When I first saw Saving Private Ryan, the character I attached to almost immmediately after hearing his story was "Corporal Upham", who was brought on the near-suicide mission because he spoke French and German. Granted, wars are not expected to pop up in large European countries anytime soon, but in a way I've shaken in my boots since watching the scene in which Upham is recruited, causing me to imagine myself in his shoes almost simultaneously. In light of me having gotten my selective service card today in the mail (surprise!), the subject of what I would do with myself were I ever to be in a multilingual war has been scurrying about in my head. In the end, if either Spanish or French were primary languages of said hypothetical conflict, I would opt to be an interpreter. But is such a post any more or less dangerous than that of a unilingual, traditional footsoldier?
In the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, translators and intepreters face much of the same dangers as Coalition forces do. Although the large majority of interpreters are native to the particular country, they risk being killed if found out; to many communities, working with the U.S. military equates you with being a traitor. Some interpreters even hide when the find out they might be called up for an imminent job. Even more risky to the survival of soldiers, civilians, and missions, however, is the fact that many interpreters do not speak fluently some of the languages they say they do. An interpreter named only as Yousef--for security reasons--said that a town's pastures for grazing, populated by and governmentally designated for a myriad of livestock, were mortared and destroyed due to Yousef's confusion of the army word "illume" (for "flare") with "mortar" in the language of Pashto, which he had lied about speaking fluently. The livestock were largely massacred and the ISAF (international forces) had to repay the villagers. It gets worse; whole towns of civilians have been destroyed due to misunderstood army messages (which even a fluent speaker of both English and Pashto would have a hard time understanding and translating without a solid comprehension of official army jargon). In our contemporary wars, this may portray an image of interpreters being incompetent and not worth our time. The opposite, however, can also be true.
Army Lt. Jason Faler grew so close with friend and translator Walid while in Iraq that Faler chose Walid as one of the very first people to hear of the Lieutenant's new child--news he recieved and happily dispersed while on duty in Baghdad. Since returning to the States, Lt. Faler has started the Checkpoint One Foundation, a fund that seeks to bring interpreters from Iraq and Afghanistan to the United States for a safer existence. Walid was the first recipient of this token of gratitude by the Lieutenant; since then, Faler has helped an Afghani couple move from San Francisco to a cheaper Portland, Oregon area suburb by the Falers for support. Since then, with help from :Lt. Faler to establish bank accounts, a steady income, and other fundamental components of a healthy life, the couple has been able to move to the East Coast and provide proudly for themselves. Faler hopes that someone with a stronger economic foundation can soon take the reigns of the Foundation to give a larger contingent of interpreters the free lives they deserve.
In the end, the dynamics of the relationship between soldiers and interpreters, as with interpreters and the success of missions in their native countries remain as murky as a botched translation itself. But who can deny the bravery of going against the expectations and threats of one's own community to help him or herself survive and/or to help along a cause that is misunderstood and rued within his/her society? To what extent ought we re-evaluate the interpreter-making process? In a conflict that so fundamentally relies upon good communication from one side to the other, interpretation is, no matter what, a subject that cannot be ignored or--even worse--intentionally cast aside in lieu of less co-operative military action.
What do you think?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Happy Valentine's Day!: How Far We've Come Since the Days of Knights, Maidens, and "Courtly Love."
Happy Valentine's Day to all! Now go out and smooch everyone who looks like they may be a good suitor!
Alright, mayyyybe that wasn't such a good idea. A bit drastic (just maybe)? Alright, how about this: let's assume you have a lover or significant other, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, wife-o, huzzy, etc. Now, assuming you can, go to that person and either tell him/her a sweet little something (or a sweet nothing), maybe profess your love, or just give him/her a kiss and some chocolate. Whatever else you choose to do with your time is your own business, but at least the large majority of Western, American society accepts the romanticism of your illicit or explicit actions. We're not going to enjoy PDA, in large part, but, hey, it's Valentine's Day--to many of us, it's simply what coupled-up people do today. And, despite the relatively new phenomenon of open romanticism within Western culture, we take it for granted.
As with many popular holidays, Valentine's Day earns the phrase "things weren't always this way." Just as Christmas didn't start out with a fat man in a red suit, but rather a holy, slim one in a robe/loin cloth variation, (St.) Valentine's Day didn't start out all hugs, kisses, and tums with "hug me" on them. In fact, it started with a priest who was martyred in the third Century C.E./A.D. Legend tells that he was executed for marrying Roman soldiers; apparently, the emperor of the time thought his soldiers would be stronger unmarried. So yes, Valentine's execution was due to his faith in preserving love (the soldiers he was marrying to women on the front were not exactly of the high-and-mighty, chaste variety). However, as Rome became Catholic in the coming centuries and the influence of the church reached across the kingdoms of Europe, St. Valentine's Day was adopted under very different pretenses: to warn against the sexual, carnal, and thereby infernal motivation of pagan marriage and to promote the more civil, God-approved binding of the Christian marriage. This strict ideological and religious thought regimen was so ingrained in Catholic European society that, in the 12th Century, a book (a rulebook, in many ways) called "De Amore," written by Frenchman Andreas Capellanus (Andre de Chaplain"), was published and strictly adhered to. In English Society, this oeuvre became known as "The Art of Courtly Love."
In this Art of Courtly Love, he who is not jealous cannot love; when made public love rarely endures; every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved; when one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor; and a new love puts flight to an old one. I would argue that in contemporary society--with the exception of the widow rule, which I simply found entertainingly arbitrary and rigid--the notes Capellanus/Chaplain was actually making were statements concerning infatuation, whether he recognized it or not. People who enjoy long bouts of love with another individual do not always turn white upon seeing them; think of married couples who put up with each other's imperfections every day and yet still find a way to love them--there's no misguided, head-over-heels depigmentation going on every day in that relationship. Therefore, to me, it appears that the intense passion of infatuation (likely brought about by the fact that everyone had to appear almost rigidly asexual in proper, high society--until bedroom doors were closed) was what was being guarded against so steadfastly by the Catholic church. But, happily, things changed once the world became a bigger place...
I'm simply hypothesizing here, but I'm willing to bet that the expansion of Spanish conquistadors and French fur trappers in South and North America, respectively, after Columbus's discovery of the New World put love, and at the very least, passion, "in vogue." Yes, both societies were strongly and contentiously "more-Catholic-than-thou," and the pope and everyone back home in Europe would have hoped that Jean-Jacques and Cristobal remained chaste and moral-driven in that inhuman wilderness, but the sheer amount of disease spread through sexual and interpersonal contact in Latin America and the Caribbean show that this was not the reality in the early colonization period. Early on, the metis and mestizo populations of the French and Spanish interactions with natives served as our earliest evidence that not all was kept pure in the New World treasure chest. Andthen to make matters more sexual and love-oriented (I would argue), the Spanish and French kings both sent their variations of "the Daughters of the King" (Las Hijas del Rey/ Les Filles du Roi) to the colonies to literally propogate new Spains and Frances. Now, let's imagine a situation: Jean-Jaques has just met Josephine; she came in to port at Quebec a few days ago, and JJ has been eyeing her at the local "tavern" ever since. JJ's going off into the wilderness soon to catch some beaver pelts, and, without the influence of parents or an overly-apparent high society to dictate their actions, JJ and Josephine have a night on the town, and, shortly before he takes his three months in the woods, they are married by the local chaplain.
Whether or not the old Catholic guard of Europe would have approved of so casual and impulsive a marriage, they Kings sent women over with this intention in mind: to make children and spread France's/Spain's colonial influence. It is simply my argument that the new presence of independence and income (gained through men who could, for the first time, come from nothing and gain serious yearly winnings for their, say, beaver pelt sales) made a much more inviting, cultivating environment for love as we know it today. And, in a new world where you may freeze to death, contract malaria, or be killed by non-ally natives or hunger, and where you had a revolutionary sense of independence...why not fall in love? Why not rely on someone for support not only because they have money, but also due to that emotional warmth that comes from them may be the very heat that gets you through the winter every year?
I suppose, in the end, on this very Happy Valentine's Day for so many of us out there, I would just hope that people realize how far we've come, and contemplate how they can incorporate love into their lives no matter the rules or expectations of their society. After all, as I've tried to show here, people have been breaking the rules of Courtly Love for a milennium. Heck, if you don't like chocolate, give someone a heart-shaped Korean red bean pod package for Valentine's Day. Go ahead and take some of the rebellion pie for yourself. And if your chance at love this Valentine's Day was lost, remember that there's always next year (and that you might want to thank ol' JJ, Josephine, and Cristobal for that lurvely luxury).
Alright, mayyyybe that wasn't such a good idea. A bit drastic (just maybe)? Alright, how about this: let's assume you have a lover or significant other, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, wife-o, huzzy, etc. Now, assuming you can, go to that person and either tell him/her a sweet little something (or a sweet nothing), maybe profess your love, or just give him/her a kiss and some chocolate. Whatever else you choose to do with your time is your own business, but at least the large majority of Western, American society accepts the romanticism of your illicit or explicit actions. We're not going to enjoy PDA, in large part, but, hey, it's Valentine's Day--to many of us, it's simply what coupled-up people do today. And, despite the relatively new phenomenon of open romanticism within Western culture, we take it for granted.
As with many popular holidays, Valentine's Day earns the phrase "things weren't always this way." Just as Christmas didn't start out with a fat man in a red suit, but rather a holy, slim one in a robe/loin cloth variation, (St.) Valentine's Day didn't start out all hugs, kisses, and tums with "hug me" on them. In fact, it started with a priest who was martyred in the third Century C.E./A.D. Legend tells that he was executed for marrying Roman soldiers; apparently, the emperor of the time thought his soldiers would be stronger unmarried. So yes, Valentine's execution was due to his faith in preserving love (the soldiers he was marrying to women on the front were not exactly of the high-and-mighty, chaste variety). However, as Rome became Catholic in the coming centuries and the influence of the church reached across the kingdoms of Europe, St. Valentine's Day was adopted under very different pretenses: to warn against the sexual, carnal, and thereby infernal motivation of pagan marriage and to promote the more civil, God-approved binding of the Christian marriage. This strict ideological and religious thought regimen was so ingrained in Catholic European society that, in the 12th Century, a book (a rulebook, in many ways) called "De Amore," written by Frenchman Andreas Capellanus (Andre de Chaplain"), was published and strictly adhered to. In English Society, this oeuvre became known as "The Art of Courtly Love."
In this Art of Courtly Love, he who is not jealous cannot love; when made public love rarely endures; every lover regularly turns pale in the presence of his beloved; when one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor; and a new love puts flight to an old one. I would argue that in contemporary society--with the exception of the widow rule, which I simply found entertainingly arbitrary and rigid--the notes Capellanus/Chaplain was actually making were statements concerning infatuation, whether he recognized it or not. People who enjoy long bouts of love with another individual do not always turn white upon seeing them; think of married couples who put up with each other's imperfections every day and yet still find a way to love them--there's no misguided, head-over-heels depigmentation going on every day in that relationship. Therefore, to me, it appears that the intense passion of infatuation (likely brought about by the fact that everyone had to appear almost rigidly asexual in proper, high society--until bedroom doors were closed) was what was being guarded against so steadfastly by the Catholic church. But, happily, things changed once the world became a bigger place...
I'm simply hypothesizing here, but I'm willing to bet that the expansion of Spanish conquistadors and French fur trappers in South and North America, respectively, after Columbus's discovery of the New World put love, and at the very least, passion, "in vogue." Yes, both societies were strongly and contentiously "more-Catholic-than-thou," and the pope and everyone back home in Europe would have hoped that Jean-Jacques and Cristobal remained chaste and moral-driven in that inhuman wilderness, but the sheer amount of disease spread through sexual and interpersonal contact in Latin America and the Caribbean show that this was not the reality in the early colonization period. Early on, the metis and mestizo populations of the French and Spanish interactions with natives served as our earliest evidence that not all was kept pure in the New World treasure chest. Andthen to make matters more sexual and love-oriented (I would argue), the Spanish and French kings both sent their variations of "the Daughters of the King" (Las Hijas del Rey/ Les Filles du Roi) to the colonies to literally propogate new Spains and Frances. Now, let's imagine a situation: Jean-Jaques has just met Josephine; she came in to port at Quebec a few days ago, and JJ has been eyeing her at the local "tavern" ever since. JJ's going off into the wilderness soon to catch some beaver pelts, and, without the influence of parents or an overly-apparent high society to dictate their actions, JJ and Josephine have a night on the town, and, shortly before he takes his three months in the woods, they are married by the local chaplain.
Whether or not the old Catholic guard of Europe would have approved of so casual and impulsive a marriage, they Kings sent women over with this intention in mind: to make children and spread France's/Spain's colonial influence. It is simply my argument that the new presence of independence and income (gained through men who could, for the first time, come from nothing and gain serious yearly winnings for their, say, beaver pelt sales) made a much more inviting, cultivating environment for love as we know it today. And, in a new world where you may freeze to death, contract malaria, or be killed by non-ally natives or hunger, and where you had a revolutionary sense of independence...why not fall in love? Why not rely on someone for support not only because they have money, but also due to that emotional warmth that comes from them may be the very heat that gets you through the winter every year?
I suppose, in the end, on this very Happy Valentine's Day for so many of us out there, I would just hope that people realize how far we've come, and contemplate how they can incorporate love into their lives no matter the rules or expectations of their society. After all, as I've tried to show here, people have been breaking the rules of Courtly Love for a milennium. Heck, if you don't like chocolate, give someone a heart-shaped Korean red bean pod package for Valentine's Day. Go ahead and take some of the rebellion pie for yourself. And if your chance at love this Valentine's Day was lost, remember that there's always next year (and that you might want to thank ol' JJ, Josephine, and Cristobal for that lurvely luxury).
Monday, February 7, 2011
Just How Important Is Language?
Above this paragraph is the explanation of what it is like to be prosecuted. How so? It's blank space, after all.
Well, the man in question is deaf, mute, and illiterate in Spanish and American sign language. And he's being prosecuted as a drug mule. And, if you can wrap your head around it, that blank space above us doesn't show a lack of intelligence, but, rather, an absolute void in the space where language would be. This is a man without language.
How does anyone function without some form of language or of grammar, you ask? What does such a person do?
Well, in this case, much to the chagrin of prosecutors, the man makes the perfect, unbreakable, "brings-"strong-and-silent-type"-to-a-whole-new-level" drug mule.
In my personal opinion, just how many more there could be like him or how these individuals get this way are not the most important questions to ask. The world has so many billions of possibilities for the turnout of someone's life that I am compelled to argue that we ought not even be surprised by this man's ultimate illiteracy. To me, it is instead what we can gather about human expression from this case that is most fascinating and beneficial.
Unfortunately for Juan Jose Gonzalez Luna, this court case has cast a light not only on his less-than-angelic activity, but also on a new way of looking at the subject of human communication that has rarely, if ever, been presented in this light. This situation brings up many questions: are words more effective than images in human brains, in general, outside of their obvious advantage in rapid communication? In other words, given that Luna only has images and pantomime to display his thoughts or process the actions of others, does this imply that images are just as effective as words in processing images within the human brain? Granted, all brains are unique in how they best receive and analyze information, but what can we learn from this man?
In political parties, is yelling across the aisle something that's going to gain you supporters, or will a graph or presentation proving the worth of your opinions have much more success at the same task? There are both auditory and visual learners, and many times, learning which is simply visual is determined "artistic" and, sadly, less worthy of our esteem than lectures on more conventional, strictly job world-oriented subjects.
If you had no voice, no hearing, and seemingly no way of making yourself understood at all times by at least one person in the world, how would you choose to express yourself. I feel as though that would open up more time to artistic musings and exploration--assuming one is less expected to contribute to the continuing mechanics of society when they simply cannot communicate, there could be an incredible amount of time dedicated toward digging up one's creativity and developing new ways to perceive and interpret the world. Therefore, although we may determine individuals like Luna as lesser contributors to conventional society, people with similar conditions to his could be much-overlooked idea tanks. And, perhaps most importantly, if that is the true, then how to we as a society access the information floating around in mute, illiterate, deaf individuals?
This is a very new topic to me, and I simply found its subject matter very conducive to hypothesizing and analyzing the nature of our perception of language. If you have any ideas of your own on the possible efficacy or secret benefits to having such a condition, please let me know! Let's let this topic build up steam and really grow.
Well, the man in question is deaf, mute, and illiterate in Spanish and American sign language. And he's being prosecuted as a drug mule. And, if you can wrap your head around it, that blank space above us doesn't show a lack of intelligence, but, rather, an absolute void in the space where language would be. This is a man without language.
How does anyone function without some form of language or of grammar, you ask? What does such a person do?
Well, in this case, much to the chagrin of prosecutors, the man makes the perfect, unbreakable, "brings-"strong-and-silent-type"-to-a-whole-new-level" drug mule.
In my personal opinion, just how many more there could be like him or how these individuals get this way are not the most important questions to ask. The world has so many billions of possibilities for the turnout of someone's life that I am compelled to argue that we ought not even be surprised by this man's ultimate illiteracy. To me, it is instead what we can gather about human expression from this case that is most fascinating and beneficial.
Unfortunately for Juan Jose Gonzalez Luna, this court case has cast a light not only on his less-than-angelic activity, but also on a new way of looking at the subject of human communication that has rarely, if ever, been presented in this light. This situation brings up many questions: are words more effective than images in human brains, in general, outside of their obvious advantage in rapid communication? In other words, given that Luna only has images and pantomime to display his thoughts or process the actions of others, does this imply that images are just as effective as words in processing images within the human brain? Granted, all brains are unique in how they best receive and analyze information, but what can we learn from this man?
In political parties, is yelling across the aisle something that's going to gain you supporters, or will a graph or presentation proving the worth of your opinions have much more success at the same task? There are both auditory and visual learners, and many times, learning which is simply visual is determined "artistic" and, sadly, less worthy of our esteem than lectures on more conventional, strictly job world-oriented subjects.
If you had no voice, no hearing, and seemingly no way of making yourself understood at all times by at least one person in the world, how would you choose to express yourself. I feel as though that would open up more time to artistic musings and exploration--assuming one is less expected to contribute to the continuing mechanics of society when they simply cannot communicate, there could be an incredible amount of time dedicated toward digging up one's creativity and developing new ways to perceive and interpret the world. Therefore, although we may determine individuals like Luna as lesser contributors to conventional society, people with similar conditions to his could be much-overlooked idea tanks. And, perhaps most importantly, if that is the true, then how to we as a society access the information floating around in mute, illiterate, deaf individuals?
This is a very new topic to me, and I simply found its subject matter very conducive to hypothesizing and analyzing the nature of our perception of language. If you have any ideas of your own on the possible efficacy or secret benefits to having such a condition, please let me know! Let's let this topic build up steam and really grow.
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