Another day, another international conference, another meaningless display of unity. But with lovely gift bags, we’re sure. The latest example: a UNESCO compact, sanctified in October at a Tunisia conference, supporting the rights of nations to control the import of entertainment from other countries, all in the name of “cultural diversity.” Otherwise Bugs Bunny cartoons would pose a mortal threat to the state-controlled monoculture of most nations. The United States opposes the compact, because we’re mean and hate everyone, if you read the press.
Well good for those Third Worlders, you might say, holding off the latest American Rambo movie! Well not quite:
The original sponsors were France and its stepchild Canada; figures. No country is more prickly about preserving its own culture than France; they regularly have le panique attaq whenever small fragments of other tongues infect their pristine lingo. Their cinema is heavily subsidized, producing endless movies about older-yet-unquestionably-masculine men who pensively smoke while contemplating a girl’s knee observed on a beach in 1972. Canada also mandates local content, because there’s so much difference between someone who grew up in southern Manitoba and someone who grew up in upper North Dakota. The North Dakotan grows up without a sense of what it’s like to be annoyed by bilingual candy-bar wrappers, for example. Might as well be from different planets.
This talk of cultural contamination or whatever the French call it is ridiculous given how much America borrows and imports from other cultures:
American culture is eventually world culture, and vice versa. Brittle cultures don’t handle it well. Adaptive cultures absorb and adapt–the point of multiculturalism, no?The New York Times is not amused:
But some will see the US position as more American mulishness. The New York Times put it thus: “As with the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty and the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, (The US) will likely remain a critical - and perhaps obstructionist - outsider.”Maybe we should insist that Canadian singers keep out of America. But we handled it just fine. Alanis Morissette climbs our charts and now she's become an American. Instant American content. I imagine it won't be long before Avril Lavigne takes the oath, too.
Lileks thinks, as do I, that we should not be ashamed about standing outside and obstructing another misguided European fashion:
Imagine that! The killjoy nation. Monarchy, Communism, Fascism, Socialism, now Tribalism – the US never quite joins in the fun. Everyone else jumps off the bridge, and we hang back, taking notes. Like we’re special or something.So when you have such a French-inspired proposal before the vaunted international community's delegates, do you have any doubts about the outcome?
In a vote cast as a battle of global conformity vs. cultural diversity, delegates to a U.N. agency turned aside strong U.S. objections Thursday and overwhelmingly approved the first international treaty designed to protect movies, music and other cultural treasures from foreign competition.
The 148 to 2 vote at the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization emerged as a referendum on the world's love-hate relationship with Hollywood, Big Macs and Coca-Cola.
Who voted with us? Israel. Thank you for that. Four unnamed countries abstained. I suppose thanks is in order for that, too.
Honestly, how long does it take for Bolton to sign that contract for a wrecking ball?
Sing it with me now! We are the world ...
