Backwards or Brainwashed?

I know an English person who on his first visit to Serbia had discovered sweets called 'Negro'. He's first thought was black people, but we had a chimney sweeper on a packaging.

Do you think Montenegro should change its name?

Political correctness is pure social programming... Why would anyone agree to that...??? It's a cliche, but you should really break the matrix in your head.

If you'd _think positive_ about people and stuff you're talking about why would you need PC speech then??? It always seemed to me that PC is just a manifestation of very deep rooted cynicsm.

If you'd treat gypsies, blacks, indians, mexicans, homosexuals, serbs, albanians, croats, women, men, etc. like they really deserve you wouldn't need any PC speech, would you???

I'm against PC. Let's our _acts_ judge about ourselves and what we think about others.

called 'agencija za sve i svasta' on pink tv - trash soap opera - some actresses have their faces painted in brawn and have the ‘talk’ and all the stereotypes that gipsy people supposable have. i would say: serbia is backwards… sadly, but true.

By the way, one football commentator on BBC's World Cup coverage repeatedly referred to Serbia and Montenegro as Serbinegro.

Considering the long isolation of Serbia from the West, things could be even worse. There is a long Serbian tradition of Albanians being second class citizens, Gypsies third.

On the other hand, I regard your luck of response to blog comments as very politically incorrect! That is the easiest way to offend your hosts. So un-American...

LP MMM, Ljubljana

speech is, in my humble opinion, a mask (bad one, too) meant to discipline those who have frequent outbursts of racism, sexism and what have you. It bears no actual value since as soon as it is introduced people know what it was introduced against, ergo, the proposed value of such speech is lost. If your general attitude is messed up, no amount of "politically correct speech" will change, in fact, I'm prone to believe that it will only provoke people to express their opinions more loudly since PC is for a fact an intrusion on the freedom of speech. Early education against narrow-mindedness is the only cure for ailments such as racism etc. PC tries to educate a mind already formed. It's like trying to teach a pig to sing, really - it wastes time and it annoys the pig.

Just two points dealing with cultural perception:

-"Blackface", the minstrel entertainment stereotype laden with racism, simply doesn't exist in Serbia.
Serbia really had no significant contact with black people (or whatever the PC word is outside the US, since I can't use African American here) before the 1960s and the Non Aligned Movement. Hence, no racism of the type that existed in the US and no entertainment or anything else focused on it. No Aunt Jemima, no picaninny, no 'darkie' stereotypes. After the Non Aligned were formed, what with the African leaders regularly checking in here and construction and other workers from Yugoslavia regularly going to work in African countries, people got to know other people in a relatively friendly environment, so no hostility or racism of that kind developed.
So, when you see someone with black paint on his/her face around here, it really is just a dress up game. That's what it is for the one doing it, and that's how it will be perceived by anyone watching.

-"Black continent" - Vuk Draskovic didn't invent this term, it goes back decades (perhaps a full century). Same as before, when people here came in contact with Africa, the basic perception was that black people lived there - hence, "black continent". That doesn't carry a bad ring to it either (or at least it didn't), it's just an old word that stuck.

While the rest of your entry rings true, I felt I should correct these two issues. Unfortunately, we have racism here allright, but it's different from that in the US, it has developed in a different way and it's directed at different people...

I don't think there's anything wrong with calling Africa "the black continent" just as I wouldn't see anything wrong with Africans calling Europe "the white continent." The major part of African population is black, just as the majority of Europeans are white. That is a mere fact and it certainly doesn't imply that one is somehow superior to the other.

You say that by labeling the continent as black

Then you deduce it is

I was listening to a radio show that is very big in the States the other day, one of the largest syndicated "live" radio talk shows today, and a soldier who served in Iraq called in. Now, the biggest thing for the past month was the "nappy headed hoes" affair, so now they're not allowed to use "nappy" or "hoes" either. But they saw no problem in laughing their asses off when the soldier, talking about Iraq, said:
"They tell us that we're supposed to win their hearts and minds and we say - two in the heart and one in the mind."

listen

And you're talking about being backward? Please, don’t be a hypocrite.

I’m apologizing for the longitude of the post, but my argument cannot possible be shorter without loss of it's genuine meaning.
Cultural sensitiveness demands a wholesome system of assumptions on the political reality; above all, it yearns to answer the question of the status of minority - be it cultural or any other kind, though it may be claimed that eventually every deviation blends in the political pool - as different from the mainstream population. I disagree with the popular view, especially so on the liberal end of our political spectrum, which claims a prior inclusiveness of any type of political minorities: it is at the heart of every nation's being to set up the rules by which it will pursue its own goals conducive to its own happiness. If so, those minorities that threaten to undermine these rules should be dealt with accordingly. Certainly, to this may be objected by pointing to the doctrine of human rights based on some philosophical papers (above all, Kant's papers), that this self-conduct and self-assertion is not limitless but rather has its limits on the inalienable dignity of every human; however, if we apply the above mentioned line of thought to our own problem, one can hardly miss to point out that the minority, i.e., Gypsies in their own self-conduct and self-assertion threaten those very rules of conduct conducive to Serbia's own happiness: most of "them" are simply not civilized enough. To those who might loath the above mentioned statement as racialist or even fascistic, I suggest not to forget that, first, I didn't say that just because someone is not civilized, should be mistreated in any way or even that civilization is ipso facto GOOD, but rather that the society has every right in the public discourse (also in every day communication) to name and consequently denounce as unacceptable everything it DEEMS wrong. However, there exist limits on what can be and what can't be done while pursuing this "moral purity", such as: do not kill, be not biased...
To finish the argument, I will say that to call a Gypsy a " Rom" is wrong for the following reasons: Gypsy is a name which serves to mark one group of the human beings that distinguishes itself through the history as being less disciplined or less civilized than the other European nations; if so, these nations have every right to change that and you change the order of the things by rightly denominating what is in the front of your eyes (to those that might say that it is incorrect to call a Gypsy less civilized because those characteristics are the very feature of Gypsy’s being, I have to adduce the following quote "We believe that failing to call a spade a spade is not scientific" - Leo Strauss). Therefore, by calling a Gypsy a Gypsy one is not only being benevolent (since one is ONLY making verbal statements, and though these statements may produce some acts of violence, they are not even remotely similar in effect to some other ways of treating Gypsies to be found through European history - it must be borne in mind what has happened to Gypsies in Germany, Slovakia... ) but one is also doing justice to the truth.

PC is gay
(South Park)

It looks at both sides of the argument, provides a balanced look at the issue, and that is something you can teach an average Serb. Culturally Serbs tend to take extreme positions on everything, and have very little tolerance for opposing opinion.
In the case of Political Correctness, I believe the answer should be somewhere in the middle, in between US obsesive use of it, and Serbian complete disregard for it.
If something offends your fellow human being, such as calling them Gypsie, than don't call them that, even if you did not mean anything bad by it.

as it is used today, is the royal road to hypocrisy. Or, as the Chinese proverb says: "Politeness is the highest art of insult" (Loosely translated into Serbian: Ljubaznost je vrhunski oblik preziranja.).

PC reminds me of the famous dialogue in "Casablanca":

Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.

To give an example: about a month ago, Don Imus was fired from his post at CBS for using the expression "nippy hos" (kuzdrave kurve) when refering to Rutgers University basketball team. Now, this guy Imus has been using the "n" word for years, plus various other obscenities - that was his trademark - when, all of a sudden, somebody is "shocked, shocked" to find out that this has been going on.
Now, I am not suggesting that we should not choose our words when refering to race, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, social class, intelligence, or whatever other trait people are discriminated against.
But, insisting on political correctness at all cost simply backfires at its purpose. So in the Chapelle show, for instance, every other word is raciar slur (he can do it, he is African-American), Queeria liberally uses the word "peder" (he can do it, his sexual orientation protects him), Red Star fans refer to themselves as "Cigani", there is a Zigeuner Schnitzel as a popular dish in Germany, Bobi Solo won San Remo song contest with "Zingara". The use of such incorrect words is really a matter of context. Forcing PC down our throats, makes most people throw them back with much larger force and venom.
As with every other good idea, one should use PC with reason and moderation. Otherwise it turns into its opposite, just as the Chinese proverb describes above. And more than a billion yellow people can not be all that wrong.

P.S.
And, by the way, Lucy, "backwards" as an adverb means:
back·wards /-w&rdz/
Function: adverb
1 a : toward the back b : with the back foremost
2 a : in a reverse or contrary direction or way;

usually describes reverse physical direction, or means, of doing things

While "backward" means:
Main Entry: backward
Function: noun
: the part behind or past

i.e., the old-fashioned, simple, or unsophisticated way of acting or behaving (cf. Serbian: "zaostao".)

So, shouldn't your blog be titled "Backward or Brainwashed" to be PC?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZLGQAVSkPo

as you said before " One could even argue that not only does language not bear weight on reality, but that politically correct language can actually serve to mask it, giving society a false sense of progress in the arena of long-stagnate issues.."

I agree with this statement. I am sure that any verbal oppression is defamatory to us but at least we know the true and it’s alongside what freedom of speech suppose to be. as you know even with all these laws that's protecting PC at least in US, racism is extremely strong and deep-rooted.

a year or two back, when Tiger Woods played badly at a tournament and said afterwards that he played as a "complete spaz". About a nanosecond later a lot of cerebral palsy charities protested and demanded an apology from him because he offended people who suffered from that disease and what not. Now, the whole thing didn't die down for weeks, despite the fact that Woods repeatedly apologized, the fact that he was obviously only refering to himself, that he only used the term as an idiom and that it really wasn't an offense against anybody other than him.

As one journalist quite correctly remarked, are we to expect charities for vision impaired persons to riot the next time someone watches a football match and says that the referee is blind? Everything has to be put into context, making everything PC for it's own sake is ridiculous and doesn't help making people more tolerant - they're just intolerant in a more accepted way.

"Political correctness" is not a new phenomenon. Take a look at Orwell's Newspeak in "1984" (mein gott, 1984 was such a good year ... but I digress.) Changing the perception is almost always cheaper than changing the reality and has measurable pacification effects.

So what is new with PC today? The new thing is its deep reach to subjects via mass media and the education system, and US is leading in this trend. Whoever hasn't been exposed to the modern american Newspeak will have trouble understanding this - no country in europe has anything remotely similar to this adopted on the popular level.

For instance, it was OK in London to refer to my faggot friends as faggots. Try to do that in US of A. I could get away with that only with real faggots - everyone else would get seriously and genuinly pissed at me. You must call them "gays". Although many are rather sulky and not gay at all.

If I was among that 6-8% of population that constitute faggots, I'd be severely insulted by someone calling me "gay". Like I'm some retard who smiles all the time. No man, I'm a faggot. I like to stick it in men's asses and I see it as superior to having to deal with vaginas or women in general.

So with "gay", fags get false acceptance, as something they are not. They need to stop being faggots to get accepted by the general population. Fuck that.

Newspeak works by introducing layers of euphemisms which mask issues and prevent from (expensive) dealing with them directly. It's cheaper, and the fact that many so-called educated adopt this verbal travesty speaks only about a decline of average IQ among american middle classes. OK, I apologise for this, this was low.

The same happens with other social problems. Niggers (some of whom are my good friends but let me call them that way only when alone) have 10x more representation in the prison population than in the general population, near-zero presence in high-tech industry, etc., etc. - but the solution is known: they are now black americans. And even that group itself adopted this incapacitating Newspeak, instead of insisting to be called niggers (which are not to be confused with up and coming population of Blank Americans, to be discussed separately.)

So bringing that to europe and serbia is just another attempt to modernise the local social engineering market. I have no doubt that serbs will be good students and soon there will be "crnpurasti srbi", "srbi sa belom kapicom", "srbi kasikari" (after all, radicals also want to be liked!), etc.

In spite of all the above I will conclude that Newspeak works, and not using it is a losing proposition, as someone else will use it against you. Adopting baby-talk appears to be effective. Lamenting about good old truthful times (which had their own Nespeak anyway) leads nowhere. Adapt. Don't fight firearms with arrows.

I think that this is an opportunity to be the first to come up with new words and phrases that will mark serbian future language landscape. You may think this is silly, but "black american" was also silly 50 years ago.

God, I hope you guys will come up with something more intelligent than "colour + national identifier".

For instance, let's start with the word "peder". Is it really imperative to use an english PC word to designate a higher percentage of the population than those who voted for the party of the current prime minister? Don't you think it would be truly linguistically-revolutionary and subversive to use a serbian word?

What are the roots of the politically correct language? Is it possible to prevent the offensive communication only by modifying the way to express the possibly offensive thoughts.

Is everybody forgeting the adjective here?! It's ment to be used in political discourse, and as it, it's OK. But, when you start talking like politicans in your everyday life, you are way off, with or without political corectness.

About the Naci-talk in comments, consult http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_Law

I'm sorry, but I find this whole discussion terribly ridiculous. I'm a Serb born in Canada, as I've stated in previous blogs, and I'll bring a bit of the Canadian perspective to this conversation.

Cultures which don't have too much experience living in an extremely multicultural environment don't really have to deal with this issue. If you have no one around you to offend, who cares what you say anyhow.

In Canada, more and more older Canadians (60-90 year old range) are getting fed up with PC Language. These people grew up in a time where Canada was predominantly British and French (in saying British I mean Scots, Welsh, English, Irish). The Italians were Wops. The Japanese Japs. The Chinese chinks. etc. etc. But everyone got along with very little racial tension, because they understood that these people did not necessarily mean to offend by using a certain type of language in describing other ethnicity's - OR they simply didn't notice. Either conclusion show me how demented humans have become in the last few decades.

Today, these same "old school Canadians", as we tend to call them (btw, Serbs often refer to Brits and Franophones as TORTE well...hehehehe...that would be "cakes" in english...), are now mortified at the thought of wishing someone a Merry Christmas. This is no longer PC, since in Canada, we have Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists etc. itd. This holiday has been celebrated by all Faiths and peoples in Canada for literally hundreds of years. I'm orthodox, and we still went Christmas shopping for the holidays, and took part in Christmas Pagents, and took pictures with Santa and Rudolph and Frosty.

But to wish someone a Merry Christmas is apperantly insulting and ignorant. We now must say Happy Holidays. Merry Holiday Season. The trouble is, people end up getting really pissed off at this need to change one's own traditions, and endup taking out their anger on the "Jews" and the "Moslems" and the "Pakis" and all the "immigrants" that have invaded Canada.

My mother, who has been in Canada for 35 years, was verbally attacked by another customer when she asked for a verification of sale because the cashier at a general store was punching in the wrong price for an on sale item. She was told to stop looking for a free ride and to go back where she came from. All three of her children are born Canadians, and she's never used social assistance.

The sad thing in all of this is the fact that most immigrants do not care about being PC or about having someone be PC back. Its a non issue if you're treated equally. When applying for my Health card a week ago (change of province, needed a new health card), I was asked to produce my passport and citizenship card (ID asked of immigrants). I offered my birth certificate and drivers license and the women's face went a bright red in 2 seconds. I laughed and told her its okay. Hey, I'm an olive skinned Serb with jet black hair and a thick goatee...although my green eyes tend to save me here and there, I don't look like I'm from around here.

It is a government of the Canadian people, primarily Protestant and Catholic Anglo-Saxons, that have forced all Canadians into a state of panic and tension at the thought of saying something "offensive" to peoples with various "ethnic feelings".

My parents regularly tell me, for all the crap going on in Serbia, "jos uvek nismo bolesni kao sto su ove zapadne drzave." The sickness in the west is mental, and its forced on us by lobby groups and politicians. We're forced by our governments to analyze everything we say and do, for fear of offending someone or infringing on somebody's human rights.

Either way, I'm going to continue being honest, and if I offend someone along the way, I'll use my favorite line:
"Got an issue? Here's a tissue."

It comes down to this people; do unto others as you would have done unto you.

My wife very afraid of the man with chocolate face. :)

Hi Lucy,

first of all, I'd like to say: Welcome to Serbia!

I must say the title of your post surprized me very much, especially you stated you've been here for a while. Title itself labels your roommate, our ex-prime minister and inherently general population of Serbia as either backwards or brainwashed. Casting aside philosophical disputes my predecessors posted I'll simply state my personal opinion based on my experience living both in the States and Serbia.

I must agree with your standpoint regarding inclusive language and I think any society aiming to become a true civil society based on equality of all human beeings should accept it as a norm. But, is it possible to achieve cosensual usage of politically correct speech without educating general population, thus raising awarenes on the problems minority and other sensitive groups are facing? I think not. Having in mind the fact that Serbia is making its first steps toward adopting the values of western democracy, it's only natural to first adopt the system and then the mechanisms for achieving particular goals.

I don't condone the attitude of your roommate and other people sharing her views, but I must state several facts in connection with your examples of Roma and Africa.

Making an inquiry on the term "Ciganin" (often translated as Gypsy), I found that a term is of Turkish origin, adopted probably in Osman times. Serbian Penal Code, which was adopted in 1921 uses the term Gypsy to refer to "nomadic tribes, often moving having all their possessions in moveables". Unfortunately, nowadays it is mostly used to label and slur people only because they are members of a minority group. I had an opportunity to work with various minority groups and also members of Roma communities in Serbia in particular, trying to facilitate easier access and representation of minority groups in front of state institutions. Whenever I used the term Roma to address the members of the group I was asked to refer to them as Gypsies instead. I was explained that word "Roma" is used to refer to people of a certain national minority group, while the word "Gypsy", aside having the same meaning also depict their way of life. BTW, Serbs are in the States often called "Cigani" - Means, "Gypsy", derogatory reference to the Roma/Gypsy backround lineage of Serbians (source: http://www.rsdb.org ) I don't need to mention that Serbs are of Slavic and not Roman origin, but this explanation shows what impact bigotry had in contemplating racial slurs.

Life in the States gave me a good perspective on racial hatred and slurs used in everyday speech. The most common ones I heard are: Gook (Cook), Chink, Buckethead, Kyke, Nigger, Bo-Bo, Beaner, Fruit-Picker, Greaser, Ginney... Now, I don't need to emphasize that slurs here are also present, but are lesser in number and not commonly used. I will give you an example of my friend from Cuba, who was warned he would be discriminated in Serbia as a "third world country", only because the color of his skin is not white. After living and working here for a year, he states that he adores Serbia, for treating him with all due recognition and respect, unlike Virginia where he worked for five years and where his everyday was an opportunity to hear a new insult. He also minds when somebody addresses him as an "African American" only because his skin is black and actually he was born in Cuba and raised in the U.S.

When a Serbian person says that someone is "black", he/she doesn't depict

To conclude, politically correct speech is an asset, but it has to be developed within a culture, not imported. We cannot use terms such as "African Serbian" (population of black people in Serbia is very small), we cannot refer to an old lady as "senior citizen", because they would be gravely offended, etc. That's why we need to be patient and work on development of, I'd say, neutral terms for addressing sensitive issues with respect of personal integrity as well as integrity of racial, national, minority and other often discriminated groups.

I hope you are reading our comments, since I don't see you have posted any.

All best!

I do read the comments - all the comments. I enjoy reading them and the dialogue that ensues. Because I’ve already presented my take on the matter, in this entry and in all entries, I don’t leave comments myself, but please don’t take that as a sign that I do not read the them.
So thank you for reading and thank you for responding.

I just attended the lecture of former USA President, Bill Clinton, yesterday here in Aarhus in Denmark. And in his lecture, he used the word "Gypsy". Surely, if he can do that, we can do that too, without having a guilty conscious about being politicaly non-correct?? Or, should we report HIM to someone for being politicaly non-correct??

I tend to agree with your room-mate. It is not the word we use, but what we say that counts as politicaly correct or non-correct.

Is that on the 1st of June, which is pretty soon, there is a band who will play here that goes by a very un-PC name indeed. I motion that we have them temporarily change their names to "The Roma Gender Non-Specific Royals," for this occasion, to make sure all the Americans here are happy.