Curious Ralph: Curious and Frustrated
Ralph had had it up to here. Because, on some level, he liked to torture himself - he was reading Bob Woodward’s Bush at War. A friend had leant it to him, warning that it was superficially fascinating, if glib. Ralph was sick of the front cover: a stern portrait of President Bush, left eyebrow raised with the left side of his mouth down-turned in the familiar expression of resolution. His neck was unexpectedly jowly, a flap of loose skin Ralph had never noticed before.Ralph finally decided that the only way he could finish the book was to remove the jacket cover.
The
fact that people were ragging on the French, coming up with all sorts
of absurdly juvenile and paranoid notions for their lack of support of
the United States’ policy toward Iraq, added to Ralph’s dyspepsia. He
had recalled that during World War I, when Germany was actually a true
enemy, similar sentiment in The United States resulted in sauerkraut
being renamed "liberty cabbage" and American symphony orchestras
refusing to play Beethoven. So far, French fries had been renamed
"freedom fries" and a very conservative right wing political
organization, The United Coalition, had organized a seeming boycott of
anything French, including "champaigne" and any cheese or wine labeled
"made in france". Ralph thought misspelling and improper capitalization
were an unintentional form of scorn and denigration.
There
were reports of videos of redneck bars in the United States being shown
in France with carousers pouring French wines down the toilet. “What a
shame,” thought Ralph, who considered any red French wine sacrosanct
and worthy of drinking no matter the cost. He prided himself on
swilling bottles of Cabernet he’d purchased for less than a euro.
Then
there was the confounding issue of anti-Semitism. Ralph had received an
anonymous e-mail about anti-Semitic incidents that had taken place in
France over the past two years. The stories of the Vichy government and
the bias, on the part of some historians, that the anti-Semitism lay
just below the surface of French culture never had really bothered
Ralph, enamored as he was of France.
He
traced his infatuation back to a summer camp he attended at age twelve,
the first of his sexually formative years: he had fallen in love with a
bronze skinned and willowy girl named Martine. She was from Martinique
and aside from her captivating beauty; she spoke English with a
seductive French accent. Ralph would imitate her accent as he was
falling asleep in the “Green Peace” cabin. In this upscale and
progressive camp in the Maine woods all the campers’ cabins were named
after environmental organizations. Martine was Catholique, fact that
made her even more exotique.
The
first time he visited a cathedral in France, Ralph thought about his
childhood experiences with Catholics. Martine was one; Randy was
another. Ralph had to walk past St. Augustine’s Catholic School on his
way to temple for Hebrew school once a week; Randy, flat-topped and
not-quite-buck-toothed would taunt him. It was his first conscious
acknowledgment of anti-Semitism.
Now
some fifty years later the issue had become much both less personal and
politically complex. Ralph had become an occasional holiday Jew:
celebrating only those holidays that appealed to him for one reason or
another. Passover usually and always Yom Kippur. Living in the West he
and his brother would do their annual Fish and Fast until sundown. They
would take off for a small stream in the mountains surrounding Salt
Lake in the morning and return for a family break-the-fast dinner.
Ralph had not attended synagogue for thirteen years, but that was
another story.
The way he saw
it, in the current political clime, just because anyone (an individual,
country, agency or whatever) did not support Israel’s policies in the
Mideast did not make him/them anti-Semitic. Here was a case where
politics and religion did not necessarily mix. Morality was hardly ever
discussed. Some fervent Zionists Ralph knew considered any country’s
opposition to full American backing of Israel’s handling of the
Palestine issue as anti-Semitic. When he pointed out the ironic support
the Bush-wacky Christian right wing gave to Israel (as part of their
Armageddon theology) they had no rational answer. The issue of Israel
was hardly discussed in any of Salt Lake’s Jewish constituencies. Ralph
knew this only from friends since, in deference to Groucho Marx, he
would not join any congregation that would have him as a member.
So
Ralph suffered not so silently. He sent e-mails dripping with outrage.
He watched the president’s repetitive press conference on March 6th and
counted the number of time he mispronounced "nuclear". Bush’s
pronunciation (NEW-KEW-LER) had always driven him crazy and Ralph had
written The White House about this suggesting proper pronunciation
might increase the President’s credibility; he did not receive even the
courtesy of a response nor an invitation to a White House tour.
To
soothe his perturbed spirit he thought about his next trip to France.
He considered that the current American Franco-phobia would simply
reinforce a section of French society’s view that some Americans were
boorish, crass, narcissistic, loud with no sense of history or couth.
It would not affect him or his trip in July 2003. The French had always
appreciated him, he knew. He spoke fluent enough French, appreciated
everything he encountered on every trip he had made, and was able to
give himself up to the moment. Even his faux pas were endearing.
As
he continued to try to understand the complexities of incipient war
against Iraq he was intrigued by the excellently detailed report in
Bonjour Paris by Marion Nowak (March 6, 2003, Volume 1, Issue 13)
reviewing the fallout of the acrimonious Security Council debate. US
Ambassador Howard Leach, who purportedly does not speak French, was
extensively quoted in Le Monde urging France to make up its mind about
the Iraqi crisis. Ralph read the piece, intrigued with the possibility
that a shift might be occurring in political attitudes but he could not
get beyond the reality that the ambassador to a noble and trusted ally
was not conversant with the language of the country to which he was
assigned. Unpardonable, he thought, foolish. Obviously the Bush
Administration had no grip on the concept of either diplomatic
propriety or chutzpah. The French, Ralph knew, understood both.
--
Louis Borgenicht is a pediatrician/writer living in SLC, Utah. He's the co-author, with his son Joe, of The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance.
Louis Borgenicht is a pediatrician/writer living in SLC, Utah. He's the co-author, with his son Joe, of The Baby Owner's Manual: Operating Instructions, Trouble-Shooting Tips, and Advice on First-Year Maintenance.
