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"A city of unmatched diversity"
A couple of days ago, I was in line at my local pharmacy to buy a breath freshener, and the wait was longer than what my purchase warranted, so I was mischievously looking to pass the time with a nice looking lady behind me whom I recognized as an Ethiopian - more precisely as an Amhara. I said "Selam" to her in Amharic. Her response would tell me all I would need to know. If she replies in Amharic, then I know she would converse in Amharic. She replied in Amharic.
The pleasant-looking Ethiopian woman turned sour when I said to her: "Don't you think we're being inundated with Chinese these days?" as I pointed to a Chinese customer at the cashier, and remarked that every other person that passes by me in the downtown area is Chinese. As we conversed, I also said that the Chinese are now in Ethiopia, building bridges and dams at the invitation of the anti-West, anti-Amhara regime of the Tigray people, bringing their own people to do so. At the same time, they are siphoning away precious material, including water!
Of course, in this multi-culti city, language is up for grabs. This woman doesn't have to respond in Amharic, and I reply in English when people I don't know talk to me in Amharic. My firm position is that everyone should speak in English, including Quebeckers. But, knowing a second language (and culture) can give one many insights.
Her response was interesting. It was a combination of instinctive political correctness (Toronto trains its citizens well), a reprimand, and arrogant superiority. I understood the third implication much later on as I thought about our interaction - this is what I mean that language often provides an uncanny insight into people's thoughts.
She replied, a little aggressively: "Let them work" - "Yisru."
As though work is an undisputed right for everyone, irrespective of his qualifications, merits or motives. I think she takes this perceptive from the multi-culti equality indoctrination she has been subjected to in Toronto. And work becomes a human right, and absent of working, one still gets a substitute "salary" through various government handouts.
I believe that her second (and perhaps true) meaning is more subtle, where she meant: let them do the work. At some deep visceral level, she is still an Ethiopian, and she will still have more attachment, and feel more protection, towards Ethiopians than the Chinese. Let them work for Ethiopia, is probably part of her reasoning. Her response is also the vestiges of the ruling Amhara mentality, who were accustomed to subordination. "Let the Chinese build whatever we need."Such is the contradictions of liberalism. Elitism - necessary and human - is everywhere, even in liberal milieus, and ideologies cannot eradicate it. People feel closer to their own; people discriminate; hierarchies are everywhere. So much for the multicultural paradise.
I asked, what is wrong with having Ethiopians build their own country? And why import workers from so far away? And why not pay Ethiopians, rather than foreigners, to do a good day's work? If I had more time, and if I thought she would have understood me, I would have continued: Why cannot a government think in terms of its own people? And why are the Chinese there, who have no good record of helping other countries? We had it with the communist Russians. And now it is the Maoist Chinese. What do they really want from Ethiopia?
When it was my turn to go to the cashier I said "Melkam Genna" - "Merry Christmas" - to the Ethiopian woman, with the customary half bow (she looked older) and left.
There are many more stories I could tell where I have confronted my multi-culti fellow "citizens", one of which was to tell burqa (whole body covering!) clad women that we were watching them! Another to ask two Chinese women behind me on an escalator talking loudly and irritatingly in Chinese if they can speak English. And finally, to tell a Chinese woman in my supermarket who was letting her son run amok, shouting in Chinese, why she doesn't restrain his behavior. She asked why I don't restrain my behavior by shutting up. I replied: "Then I wouldn't be able to tell people like you when you're disturbing our peace." The kid later on went into a screaming fit. A few Canadian men looked at me sympathetically (one a little bemused). After all, this is a country where politeness reigns supreme, and my behavior was an impolite way of reasserting politeness.