(no subject)
I am reading a book by Thomas Friedman: The Lexus and the Olive Tree. I remember a Scholars event that I went to sometime last spring about the banning of head scarves (a Muslim thing) in France. It was just a discussion, and we covered more topics than just that and as all discussions do, it broadened to include other problems. I specifically remember thinking that there was something missing from what we were talking about. One girl was very adamant about tolerance and everybody fitting together to live peacefully. Friedman writes that the Lexus is the globalization that has been taking the world by storm since the end of the Cold War while the Olive Tree represents the roots that everyone has, no matter how small they might be. He references the story of Cain and Able to present the things that are most important to people in this world, one of them being a sense of identity and community. He asserts that people cannot be complete without a groundedness in some sort of community. I realized that the Olive Tree was what was missing from our discussion on France. The Lexus was struggling with the Olive Tree. France wanted its citizens to maintain their French identity before anything else (always a big France thing.) So France wishes to hold on to its roots and in doing so fights against the "Lexus" by repressing its citizens' religious practices. The Lexus here being the mixture (or globalization) of cultures. Friedman says that there must be a balance between the two.
The book is really an interesting read and I am only on page 44 of just under 500. It talks about one culture in particular that I really loved to read about. A small village in a remote area of the Brazilian Amazon rain forest has fought to maintain its traditional village life by keeping up on the global price of gold to make sure that they were charging the right prices for the mining that they let small miners do on the edges of their property. They also have deals with conservationist organizations to help protect their part of the rain forest. Amazing!
The book is really an interesting read and I am only on page 44 of just under 500. It talks about one culture in particular that I really loved to read about. A small village in a remote area of the Brazilian Amazon rain forest has fought to maintain its traditional village life by keeping up on the global price of gold to make sure that they were charging the right prices for the mining that they let small miners do on the edges of their property. They also have deals with conservationist organizations to help protect their part of the rain forest. Amazing!