydney uni she used to get people being offensively rude to her. Because only terrorists wear any sort of head covering, everyone knows that. And I remember being shocked in the last few years that it's become acceptable to be shockingly discriminatory to kids, adults, all australian citizens based on the fact that they may choose to wear cultural clothing in the shape of a headscarf.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally naive about the very real extremists in every society. Weirdly enough I apparently went to preschool with one of the london bombers, and one of australia's only "terrorist" suspects went to high school with my little bro. But I also know that in reality the real nutters tend to look exactly like anyone else on the street.
Interesting times..