Thanks Ian. Interesting and sensible information. I enjoy your writing, and not just for things like “After a pub lunch, grinning at the assembled media pack, Blair remarked in French of Lionel Jospin: “I have always lusted after you in every position”. I hope that wasn’t your apartment that Russian intelligence broke into 😊.
Mingling with the British overseas community in Mexico, I have the distinct impression that, while mostly ignorant of local customs, if not language, all were invariably fluent in the language of alcohol.
The question is what comes first: the chicken or the بيضة.
I couldn’t resist that.
But seriously…does it really matter? I mean, when the animus runs so deep, we could all be speaking Esperanto yet still not have the foggiest. Doesn’t ideological prejudice trump - quite literally - linguistics? Starmer’s could send twenty diplomats to Moscow all schooled in perfect Russian and they’d still return and cry, ‘They mean to bomb Freedonia!’
They don’t care. They just hate Russia. Not because they can’t speak their language but because their imperial animus runs that deep. They want to charge for the guns, into the valley of death, etc.
Think about it. My neighbours all speak the same language as me but they don’t give a damn whether I live or die. Not that they wish me harm - they are just middle class English introverts who believe in garden walls and that prison camp called family. Our common language divides us.
So what hope for universal fraternity if those who walk the same streets as us are little more than harmless strangers?
And if you then apply the corrective lens of national antagonisms, steeped in centuries-old hostility and loathing, no amount of present continuous can cure a past tense.
Maybe. Steve Rosenberg of the BBC speaks passable Russian, to my ear at least, but he still comes across as prejudiced and oblivious despite years of opportunity to develop his outlook within the environment.
I’ve been watching the French espionage series The Bureau. In it, we see the same depiction of Russia: an outpost of savage minds and duplicitous people; France as the ‘garden’, the civilised vanguard against the eastern menace. The same old cliches. And Europe is riddled with this mindset. Speaking the Russian language, or any other besides, clearly doesn’t naturally lead to sympathy or insight. The problem isn’t so much can we speak their language or can diplomats improve their linguistic capacities; the problem lies in a mindset that is hegemonic in principle and one that fervently believes it is right. Beneath this carapace of cultural arrogance we find the same acquisitiveness, the same greedy appetite for other countries resources. They look at Russia enviously. They want its resources. The same mindset that bedevilled the west in the lead up to WW2, exemplified in its crude essence in the Nazi’s coda called lebensraum. We see this in that BlackRock vampire, Merz. We see this in Macron and Starmer - all globalists who dance to their masters, the bankers, tune.
Of course, you’re right. Ian is a very nuanced writer and he was saying more than I referred too.
The English are docile people, mostly, but beneath the docility is a kind of lazy contempt. I might add, I grew up among them and bear the English no ill will. Maybe, it can also be said that national traits are variable and people, once you step behind their cultural barricades, are just people. Finite, vulnerable, absurd people. We all share far more in common - our common lot - then we do in differences. But the problem with diplomats and diplomacy in general is that it is governed by ideological preferences and mandates. Certainly, the western version is.
I've lived most of my life in England. A sizeable proportion of people are the polar opposite of docile.
When you've seen a so-called 'mother' scream at her young infant daughter and call her the c-word, I'm afraid your ability to see the English as 'docile' is compromised.
I was in England a week or so ago. Again, a 'mother' being absolutely vile to her daughter, who was crying her eyes out. Engaging in utter psychological cruelty like pretending to have got a whatsapp message from the girl's father, the father supposedly having said that the girl was a "pathetic little crybaby", which would have been a bad enough thing to say to the kid in its own right, but even worse because I could see she'd made it up. This was in an airport, in full view of hundreds of people.
I was so angry I could barely contain myself and the only reason I kept my mouth shut was that I could sense that intervening would make it worse for the kid.
Kids have no way of getting out of a shitty childhood. I was upset about it for days.
And then you have the English media having the temerity (on orders from above) to describe the Russians as 'barbarians'. My God. Talk about stones and glass houses.
Bhuel, caithfidh Ian 'A Misfit in Moscow' a dhíol...
But I agree with you, and Ian's effectively identified that it's not the ability to speak the language that's the primary problem, it's more the mindset that the Russians are the enemy. Ian did refer to the lady whose Russian skills deteriorated fast as she didn't engage or use it in daily life, seeming to hint that the Moscow embassy suffered from groupthink and everyone was sort of stuck in their own little sort of Tinker Tailor 'cosplay' than actually bothering to get out and meet your average Russian Joe. Bit of fear maybe?
It's a sort of vicious alliance of English arrogance, expecting everyone to speak English, and hard fact that English is actually the world's 'power language', and the two feed each other, only strengthening each other. The more people around the globe just give up and speak English, the more the English can be arrogant about learning a second tongue.
[It should be said that many people around the world see their ability to speak English as a great source of personal pride, and valuable asset in the eternal job of earning money.]
Understood in the context of Ian with copies of 'A Misfit in Moscow' to sell, the article's a decent read, déarfainn...
But yes, in the grand scheme of things, as I wrote below, there are far greater worries...
While I completely agree with your piece, when I read things like "Starmer is preparing for war" [implied with Russia] then I don't think Brits in important positions for the nation's security need a foreign language as a priority, but they do need an urgent appointment with a psychiatrist.
If Starmer is indeed preparing for war with Russia, it'd be nice if the rest of us were told. The purchase, delivery and storage of twenty five years' worth of tinned corned beef is going to take me quite a while to organise.
I speak several languages and when I ventured out to explore the world I was able to use them. I had a technical degree and worked as a technical translator in Algeria and Paris. When I arrived in London it was not of interest to any employer.
I wanted to learn Russian but all courses got cancelled at the start of the War. However I am now getting fluent in mandarin and only amazed I didn’t learn it earlier. ( No grammar, no gender, no pronouns I could go on). I wanted to try to understand the Chinese a bit better. Languages allow that. I still want to learn Russian!
While most other western countries diplomatic corps suffer the same fading as the British one, at least they have the advantage of needing to be bilingual...
Ian old bean - this is very simple. When we are not understood out there, we just shout a bit louder.
(30 years abroad here) I am fluent in German here in rural Germany - I get by okay, but when I am in the Alps my grasp of Bavarian/Tirolean is way gone. The problem is English is a lazy language - German has 4 cases, I understand Finnish has six! Our schools were fresh from their WW2 victory and thus we didn't need to respect Johnny Foreigner.
Speaking another language is a gateway into another mindset. good or bad. It saddens me that so many Europeans assume that the rest of the world wants to be like them. No they damn well don't! Since 911, the Western world has collectively lost its mind, decency and soul.
Summer 1974 saw me in Jordan/Syria/with a natural linguist 19year old Brit who had then not yet started uni. That 19year old fell into conversation with a lad from the UK on vacation from an Oxford college. Intriguing discussions and you have now confirmed what the Oxford man told us all those years ago. When the then 19 year old entered uni a year later he found there were no uni courses allowing for foreign language WITH science or applied maths. It's this "no uni courses ..." that's the problem.
Good article. The way things are going in the UK and the west, I wouldn't be surprised if proficiency in English becomes problematic. Who wouldn't love to be paid to learn a language and culture? I can't believe the fail rate is so bad. Lack of accountability is destroying our nations.
My local grammar school (which is older than the UK) no longer teaches Mandarin, Russian or even German, despite billing itself as a “specialist language school”. That apparently means French and Spanish. They cite an inability to recruit and retain teachers.
The problem with insight like this is if I referred to it in conversation as to why UK doing badly, the response would be "who's Ian Proud?". So we have UK govt that wants to remove elitism by keeping information from the masses. Erm hang on...
Don't languages get learned before employment? Once employed, motivation drops. Hollywood shows everyone speaks English and those who don't, luckily there's a western-sympathetic local to interpret. So make language a priority for employment and career development.
"Russia has invested massively in its diplomatic and military capabilities to the extent that they now far outstrip ours. And if you are not worried about that, you should be."
Why should I be worried that Russia can ensure it's position is clear?
Surely it is much more dangerous for Russia to be misunderstood?
Excellent article ! Thanks .
Thanks Ian. Interesting and sensible information. I enjoy your writing, and not just for things like “After a pub lunch, grinning at the assembled media pack, Blair remarked in French of Lionel Jospin: “I have always lusted after you in every position”. I hope that wasn’t your apartment that Russian intelligence broke into 😊.
Have boots, will travel.
😁
Mingling with the British overseas community in Mexico, I have the distinct impression that, while mostly ignorant of local customs, if not language, all were invariably fluent in the language of alcohol.
A common theme anywhere in the world!
The question is what comes first: the chicken or the بيضة.
I couldn’t resist that.
But seriously…does it really matter? I mean, when the animus runs so deep, we could all be speaking Esperanto yet still not have the foggiest. Doesn’t ideological prejudice trump - quite literally - linguistics? Starmer’s could send twenty diplomats to Moscow all schooled in perfect Russian and they’d still return and cry, ‘They mean to bomb Freedonia!’
They don’t care. They just hate Russia. Not because they can’t speak their language but because their imperial animus runs that deep. They want to charge for the guns, into the valley of death, etc.
Think about it. My neighbours all speak the same language as me but they don’t give a damn whether I live or die. Not that they wish me harm - they are just middle class English introverts who believe in garden walls and that prison camp called family. Our common language divides us.
So what hope for universal fraternity if those who walk the same streets as us are little more than harmless strangers?
And if you then apply the corrective lens of national antagonisms, steeped in centuries-old hostility and loathing, no amount of present continuous can cure a past tense.
Maybe. Steve Rosenberg of the BBC speaks passable Russian, to my ear at least, but he still comes across as prejudiced and oblivious despite years of opportunity to develop his outlook within the environment.
I’ve been watching the French espionage series The Bureau. In it, we see the same depiction of Russia: an outpost of savage minds and duplicitous people; France as the ‘garden’, the civilised vanguard against the eastern menace. The same old cliches. And Europe is riddled with this mindset. Speaking the Russian language, or any other besides, clearly doesn’t naturally lead to sympathy or insight. The problem isn’t so much can we speak their language or can diplomats improve their linguistic capacities; the problem lies in a mindset that is hegemonic in principle and one that fervently believes it is right. Beneath this carapace of cultural arrogance we find the same acquisitiveness, the same greedy appetite for other countries resources. They look at Russia enviously. They want its resources. The same mindset that bedevilled the west in the lead up to WW2, exemplified in its crude essence in the Nazi’s coda called lebensraum. We see this in that BlackRock vampire, Merz. We see this in Macron and Starmer - all globalists who dance to their masters, the bankers, tune.
Perfectly summarised, thank you.
Of course, you’re right. Ian is a very nuanced writer and he was saying more than I referred too.
The English are docile people, mostly, but beneath the docility is a kind of lazy contempt. I might add, I grew up among them and bear the English no ill will. Maybe, it can also be said that national traits are variable and people, once you step behind their cultural barricades, are just people. Finite, vulnerable, absurd people. We all share far more in common - our common lot - then we do in differences. But the problem with diplomats and diplomacy in general is that it is governed by ideological preferences and mandates. Certainly, the western version is.
"The English are docile people, mostly"
I am English.
I've lived most of my life in England. A sizeable proportion of people are the polar opposite of docile.
When you've seen a so-called 'mother' scream at her young infant daughter and call her the c-word, I'm afraid your ability to see the English as 'docile' is compromised.
I was in England a week or so ago. Again, a 'mother' being absolutely vile to her daughter, who was crying her eyes out. Engaging in utter psychological cruelty like pretending to have got a whatsapp message from the girl's father, the father supposedly having said that the girl was a "pathetic little crybaby", which would have been a bad enough thing to say to the kid in its own right, but even worse because I could see she'd made it up. This was in an airport, in full view of hundreds of people.
I was so angry I could barely contain myself and the only reason I kept my mouth shut was that I could sense that intervening would make it worse for the kid.
Kids have no way of getting out of a shitty childhood. I was upset about it for days.
And then you have the English media having the temerity (on orders from above) to describe the Russians as 'barbarians'. My God. Talk about stones and glass houses.
"But seriously…does it really matter?"
Bhuel, caithfidh Ian 'A Misfit in Moscow' a dhíol...
But I agree with you, and Ian's effectively identified that it's not the ability to speak the language that's the primary problem, it's more the mindset that the Russians are the enemy. Ian did refer to the lady whose Russian skills deteriorated fast as she didn't engage or use it in daily life, seeming to hint that the Moscow embassy suffered from groupthink and everyone was sort of stuck in their own little sort of Tinker Tailor 'cosplay' than actually bothering to get out and meet your average Russian Joe. Bit of fear maybe?
It's a sort of vicious alliance of English arrogance, expecting everyone to speak English, and hard fact that English is actually the world's 'power language', and the two feed each other, only strengthening each other. The more people around the globe just give up and speak English, the more the English can be arrogant about learning a second tongue.
[It should be said that many people around the world see their ability to speak English as a great source of personal pride, and valuable asset in the eternal job of earning money.]
Understood in the context of Ian with copies of 'A Misfit in Moscow' to sell, the article's a decent read, déarfainn...
But yes, in the grand scheme of things, as I wrote below, there are far greater worries...
While I completely agree with your piece, when I read things like "Starmer is preparing for war" [implied with Russia] then I don't think Brits in important positions for the nation's security need a foreign language as a priority, but they do need an urgent appointment with a psychiatrist.
If Starmer is indeed preparing for war with Russia, it'd be nice if the rest of us were told. The purchase, delivery and storage of twenty five years' worth of tinned corned beef is going to take me quite a while to organise.
Flippancy is a useful defence mechanism, to help stave off the onset of madness, but seriously, "Starmer is preparing for war"?
When are the British public/media going to wake up and say "Now hang on a minute..."
I speak several languages and when I ventured out to explore the world I was able to use them. I had a technical degree and worked as a technical translator in Algeria and Paris. When I arrived in London it was not of interest to any employer.
I wanted to learn Russian but all courses got cancelled at the start of the War. However I am now getting fluent in mandarin and only amazed I didn’t learn it earlier. ( No grammar, no gender, no pronouns I could go on). I wanted to try to understand the Chinese a bit better. Languages allow that. I still want to learn Russian!
This is very a strange and concerning situation. I wonder, do other countries’ diplomats suffer under the same disadvantages?
While most other western countries diplomatic corps suffer the same fading as the British one, at least they have the advantage of needing to be bilingual...
Ian old bean - this is very simple. When we are not understood out there, we just shout a bit louder.
(30 years abroad here) I am fluent in German here in rural Germany - I get by okay, but when I am in the Alps my grasp of Bavarian/Tirolean is way gone. The problem is English is a lazy language - German has 4 cases, I understand Finnish has six! Our schools were fresh from their WW2 victory and thus we didn't need to respect Johnny Foreigner.
Speaking another language is a gateway into another mindset. good or bad. It saddens me that so many Europeans assume that the rest of the world wants to be like them. No they damn well don't! Since 911, the Western world has collectively lost its mind, decency and soul.
Summer 1974 saw me in Jordan/Syria/with a natural linguist 19year old Brit who had then not yet started uni. That 19year old fell into conversation with a lad from the UK on vacation from an Oxford college. Intriguing discussions and you have now confirmed what the Oxford man told us all those years ago. When the then 19 year old entered uni a year later he found there were no uni courses allowing for foreign language WITH science or applied maths. It's this "no uni courses ..." that's the problem.
Good article. The way things are going in the UK and the west, I wouldn't be surprised if proficiency in English becomes problematic. Who wouldn't love to be paid to learn a language and culture? I can't believe the fail rate is so bad. Lack of accountability is destroying our nations.
My local grammar school (which is older than the UK) no longer teaches Mandarin, Russian or even German, despite billing itself as a “specialist language school”. That apparently means French and Spanish. They cite an inability to recruit and retain teachers.
The problem with insight like this is if I referred to it in conversation as to why UK doing badly, the response would be "who's Ian Proud?". So we have UK govt that wants to remove elitism by keeping information from the masses. Erm hang on...
Don't languages get learned before employment? Once employed, motivation drops. Hollywood shows everyone speaks English and those who don't, luckily there's a western-sympathetic local to interpret. So make language a priority for employment and career development.
"Russia has invested massively in its diplomatic and military capabilities to the extent that they now far outstrip ours. And if you are not worried about that, you should be."
Why should I be worried that Russia can ensure it's position is clear?
Surely it is much more dangerous for Russia to be misunderstood?
Good to hear you are in Tbilisi Ian. Give our regards to Messrs Diesen and Mercouris!