There’s always been something quite romantic about the French Revolution. The image of millions of downtrodden proletariats collectively joining arms in response to absolute rule by the monarchy and storming the Bastille, then marching on Versailles, carries with it the green shoots of democracy and rose-tinted revisionist views of the past.
One imagines the entire movement was started by a couple of impossibly stylish, gauloises-smoking renegades effortlessly rousing their people with impassioned speeches about justice, reform and enlightenment from a candlelit bunker deep in the heart of Paris.
But then the French have always been good at this. Even in today’s modern world of apathy-led shoulder-shrugging distraction and disillusionment, our Gallic cousins are able to rally themselves to march against pretty much anything, and all at the drop of a beret. Taxes too high? The French won’t stand for it. Working hours too long? Uh-oh, they’ve actually stopped working altogether. Fuel prices rising again? Blockades at every depot until the government is forced into an embarrassing u-turn.
It’s in their blood. The French know how to argue, kick up a stink, and generally get what they want, or at least, what they think they deserve. Their language undoubtedly helps here – listening to a French person get angry is not only non-threatening, it’s rather confusing and faintly intellectually intimidating. Amid flailing arms and rolling eyes, their mouths move at such a pace, and emit such soft, almost operatic tones, that you’re quickly hypnotised by it all. As you stand slack-jawed, your French antagonist will continue espousing their views in – what sounds like to you – the most erudite and eloquent manner ever spoken. And all you asked for was directions to the nearest novelty Eiffel Tower keyring stall.
A few years back I was stood behind a couple of construction workers in a queue in a McDonalds in Paris (I know, I know…it’s Paris, I’m in McDonalds, what does that say about me etc, but I was hungry and couldn’t bear to sit at a table and play the ‘will I get served today’ game with Paris’s famously haughty waiters). They were French and chatting animatedly with one another about something. Now, this being a couple of blue collar guys in their thirties waiting to order a burger, they were probably discussing football, beer or women. Yet to me, an ill-equipped Anglo Saxon who last attempted French while being twanged in the back of the head by an unruly ruler-wielding classmate in year 10, their conversation probably revolved around politics, poetry, opera and the societal impact Andy Warhol films had had on 1970s Cambodia, or something. They just sounded impossibly at ease with themselves.
The Spanish are the same. Their mannerisms when speaking – slightly more animated than the French, not as animated as the Italians – are dazzling, sucking you in much more than their words ever do. Thing is, I understand Spanish and can converse reasonably well, yet put two Spaniards (Andalusians in particular) in a room together and their conversation will ebb and flow with all the pace and assurance of Michael Schumacher racing a milk float in his Ferrari, around a track designed by himself.
Which is why the Spanish can also march and protest on issues that barely raise a murmur among the Brits. The recent protest in Madrid against anti-abortionists is a case in point: they came, they marched, they made their point. In the UK, any protest that actually manages to get off the ground usually descends into some sort of mini riot, with shielded police officers employed to disperse crowds and get their hands dirty as they face down an angry mob chanting for vengeance rather than justice, or fatter chips with their fish, or cheaper internet connection, or whatever gets our collective goat these days.
We, the Brits, do lynch mobs, not marches. We struggle with politically motivated movements, educated and well-informed gatherings and idealogical protestations. The French and the Spanish can do this. They have the means to express themselves via the beauty of their language and the fact that, in Spain and France, to be educated and thoughtful is to be respected. In the UK it is to be considered a geek, a swot, and ‘uncool’, which just won’t do now, will it?
Instead, we have happy-to-be-ignorant idiots making their voices heard, purely because they shout louder and will not listen to rational opinion. And via the medium of Facebook, Brits have the perfect vessel with which to vent their spleen. An indoor, electronic database that requires just a few clicks of a mouse and voila – you’re a member of the ‘British jobs fer British peepul!’ group – coupled with self-righteous indignation and you have yourself easy-make lynch mobs for the 21st century. How very convenient. How very British.
The best of these groups has to be the ‘If you live in England…speak English!!!’ one. Out of curiosity I joined, and was astounded by the levels of stupidity and ignorance displayed on there. A few sample quotes, and I’m not making this up, included:
“its just rude and pure iggnorance not speaking english in England”.
“im sure that’s what my granddad fighted in the war for”.
“dam write u live hear u live by the rules u speak English tht should go for Scottish n welsh two. ENGLAND is top dog”.
All very depressing. Can you imagine the same thing happening on a Spanish or French forum? I do indeed doubt that such forums exist anyway; I still imagine that all Spaniards and French are too busy debating post-modern art and globalisation while seated cross-legged in some smoke-filled café overlooking plazas with fountains and pigeons and statues and endless beautiful women parading on by.
I’m wrong, of course (Spaniards in particular are prone to some heavy Facebook usage), but then I wouldn’t want the facts to get in the way of, like, y’know, my opinion. And that’s what makes me so British…
Tags: British, Facebook, French, Living in Spain, McDonalds, Mob, Protest, Spanish
