I've been going to the hospital to be with my friend for the past two days, but I don't feel like talking about the whole French hospital experience.
Instead, I thought I would mention a discussion I had with my friend's first roommate. The woman was French, though she had spent a number of years living in the US, South America, and Mexico, where she had her kids. Her French friend was there with her to keep her company.
While my friend was napping, I got talking about the States with the other two women. The patient's friend said she'd heard Obama was Muslim and wanted to know if it was true. I was really surprised to hear that from someone other than a conservative Republican, but I didn't tell her she was crazy, just that no, he wasn't Muslim and that while his father was, Obama was raised by his white grandparents who were Christian.
We continued chatting, and the conversation got around to Sept 11 and the women really surprised me by saying they believed the conspiracy theory that it was really the US government behind the attacks and that a plane had never crashed into the Pentagon. Since conspiracy theory believers obviously aren't swayed by the "facts", I didn't do a speech on all the different elements. The women said they believed this theory because experts on TV had explained how it was true, to which I pointed out that just about anybody can be on TV. Then they said it was also explained on the internet, and again I said anyone can say anything on the internet. They shrugged as if to say "Well you're right, but you never know with this theory" and we moved on to other subjects.
B has mentioned to me before that this conspiracy theory has a decent following in France, but I kind of didn't believe him because I hadn't met that many people who believed it. But here was a woman who'd lived in many different cultures, seen a lot of the world, and yet believed that the US government was capable of planning an attack on its own country.
Obviously believing this theory isn't about the "facts" but rather a proxy for feeling that the US government can't be trusted and will do whatever it has to to appear justified in its military actions around the world (i.e. invading Iraq).
There are Americans who believe this story as well, but I can't get why the French would believe it. They don't believe any conspiracy about the Lockerbie bombing, London, Madrid, or Oklahoma City.
So have you heard about this theory from a French person? Maybe the opposite?
4 comments:
One weekend a couple months ago, Edd stumbled upon one of these French 9/11 conspiracy theory shows. The premise was sort of to present all current theories and figure out which was the "truest." And to my surprise the show was increasingly leaning to blaming the US gov't just kept stacking everything against the US.
I think I was most surprised by my reaction to this, because I've encoutnered a lot of Americans who believe these ideas, but here it was different. The way French TV treats the subject is no where near as gingerly as American TV does and I found myself feeling deeply disturbed by something I hadn't really thought about in a long time.
In all my conversations about 9/11 with French people the conspiracy thing has never come up - I got the opposite vibe in fact. Most times it ends up being with Toulousains who share their experience of the AZF explosion and how everyone was sure that it was the 2nd attack, etc.
All in all, it doesn't blow me away that there's a decent French following of these theories. I find most French peoples' confidence in politics and the government to be quite low compared to Americans.
I once saw a French TV show (and if I remember well it was a serious TV show) that was pretty serious about the conspiracy theory and I was much appalled that they would let those Wacks say all kind of insanities!
As for my self, I don't believe those theory especially since they usually include some sort of fringe anti-Semitism. However, I have to admit that the attack on the Pentagon still puzzles me!
Lots of French people have mentioned this to me. Well, by lots, I mean almost all of the people I've ever talked to about 9-11. I usually stop the conversation there so that I don't end up telling them how offensive I find it.
I get the impression the French are more prone to distrust of the government, moon-landing conspiracy theories, etc., all that stuff. Plus, it's not their country they're talking about, so I don't think it's personal to them. No one's saying, oh yeah, Sarko definitely killed 3000 French people on purpose and then covered it up. As much as many people I know don't like Sarko, I don't think this many of them would buy that.
I had a student who wrote a paper on the conspiracy theories about 9-11, and he broke down all the reasoning, and at the end he said it was tempting to believe but all the facts clearly pointed to these theories being wrong. I was a little worried when I started reading the paper but impressed with the job he did by the end.
There's a group in Ithaca that holds speeches outdoors in the center of town explaining how the US government was behind 9/11. There's always a decent crowd gathered. But this is Ithaca, and people are totally nuts here. The town's slogan is "10 square miles surrounded by reality." So I think that while the conspiracy theory has a decent following here, that's not at all representative of other towns in the States.
I don't remember anyone in France expressing support for the crazy theories, but then again I don't remember talking to any French people about 9/11.
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