As you have already noticed the issue of the Boston Marathon bombing has got a new dimention: Some Americans confuse Chechnya with the Czech Republic. During yesterday determined statements appeared on Twitter, including those of declaring war on us. This provoked some of the Czech users to fight for their country’s name and started explaining the difference between the Czech Republic and Chechnya.
Yesterday it seemed that only Czech media are interested in this topic, today the news touched even some American websites. The Czech Ambassador in Washington has also made a statement explaining the difference betweeen the two countries. Has a geographical enlightenment in America been started?
Yes, I really hope this dismaying demonstration of Americans' ignorance is also a "teaching moment" when more people will learn what and where these countries are. If they can't be bothered to look at a map themselves, maybe they'll see one on TV and at least discover that such things as maps exist.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, I don't think this will have a lasting impact in terms of Americans' impressions of the Czech Republic. To the extent that the accused bombers' nationality is important, people will hear "Chechen" and "Chechnya" repeated and explained to them over and over; nobody's going to keep repeating the Czech Republic mistake. Also, my parents, who have been following the news on this in the US, had not heard that mistake made themselves, so it wasn't common or normal in serious media reporting. (The Czech ambassador refers to "social media," so it sounds like something that people were saying on Facebook or Twitter for a short while.) And then there's the fact that Americans also have notoriously short attention spans, so they're going to forget details like this, other than the fact that the suspects are Muslim -- unfortunately, that's the detail that's probably going to stick with people and have the most impact.
One other thing: Better-informed Americans also find their compatriots' ignorance disturbing. See the comments following this item -- some of them are making jokes about it, but jokes at the expense of their fellow Americans, not the Czechs. (My favorite is the suggestion that maybe it should also be pointed out for Americans' benefit that Chechnya is not the same as Chewbacca.)
Oops, here's the address I meant to include: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/czech-republic-ambassador-clarifies-his-country-chechnya-are (scroll down for the comments)
DeleteIf you're interested, here's a snippet of the live video in which an on-air expert confuses Chechnya with the Czech Republic. http://youtu.be/F6RvSTiM3Yk
ReplyDeleteAnd here's the whole article: http://www.rferl.org/content/boston-chechen-czech-twitter-marathon-bombing-suspects/24963035.html
But this incident is a really good joke material :D You can also find some hilarious jokes in comments on Czech news sites.
Thanks for the video. Ohmygosh..... the guy speaking is former CIA? Well, that tells you something about the US "intelligence community," as it's called. No wonder they failed to predict the end of the Cold War.
ReplyDeleteAt least the speaker wasn't CNN's own reporter or anchor-person. On the other hand, Anderson Cooper, the anchorman standing on the right -- a pretty smart guy who has reported from all over the world, including probably Chechnya, and certainly must know where it is -- didn't correct the mistake. I'm hoping that's because someone was speaking in his earpiece at that moment and he didn't hear it. Pretty poor performance, though, all in all.
That's crazy! I admit that the words "Czech" and "Chechen" are somewhat similar and that it can be easy to confuse them. But still if he had been preparing a report for TV shouldn't he have checked it before? And especially when he is a former CIA agent...no comment, really.
ReplyDelete