Sunday, December 10, 2006

The other day I was watching a US TV series with Turkish subtitles when I heard the leading female character exclaim, Oh, just ignore him, he is so philistine… All at once, there appeared the Turkish subtitle on the screen and to my astonishment, I noticed the word philistine being translated as Filistinli. Thus distorted, the whole sentence had become Oh, just ignore him, he is so Palestinian…

Elif Şafak

  The other day I was watching a U.S. TV series with Turkish subtitles when I heard the leading female character exclaim, “Oh, just ignore him, he is so philistine…” All at once, there appeared the Turkish subtitle on the screen and to my astonishment, I noticed the word “philistine” being translated as “Filistinli.” Thus distorted, the whole sentence had become “Oh, just ignore him, he is so Palestinian…” I stared at the screen, flabbergasted.  Next, the other character responded to this remark. “I know, I know, he is badly in need of guidance. Somebody should teach him some taste...” Obviously, whoever had done the English-Turkish translation had no idea what “philistine” meant and had felt no need to look it up in the dictionary. Instead he (or she) had come up with the closest verbal acquaintance he could lay his hands on. But in doing so, was he aware that he could cause a disarray of surprising proportions and contribute in his own way to the “clash of civilizations”? After all, thanks to the misunderstanding of the translator and his mistranslation, average Turkish viewers watching this movie at home could easily end up getting the wrong idea. Here comes a Western character, a smug American to boot, shrugging insolently and reproving someone for being “so Palestinian”! Is this how they are going to bring peace to the Middle East? Before you know, the average viewer is infuriated. As if we needed yet another cultural misunderstanding. As if we needed yet another tension and another reason to get angry at the “Other.” But how often do similar misunderstandings take place in daily life? How many times have we misunderstood each other s cultures, languages and intentions? How many words have been not only “lost” in translation but also “distorted” in translation? Anti-Westernists in the Middle East and Islamophobics in the West, regrettably, repetitively and doggedly speak with and within such “mistranslations.” Incited by their misperceptions, they react before they understand. They talk before they listen. They jump to conclusions before they fully probe ready-made assumptions.  Interestingly, according to Vladimir Nabokov, this is what precisely “philistinism” is all about. In a brilliant article titled “on Philistines and Philistinism,” Nabokov claimed that a philistine “is the conformist, the man who conforms to his group.” As such, “philistinism is international,” Nabokov argued. “It is found in all nations and all classes.” Based on this, he gave the most perfect definition of the word: “A philistine is a full-grown person whose interests are of a material and commonplace nature, and whose mentality is formed of the stock ideas and conventional ideals of his or her group and time.”

  I kept watching the series. To my dismay, a few minutes later, that infamous word was uttered again. “Such philistinism…” said one of the actors, in an overtly reprimanding tone. I instantly zapped to another channel in order not to see the Turkish subtitle.