WORDSPEAK
Vandals and barbarians
BY ANAND
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How did the names of certain tribes become pejorative terms?
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VANDALISM: Now means wilful destruction or defacing of property.
A WHILE ago, V.S. Naipaul called Tony Blair a "cultural vandal". Sir Vidia's disparaging remarks were aimed at the British PM's policy to promote multiculturalism in Britain.
Indian media often uses `vandalism' in its dictionary sense, to denote the crime of wilful destruction or defacing of property belonging to other people, especially the government.
Labelling
Both in its usual meaning and as a metaphor for any activity that is considered to be damaging or destroying, vandal is a good example of certain pejorative terms that were institutionalised under the influence of the Christian Church. Technically, such critical, disapproving, judgemental and derogatory labelling is called dislogistic, the antonym of eulogistic.
A Vandal was a member of Germanic warrior tribes from the Baltic coast who overran western and southern Europe between the fourth and fifth century. They reached as far as Spain where the name Andalusia (`Vandalitia') commemorates them. At the height of their power, Vandals occupied most of Europe and parts of North Africa. Genseric, the Vandal king, when he sacked and looted Rome in 455 A.D., was doing what the Roman armies did after conquering a territory. But it is not difficult to imagine why the bishop of Rome a.k.a. the Pope would have called Vandals `barbarians,' more so because the Vandal king was an Arian Christian. (Arians believed that Jesus Christ was not divine, simply an exceptional human being.)
Nikos, a Greek acquaintance, used to claim that everything in western culture and languages came from Greece. A `barbarian' was one who was not a Greek, a foreigner, one without taste or refinement, an uncivilised person. `Barbaros' is Greek for foreign, lit, stammering, from the unfamiliar sound of foreign tongues. Greeks coined a special word to express dislike or fear of people from other countries: xenophobia (xenos = strange and phobia = fear).
Goth, a word not very common in India, has been used to describe a couth crude ill-bred person, lacking culture or refinement. Goths (the Visigoths) were another Germanic tribe from the Baltic who overran the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, and the eastern half of the tribe, the Ostrogoths settled near the Black Sea. As with Vandals, the Christian Church was quick to malign Goths, and this vilification only increased when the Visigoths also began to believe in heresy and converted to Arianism. Goths appear in Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus" (Act 5, Scene 1), and a Goth captures Aaron and his child.
A style of architecture with exaggerated pointed arches and complex decorations developed in northern France that spread throughout Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries was called `Gothic' or `barbarous' by Italian artists of the Renaissance. This dislogistic term can be said to be at the root of `gothic' conveying the sense of being medieval, old-fashioned and unenlightened, as if belonging to the Middle Ages. In literature, a Gothic novel is characterised by gloom and mystery and the grotesque.
During World War II, Germans were often contemptuously called Huns by the Allies. Huns were pastoral nomads from Central Asia who invaded and conquered south-eastern Europe in the fourth century, including parts of the Roman Empire; reason enough to earn a derogatory racial epithet. The Hun king Attila was vilified as a monster and called the Scourge of God by Christians. Historians, however, say that Attila was a brilliant military strategist and leader. An account of one of his victory celebrations tells how he dressed in ordinary, un-kingly clothes, and ate simple food in plates made from wood, while his guest were served choicest of meals and wines in plates and tumblers of gold and silver.
Hero or villain
Attila often exacted tribute as the price of peace treaties. The Roman emperor was so terrified of the Hun horsemen that all Attila had to do was rattle his sword and make threatening noises, and emissaries and plenipotentiaries of Rome arrived at his court, laden with gold and expensive gifts, to beg him to stop. He once reached the gates of Rome, but turned back in response to pleas and ransom from Pope Leo I. In parts of central Europe, especially Hungary, Attila is still eulogised as a hero, and is a common first name.
I find it fascinating how names of certain tribes became a pejorative term following their invasion of the Christian Europe, and a xenophobic mistrust of anything not Christian coincided with the Dark Ages, a period of cultural and economic decline of Europe in the fifth and sixth centuries. And what the non-Christian world was doing at that time? India was enjoying, under the Gupta dynasty, what has been called the golden age of religion, philosophy, literature and architecture. Maya, another great civilisation, was at its height, showing complex astronomical and mathematical knowledge, and building those amazing cities in Mexico. In China, the Great Wall was built, and Islam was spreading rapidly in the Arab world, North Africa and Iran.
A few more dislogistic terms in the next month's Wordspeak.
E-mail: anand@journalist.com
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