From Lawrence Auster's The View From the Right, a discussion on ethnicity and unity.
Posted on January 8, 2010
More interesting discussion on the topic at the post.
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Kidist writes:
I think I may have told you this already, but I left Ethiopia (with my younger brothers and parents) when I was nine years old. My father was stationed in Paris, in UNESCO, and we were sent about six months later to England to attend boarding school in southern Kent.
I left for University at 17 to the States, and later, my Dad was posted in New York’s UNESCO office. Once I completed that education, we all immigrated for good to Canada.
So, I have lived most of my life outside of Ethiopia. My Western experience is extensive and full—I was in my school choir throughout my time in England, and later in college; I studied piano until I was 21; I kept on playing and singing for much longer; I studied both ballet (until 13) and modern dance (into my 20s). I speak (pretty good) French. While in Paris, I must have been the only Ethiopian girl who was a fixture in the museums and galleries.
When I came to Canada, I decided to leave behind my science studies (biology/human nutrition) and pursue a “cultural” degree. I went to film/photography school for four years. Disillusioned with “art” I left that and started my training in textile design.
Since then, I have been as immersed in culture as I can be.
This is what makes me unique amongst immigrants:
- My isolated childhood from other Ethiopians while in France and England.
- My love for and immersion in the greatest of European culture when still a young girl—English choral music, and French art galleries and museums.
- By the time I had arrived in the States and Canada, I was too impressed with European culture to accept people’s denouncement of its inferiority, its oppressive nature, and other negatives.
- Without being presumptuous, it is my Amhara background, which has a history of leadership and civilization, that helped me to make analogies with what whites are going through in a multicultural society, which wishes to destroy whites in order to equalize everyone. This is what the communist regime in Ethiopia tried to do to Amharas.
- Also, my art education—music, dance, film and visual arts—also immersed me into the incredible beauty and complexity of Western culture, which have shaped my views.
- Living in a densely multicultural city like Toronto, largely of anti-Western non-whites, made me realized how strong and pernicious this anti-Western sentiment is, and I removed myself from it.
This might make my positions and opinions a little clearer. I know it throws many people off, seeing a Third World person like me so accepting and at ease with Western culture. But, maybe I’m just unusual with that. As I said before, 99.99 percent of all immigrants from the Third World do not wish to, nor are they able to, assimilate into Western culture.
