Monday, March 2, 2009

Tête-à-tête about America; Conversation with a French Guy


It has been over one week; I have been having discussions with many guys regarding US economy, society, politics and culture. I always had perception that French do not like anyone except themselves, they envy Britain; make fun of Italian and of course nothing positive about America. I usually have interesting discussions in hot Jacuzzi in one of the leading hotels in Karachi, I love social interaction in the SPA, get to meet different people from various parts of the world. Today I met one of the CEOs of a global hotel in Karachi, guy is from France, and initially he explained about hotel business in Pakistan then asked me about the industry I work for. Then discussion continued with US economy, all the way from housing crisis to stimulus package and forecasts. I was surprised when French guy shared his perception of America, he told me that if America goes down, world will go down and US will not let anything go down it is simply because they have winning vigor. They make mistakes, learn and bounce back, they have capacity to shift the complete paradigm, it is one of the winning societies unlike economically conservative European and Japanese. He further mentioned that US has capacity to shift paradigm, simply because they do not have any history, it has been over 100 to 200 years they have started moving up, they do not think about past or do not have historical complexes or mental blocks, whereas other societies such as Japanese and Europe has to face past. French guys’ illustration was interesting, never thought or looked at it from such perspective; however, I have an idea that US is not a failure shy country. Frankly, there are negative things about US but mostly positive aspects are so many that one tend to ignore negatives, at times I wonder if SAUDI had been the super power and shaping the global affair, Oh GOSH......i just can not imagine the plight of poor world. What if Soviet had been running the show………US has made many mistakes, atrocities in Vietnam, Iraq and else are there but I am still glad that US is shaping the global history.

1 comment:

Liz said...

Americans think in terms of "winners & losers." We hired Barack Obama to fix the mess of George Bush because we have no intention of losing. Some call us arrogant but I assure you, when we come back we want to bring everyone with us.