Last November, I wrote a post about my program of study at Yarmouk, including a sample article I wrote for Journalism class on globalization and converging Eastern/Western coffee (and cafe) cultures.
Although the article was a general comparison of Jordanian and American coffee cultures, my focus within each culture remained on recent changes in consumption patterns. In my piece, I noted an increasing divergence in the coffee preferences of Jordanian youth and their parents' generation and linked it to globalization as much as to changing tastes.
Yesterday I stumbled upon an editorial in Ad-Dustour newspaper taking a stab at the same topic. Written from the point of view of a father bemoaning his children's taste for American coffee, the author also likens the growing trend to a loss of heritage and a casualty of Western cultural imperialism. Hmm, maybe I should have shopped my article around to more than just my prof...
*note: this particular editorial, entitled "Default Country" begins a wider condemnation of Western culture imposed through globalization with the following lament of his children's denial of traditional Arabic coffee. His focus later shifts to the perils of longing to belong to an alien culture that actually wreaks havoc (from his point of view) on one's native culture. As such, even the coffee section in the introduction is filled with some polemics.
أبنائي مغرمون بالقهوة الأمريكية. ولقد باءت بالفشل جميع محاولاتي لإقناعهم بعربية القهوة ، فلم ينبهروا بحقيقة أن كلمة موكا أصلها مُخا ، الميناء اليمني الذي صدّر أجود أنواع القهوة لأوروبا على مدى ثلاثة قرون ، فلا القهوة العربية ، ولا حتى التركية ، تولد لديهم أي شعور بالانتماء كالذي ينعمون به وهم يحتسون قهوة باهتة في مقهى عالمي يعلمون أن مؤسسه رجل من أكثر الصهاينة الأمريكان تأثيراً في العالم.وأبنائي في ذلك يشكلون ظاهرة مع أترابهم من مختلف البلاد العربية ، الذين يجلسون بكل اعتزاز على (القهاوي) وكأن الشعار المطبوع على كوب القهوة الورقي هو إذن بالمواطنة في العالم الجديد. ولسان حالهم يقول: انظروا إليّ ، أنا احتسي القهوة كأي مواطن نيويوركي أصيل،سؤالي دائماً لهم: ماذا لو كان ثمن هذا الكوب طلقة تزرع في قلب طفل فلسطيني؟
"My children are fond of American coffee. All my efforts to convince them on Arabic coffee have failed, for they don’t seem to realize that the word Mocha comes from Mokha, the Yemeni port that exported the finest varieties of coffee to Europe for three centuries.
No, not Arabic coffee, or even Turkish coffee, stirs in them any sense of belonging as much as they enjoy drinking lackluster coffee in an international café knowing that that its founder is one of the biggest and most influential American Zionists in the world [he is referring to Starbuck's founder Howard Shultz, widely known in the region for his financial and political support of Israel]. Thus, my children, along with their peers from various Arab countries, form a phenomenon of sitting proudly in Al-Qahawi with the logo printed on the coffee cup and being, therefore, citizens of the new world.
They say: ‘Look at me, I drink coffee like a native New Yorker.’ So my question to them is always: ‘What if the cost of that cup of coffee is a bullet planted in the heart of a Palestinian child?'"
Tellingly, he goes on to condemn Oprah, obesity, and American acceptance of homosexuality...Yikes.
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