Regards, Ivan
Posted on 05/01/2003 5:47:59 PM PDT by MadIvan
The big chill freezing relations between the US and France has reached America's most Gallic city, New Orleans, otherwise known as the Big Easy.
A statue of Joan of Arc gazes at the Mississippi and the French Quarter is still festooned with tricolours and fleur de lys flags but the malaise afflicting the two nations has even spread to the bicentennial celebration of their common past.
A lavish exhibition marking one of the most important events in their joint history, the Louisiana Purchase, is drawing large crowds but its organisers at one stage feared that bad feeling over Iraq would scupper the project.
Laura Bush, the president's wife and honorary head of the organising committee, stayed away from the opening gala and her greeting to visitors to the museum hosting the show is remarkable for its nuanced language.
The exhibition "offers great insights into the founding of our nation, the nature of leadership and the rich artistic dealings between America and France," the First Lady says, tactfully omitting any mention of France as the US's oldest ally.
"Jefferson's America and Napoleon's France" at the New Orleans Museum of Art commemorates the 200th anniversary of what is arguably the most lucrative real estate bargain in history, at least for the buyer. The infant American republic doubled its size thanks to the deal with France's then First Consul, snapping up the territory from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains for the knockdown price of four cents an acre
French copies of the purchase documents are some of the exhibition's highlights. But its organisers were afraid that these, and other French treasures, might not show up, victims of this spring's war of words between Washington and Paris over the Middle East.
To everyone's relief, all the promised items turned up, a victory hailed by some as proof of the two countries' enduring cultural ties overcoming petty political differences.
In fact, the show only underlines the historical contrast between the two nations, despite Marquis de Lafayette helping the colonies to win the American Revolution and the gift of the Statue of Liberty.
A sumptuous gilded throne used by Bonaparte stands beside an austere, high-backed leather armchair belonging to Jefferson, admittedly the most passionate Francophile of all US presidents. Among the ironies highlighted by the show was France's then status as the world's most powerful nation on land, one which celebrated a "cult of war" and far removed from the image of "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" coined by The Simpsons.
In another piquant parallel, Napoleon and his armies had just returned from a victorious military expedition to the Orient, to Egypt.
"After seeing all that, I understand that we have much less in common than I thought," said one visitor to the show, Cookie Sampson. "Napoleon must have been quite an egomaniac."
Another irony of the Louisiana Purchase was that the Creoles of New Orleans, the only sizeable town in the wilderness sold by the transaction, were decidedly ambivalent about the deal.
This week's 200th anniversary of the treaty's drafting was marked with a Mass in the cathedral but the real action was in the streets where the city held a traditional New Orleans funeral for the R&B guitarist, Earl King.
Despite its veneer of French influence, New Orleans seems to be part of the US mainstream in its attitude to the country itself.
Another local venue which celebrates a significant chapter in US-French history is the National D-Day Museum. New Orleans was the home of the Higgins boats which landed Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy. On the pavement outside, anti-French feeling was running predictably high.
"I have no use for them now," said Joe Thurman. "We protected their butt back then and now they fight against us tooth and toenail. And when we make a success of it in Iraq, now they want a piece of the action."
"Maybe they have something to offer with their food and wine but it's their principles - if they have any - and their leaders I can't stand."
Regards, Ivan
De Cajuns, dey no git no killed off in dey World War One un dey World War Two. Dey no get no emasculated. Dey no sip no cup of no bad communism. Dey families left France jus in time, no.
"Maybe they have something to offer with their food and wine but it's their principles - if they have any - and their leaders I can't stand."
Basically says it all.
Hardly "victorious." Nelson whipped the French fleet and Bonney barely escaped, abandoning his troops to deal with the plague and finally to surrender to the Turks.
Napoleaon's spinning of this adventure into a victory is surely one of history's notable con jobs.
What does France "owe" us? Nothing. They owe us nothing, zilch, zero, nada. Gratitude is a dog's disease from which nations never suffer in dealing with others. No nation- including this one- will ever operate it's foreign policy on past alliances or percieved debts. Any nation that does is a fool.
Is the current French policy of opposition to the current US foreign policy wrong? Perhaps. Is it based on it's own percieved interests (even if they are not the right interests)? Most likely.
But let's stop all this nonesence about the French being "ingrates" and "traitors". France is an independent nation that rightly or wrongly is acting in what she believes to be her interests. They "owe" us nothing. What if France supported us? Would it have mattered a bit in the outcome of this war? Why the hatred?
French Canadians are the principal reason that Canada has turned from Ally to Enemy.
So9
So9
True enough. But they're not in love with France. They just hate America a lot more (because the Anglosphere is more of a threat to them because France is too far away). If Canada was attached to France they would hate that. They just don't fit in, anywhere in the world. It is a sad story. They should just secede and make their own state and be happy there.
Or in Bayonne, France:
Bayonne, NJ!!!
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