This discussion is on prejudice, the roots of prejudice. Let me introduce you to the four participants
From Iceland is Bjorn,
Bjorn who always has something new up his sleeve and who told us last night that in Iceland you can fish for boiled trout. How do you do that Bjorn?
Oh yes, there is one place on the north coast of Iceland where there is a cold brook, and there is trout in the brook,
And there is a nearby hot spring, and the water from the hot spring flows to the brook, and it floats on the surface of the cold water
And if you catch the trout, you can pull him up to the hot upper layer and let him stay there for 4-5 minutes, and then you will get boiled trout!
...This is a story which we usually tell to American tourists
Oh, so we won't take it too seriously
From Malaya is Lei Hup Suan, a Chinese girl, who will be 18 tomorrow
From the Philippines is Patsy Pagaduan, who is the baby of the group - 15 years old
But close runner up is Saroj Chavanaviraj from Thailand who is really only 15 too
Now, roots of prejudice. We started this discussion I guess, on the train going out to St Louis,
When Saroj from Thailand happened to mention that when Thai people talk about Westerners, they never refer to us as "he" or "she", but only as "it"
And suddenly we began to see how Thai children from practically the moment they start to talk, get a prejudice that Westerners aren't really quite human,
Aren't quite men or women, are sort of neuter. Tell us more about that Saroj, will you?
I don't know why we say it like that. Even if we like a foreigner, we wouldn't say "he or she is nice", we would say "it is nice"
I've called them like this since my childhood. But after I came here and wanted to write letters home to tell about my host students and the friends here,
I thought there was no reason to call them like this, "it", so I wrote "he" or "she" instead of "it"
But I wonder what my parents and my friends will think, because it doesn't sound familiar to Thai people at all
Do you know the color the water becomes when we wash rice in it?
Yes, kind of muddy white
Yes. If one of our people behaves in a Western way, we'll insult him by asking him "do you want to be the man with rice water eyes?"
In Chinese, we do not refer to Westerners as white men - we call them "red foreign devils"
Why do you call us such interesting names?
You aren't really white you know? You're more pink
And I think that in the beginning when we saw people with light or reddish hair, it was strange to us because they do not have normal hair which should be black, and so...
...And we also refer to "English monkeys"
But tell me Suan, are Asians prejudiced mainly against white people like me?
Oh no! You see, it seems to me that Malaya is a land filled with more prejudices than anywhere else in the world
The Chinese do not like the Malays because they do not eat pork, which is the favorite food of the Chinese
And one spiteful story suggests that the Malays were descended from the pigs, and that is why they don't eat them
And we have prejudices against the Japanese of course
And many Malayans are anti-British
And we are very suspicious of the Siamese, because we say that they use black magic, and also because they did not fight against the Japanese
Well it's true that the Japanese occupied our country in the second world war - but they didn't destroy it
Our country had been been destroyed by invaders so many times before...
At first everyone thought that the Japanese might win, but after that we changed our mind, because we saw that Japanese would be defeated [other students groaning]
But that was only because of our love for our country
But after that, there was an English expression, "Siamese talk", to call a person who changed easily
Oh, we are very ashamed of it, please don't use it anymore
I understand why you are prejudiced against Thailand. You know we have some prejudices against the Chinese too?
Oh, do you? What are they?
There are so many Chinese in my country and they run nearly all the businesses, and they are very noisy too
When we get on a bus and there is only a small space left, the Chinese will rush in and take it
And if we get up to give our place to little children or an old man, the Chinese will rush in and take it too
And if I sit between two Chinese and they know each other, they'll start talking without caring about the people in the middle, and sprinkle so much saliva that I have to stand up!
That's not fair Saroj, you're referring only to the uneducated class, and I think you're generalizing too much
Well, the situation is quite similar in the Philippines
There are too many Chinese around and they control almost all the businesses and trade, that's why Filipinos sort of have some despisal for them
That's not fair, how can you despise them just because they are intelligent and have initiative?
I don't think that would be fair either, that would be generalizing too much!
Well, we even have a popular rhyme which goes like this, "[foreign language]". It means Chinese ruling Chinese. And no Filipino would be glad to be called the Chinese
Well we wouldn't want a Filipino to be called Chinese [sarcastically]
But I think Filipino prejudices against Chinese dates back to the time of the Spaniards, when they were allowed to live only in the swamp area outside the walls of Manila
They had to pay higher taxes, and they had to go and do forced labor for a longer time
Excuse me Patsy, but in my country we have a quite different opinion of the Chinese
We always think of the Chinese as very wise people, of the man with long white beard
Well I think that's because you really didn't have any Chinese in your country. You didn't really have close contact with them, that's why you have that impression
Perhaps you've had close contact only with the, well the poor people, not the educated ones? The lower class?
No, no, no, the average, I should say
I'm not noisy am I?
Well, bubble bubble [???? what does that mean]
Do you have any prejudices... We've given Lei Hup Suan kind of a bad time here, now she seems to be taking it in her quiet way, may I say
Do you have any prejudices against other nationalities in the Philippines?
Well, we have some prejudices against some people from India too
In the Philippines parents usually tell children awful stories about the Sikhs. By the way, they are those tall people from India who have long beards and wear turbans
And well, they usually say that these Sikhs catch children and put them in the sacks they always carry
I was always told this by mother to frighten me into obedience when I refused to eat my vegetables, and it usually works
But war brought bitter feelings against the Japanese
Even nowadays in the Philippines, if a Japanese goes around unescorted in the slum districts of Manila, those crowded places...
He wouldn't get out whole. He would not only be killed, but he would be torn into pieces, he would be mobbed
And that's how much they hate the Japanese because of the war
But there's a Japanese delegate in the forum who's just so sweet, that I just can't keep a grudge against her
I like her very much, she's one of my best friends
You know I feel the safe way as you do, but I don't think that if a Japanese were to come to Malaya he or she would be torn to pieces. Because we are, well, better civilized people [laughter]
Although sometimes I try to to get rid of all my prejudices...
Lets find out, Suan, you said you had prejudices against the white men, excuse me, "pink men", and also against the Japanese
Now suppose you had to choose whether you were going to marry a Japanese or a white European, which would you choose?
Oh...Well, um, I don't think I would choose either
But suppose you had to?
I think I'll remain a spinster [laughter]
On the subject of prejudice, I wonder how many of them really begin way back in the nursery, like you said yours did about the Sikhs?
I think it's very true
The the only people I have ever hated are the Turks
I used to pray from my early childhood, "God save me from the Turks"
And when I was disobedient my mother used to tell me that the Turks would come and take me
And as I was often disobedient, I lived in constant hysterical fear of the Turks
And I started hating these "atrocious savages"
And yet I had never seen a Turk before I met Onder
I think this started hundreds of years ago, in the early days of the Ottoman empire
Then the pirates from Turkey or from Algeria used to sail to the northern countries, and plunder the churches, and steal healthy people for slaves
And since then, the word Turk has the meaning of something which is aggressive and war-like
You know since we've got a Turk right here in the studio, I think we probably ought to produce him
And you can't produce a Turk in 1958 without a Greek so I'm wondering, Patsy would you and Suan cede your places to Onder Guler from Turkey?
Where's Onder? Here comes Onder. He's the one who was playing the mandolin at the opening of the program
That by the way is the "forum blues" that Onder composed shortly after he got here, and it's become almost our theme song, everybody knows it
From Greece, is Angeliki Laiou
Now, go ahead, "aggressive and war-like Turk", did you follow fully what Bjorn said about Turks?
Yeah, I was listening to him and you know, we Turkish people would like very much for other nations to see the difference between the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey today
Unfortunately people who don't know enough about things that happened in the 20th century,
Always mix up their prejudices about the Ottoman empire with their thoughts about modern Turkey
I wonder if you do the same thing in Greece, Aiki?
Well, I wouldn't say that we do the same thing, the same way in Greece
But it's interesting that one ocean and one continent across from Iceland we still have kind of the same feeling towards the Turkish people
And I would say that it's kind of more natural for us because we really have suffered much during the 400 years of the Turkish occupation
And because we had to survive, our nationalism and our difference from the Turks...Which came to be that we [thought we] were better than the Turks... It had to be stressed
And even today if we see someone who doesn't eat in a very polite way, we usually say, "are you a Turk?" And it works!
And at school when we study history we usually say that the Turks have destroyed a great civilization - our civilization
And what is interesting is that some people get the idea that really they [Turks] didn't have any civilization, any great civilization of their own
And that they're not very well educated, and in general that no Turk can be any good
Also another strong prejudice in my country is the assurance that some people have that the Greek people now and forever, are one of the most important and intelligent people on earth
It sounds pretty interesting, you know
I'm glad that the world Turk has a better meaning here in the United States than it seems to have in Greece and Iceland
Am I not right that the members of the "Young Turks" group in [US] Congress are glad and proud to be called Turks?
Yes
Anyway, we got bigger problems with bigger nations, so we don't hear the same kind of prejudice in our country against Greece
You know when I was a little boy I used to play Russians and Turks just the same way you're making kids play cowboys and Indians here
This shows that our biggest problem is with the people who are the biggest problem of the whole free world today
You are also saying that we spoiled your civilization in Greece by occupying your country for more than 400 years
But I would like to point out that if the Ottoman empire didn't give you the freedom of religion and the freedom of keeping your civilization,
I don't think you'd be able to talk this way today, just because there wouldn't be any nation called Greece anymore
Well honestly I don't think this is a very effective argument
First of all, I think that of course in different countries we study history in a different way, and we stress different points
But still, I think that both of us would admit that maybe in the beginning they did give a certain amount of religious freedom to the Greeks -
Maybe just because they wanted to stress the Orthodox religion and keep them away from uniting in some way with the Catholics, which would produce a different situation for Turkey
But then I would say that later on there were some really bad conditions for the Greeks
And they didn't have the opportunity to study their own language, they had to study it secretly under bad conditions
And well, I wouldn't say it was much of a tolerant spirit
But still, I don't think that a nation with the long tradition that the Greeks had,
With a strong national conscience, with the the language, with the religion which was very different from the Turkish
And by the way, I think that you would admit that the Turkish civilization wasn't as great as the Greek at that time, I don't speak about today, I speak about that time
Well, I think it would survive even under strong oppression
Just because oppression can't limit the mind of people who have such a long tradition, and who have had to fight continuously, as the Greeks have had to fight
And I would say that after strong oppression the nationalistic spirit just blossoms, like the Greek, the Jewish, or anything else in the world
But tell me, you peaceful people... What are your feelings about the Cyprus dispute?
Well, I would like to listen to the Greek point of view first
The Greek, or mine?
Well, I thought that your point of view was the same as the Greek point of view when I first met you at the beginning of the forum. Is there any difference now?
Well, there's difference in all of my opinions and ideas in six weeks
Really, Aiki?
Yes certainly. And I think this is one of the most important things that the forum has done to us, to most of us
Well go on, forgive me for interrupting
Well, I would say that our strongest argument, and the strongest argument of the people of Cyprus
Is that every human being has the right to... The the right of self-determination
And I would say that of course the situation now in Cyprus is very difficult because of the strong conflict between the Greeks and the Turks
But as some British people admit, and as we point out in Greece, and I don't know what you say in Turkey,
This problem really didn't exist some years ago, but it began to exist because the British aroused it, so that they could "divide and rule"
And I would say that now, Great Britain doesn't have hold of the situation anymore
But I would say that Cyprus really was a part of Greece for many many years more than it was a part of Turkey
And of course your argument that it's near Turkey is very strong, but I don't think...
Well, lets hear Onder's argument
Well, you say that self-determination is the most important thing for a place that belongs to some other country
But we must also take consideration of the historical and geographical facts
As you know Turkish Cyprus has been under Turkish rule for more than 300 years
And it's only 43 miles away from Turkey, but it's 150 miles away from Greece
You know, the tallest mountains which are on the southern part of Turkey just go under the sea and go up again in Cyprus. I mean this is a part of Turkey!
But of course I realize that there are more Greek people in Cyprus than Turkish people
There are I think 300 000 Greek people and 120 000 Turkish people
And our opinion about Cyprus is not to have the whole part of the island. We wouldn't be so foolish to want that
I mean there are so many people in Turkey who do want it that way, but I just don't agree because it's not the logical way
But I think that the northern part of the island where there are more Turks, must belong to Turkey
So we will make sure all that the rights of the Turkish people are there are given, as well as the rights of the Greek people there
And I mean, if we have that part of the island, we won't have much...I mean, there will be just a few more grapes and wine in Turkey, and this is all
But we'll be spending much money to defend that part of the island against the other nations who don't want real peace in the world
You can realize how bad it would be if Russia had a base in Cyprus [from which] to control all of Europe
And as you realize, Turkey has a strong army, and if Greece has Cyprus... Turkey will be defending that part of the world against Russia *indirectly*, because of NATO
But if we have it, we'll be defending this part of the world against Russia very well
Don't you think that NATO is able to defend Cyprus?
Well, if we'll be in Cyprus, then we'll be able to defend it by ourselves, and not by NATO [crosstalk]
May I speak, please?
Well first of all, I don't see why *we* wouldn't be able to defend Cyprus, as we are able to defend Greece,
And we were able to defend it even after the great disaster that had come after the second world war... I won't go very far into that
But I would say that your historical argument is not too strong
Because Greece first of all, was under Turkish occupation for 400 years, and yet I think Turkey does recognize Greece as a nation now, and as a country now
And as for the geographical [argument], it's strong... But look at Pakistan; it's divided by India and still it's one country, one nation
Well, I don't think that many people in the island would really like the partition of the island
And I don't think that Greece would like for the island... Or what I would like for it... Well my point is that for some years, Cyprus could be a sort of independent nation, under the control of NATO
Just so that the the atmosphere is a little calmer, and after that we could have self-determination
And I think that the rights of the minority could be very much respected as they are in the northern part of Greece, while they are not in Turkey
Well...
But don't you think Angeliki, that if Cyprus would be unified with Greece now, that the 19.4 percent Turkish minority would suffer from the Greek rule?
Honestly I don't think so. I think that they wouldn't like it, and I think that it might even start a war. That's why I don't really think that Cyprus should unite with Greece
But still, I think that we do respect the rights of the Turkish minority in the north
But what about Cyprus being a commonwealth of Britain, like other commonwealth states?
I don't think the people of Cyprus would like that
There will still be troubles in Cyprus, you know, if Great Britain will remain on Cyprus
Because you know, the fights and everything in Cyprus are because Great Britain does not give the same rights to every individual in the island, and that creates the problem
And as we're in NATO with Greece, I think it would be the best to divide the island in two parts. I don't want the whole part of the island, but just a part of it
Because of some of the facts that I pointed out
You told me that there had been a change in your opinion about Cyprus from before you came here, and now
Would you please explain that to us? I mean, what difference do you feel you've had by being here in the United States just about two months ?
Well, when I referred to the difference, I'd rather refer to the difference between my prejudices against Turks
Which weren't very strong when I came here, but they're less strong now, much less stronger
Still, I think I've understood much better, that really it's not a solution for Cyprus to unite with Greece right now
I mean I had a vague idea, but I wasn't that sure
I've got to interrupt you, we've only got a few minutes more and we've been talking so much about prejudices about each other's countries
I wonder if each of you could quickly, starting with you Bjorn, tell us whether you have some prejudices against Americans, because of Americans in your country?
Yes, I think that it's not really against Americans, only against the American GIs who who remain in the country
You see, there is a... I would say "segregation". The Americans, they have they a town of their own in Keflavik where they are based
And every Saturday there comes a group of Americans to our capital town
Well, who segregates who?
I don't know... I think if we dislike Americans because [of what happened] in war time
It is strange to say, but in the war time, when America took over the defence of Iceland
We asked, the Icelandic government asked for as I have been told, for troops who were under good discipline
But in the translation from Icelandic to English, it it was mistranslated
Instead of selected [?] troops they said pick [?] troops, and you sent the marines... And it was not the best troops you could get [??? can someone understand or explain???]
Let's go on quickly to Greece
Well, I think we have the same problem as in Iceland, because the spirit of the community, which in some ways is a strong element of Americans in America,
Is not quite good abroad - because they form a clique, and we certainly don't like that
And the tourists who come and look at the Parthenon, and old monuments, and the museums,
And they just pass around the old beautiful pieces of sculpture and architecture, and sometimes make such silly remarks on them
And then I've heard the question asked, "what on earth do you do with this money we give you, why don't you reconstruct those old ruins there?" [laughter]
And those old ruins, as you know, are our pride
I would like to add that often when the American troops come to to our Icelandic towns, they call us "natives"
We are very angry because we consider ourselves to have a culture at least 700 older than Americans have
We feel very superior
Let's go to Onder
I don't think the American service personnel in Turkey are representing their country in the right way
You know, when those GIs leave their country, they think that they are able to do anything,
And they even think that they are free to do some of the things which you can't do here in the United States. So that gives a bad impression about American people in Turkey...
But anyway, Turkish people like Americans, and we like the government and policy
I just wonder, all three of you have mentioned the segregation of the Americans, it's been called "golden ghettos"
It makes me wonder, whether the strength of America at home, which is the community feeling, the wanting to be together and cooperate with your neighbor... Doesn't work *against* us abroad
Oh yes...
It works for us in this country, but when we carry it abroad, you feel that we're segregated, really
Well, let's get a reaction quickly from Thailand, I'm sorry, our time's almost up
What about the reaction to Americans in Thailand?
Well, I don't think the people in Thailand like the Americans very much. First because of the GIs - too there's so many GIs in my country
And they're always drunken and destroying something and...
But what about the aid, the American aid?
The other thing, umm...
Most of the people in Thailand think that we are under American [control] secretly
That may be because of the American aid to our country
There is so much aid to our country, such as education, arms, military advisors, agriculture etc
So we just wonder... Why do we get so much help like that? In what way are we connected [to America]? So we just have this thought and begin to wonder, like I told you
I'm sorry that's all the time we've got.. You just have a thought and begin to think like you've told us
Next week at this time we'll be talking again about other roots [of prejudice]