On assimilation by force

[winter]

A few people on my f-list have already linked to Elizabeth Moon's diatribe on why immigrants should shut up and change to be just like everyone else. I didn't comment on it, because I literally couldn't find the words.

Shweta Narayan says it more eloquently than I ever could.

I have the luck of spending most of my childhood in a country where others are like me, and of a multi-cultural education from the cradle. But I was also a Slav travelling in Western Europe just after communism ended. I was nine years old, in a supermarket in Paris, and I talked to my mother in halting, broken French, because I knew that if I spoke Polish, everyone in the shop would stare and follow us to make sure we didn't steal anything.

Comments

[sukeban.livejournal.com]

Says Bear: I can easily imagine how Muslims would react to my excusing the Crusades on the basis of Islamic aggression from 600 to 1000 C.E....(for instance, excusing the building of a church on the site of a mosque in Cordoba after the Reconquista by reminding them of the mosque built on the site of an important early Christian church in Antioch.)

I... I just wish they stopped talking about Cordoba unless they had a bit of a clue about the history of Spain. Just that. Anyone here knows that caliphate and taifa kingdom Cordoba was a vast improvement over what came afterwards when it comes to tolerance, understanding and learning.

(Also, in my very personal opinion? The gothic cathedral in the middle of the Mosque of Cordoba is an eyesore that mars one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, so fuck that shit -- the cathedral should be moved someplace else. The site was a Roman temple to Janus before the Christians took over, so forget about prior use, anyway.)

[amelia-petkova.livejournal.com]

Medieval Spain was awesome. I've been to the Mosque of Cordoba and yeah, the cathedral part is an eyesore. I remind myself that if the cathedral hadn't been integrated the mosque probably would have been completely demolished, but it isn't that comforting. The courtyard with the orange trees was relatively unchanged to my knowledge, and is still lovely.

[winter]

*nodnod* I keep meaning to go there.

[winter]

I think we can all agree that Ms Moon is supremely clueless ~_~

And thanks for the 3D link! It's completely gorgeous. I must go to Cordoba one day, Spain's been on my list for years.