Is it respectful or is it submission?
“I find it respectful that the Irish students are learning my language.”
These are the words of Mohammad. He is 14 years old and moved from Syria to Northern Ireland in 2019.
In school, his Northern Irish friends come up to him and speak to him in Arabic, greeting him with “Marhaba (hello)”, “Sabah alkhaer (good morning),” and “How are you (kifak)?”
I dunno. While a part of me hasn’t a problem with learning a foreign language to be kind towards someone who is an incomer, my other instinct is to recoil. When I moved to France, I spoke to people in French, because it was their country and it is respectful to learn the language of the host country, not expect them to speak to me in mine. If they did, because they wanted to, well, fine, but I didn’t expect it because it was their country and I was the visitor.
I might take a more generous view of this if we hadn’t been bombarded with the idea that we should kowtow to foreign imports this past few years. My natural generosity has been eroded.
Surely THEY are supposed to integrate with US?
I think that the clue is in the word ‘Respectful’. The guy wasn’t kind, or generous, or welcoming, he was being respectful, because respect is what he has a right to expect.