“la parole exportée”

I feel definitely out of step today.

If I was into the French TV market, I might be on duty, waiting for sensational news from Mumbai. Interpreting words of death, injury, fire, unrest…

But I’m glad I’m not, because I don’t feel like doing that. I’ve often been asked why I refuse to work for television. I have several, some very personal, reasons for that, but today, my answer would be a clear No. I don’t want to be part of it.

I would very much rather sit at a negotiation table, helping warring parties to try to reconcile their views, come to an understanding, than take part in spreading more doom and gloom. I am not criticizing the work of reporters, who are doing their job in extremely dangerous conditions. But I have chosen to do a different job.

On a barely different level, I came across a bewildering article in the New York Times today, about French Huguenots who fled religious intolerance and settled in Florida even before the Pilgrim Fathers came to New England on the Mayflower. Well… Politics has a lot to answer for, in the treatment of History.

This being said, I have lots of thanks to give, the first and foremost being that I’ve had the luck to be born in a time and space of peace and prosperity. We in the West are so often tempted to take this for granted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Translation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.