AIBU be absolutely horrified that this product is widely sold in Egypt?

[notamum3210]

Backstory: I'm half Egyptian and was recently there with family. We needed to buy some pesticide and this product was recommended by a local shop.
My fiance is certainly horrified. He posted this to reddit last night www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3r96k8/my_fianc%C3%A9_went_to_egypt_and_went_to_buy_some_bug/

Warning: there's a lot of awful commenting.

I know that casual anti-semitism is rife across the Arab world and even, shamefully, my extended family but even this shocked me. According to the shopowner, it's one of their topselling products and sold across the country. He also seemed to find it hilarious.

Oh absolutely - in this instance the Hitler and "Germany formula" bit make it very clear which genocide is being referenced by the pesticide.

I can't tell whether your question was cynically expecting people to be less bothered about the deaths of Jewish people, or claiming they were more bothered about the deaths of Jewish people.

Unfortunately I've heard both.

Strange how we interpret it differently. Soon as i saw it i thought it was likening jews to cockroaches. Insects to be destroyed - approved by Hitler.

There was genuinely no intention for it to either, Pausing - mine was simply an observation on the different way threads tend to go, depending on who's being targeted

The pity, of course, is that anyone is targeted for hateful treatment at all ...

Amen to that, Puzzled...

Wow. Just wow. I'm astounded by how many people think it's appropriate to comment on something they are clearly in total ignorance about. I would suggest some posters, particularly those on the first page, have a look at the history of Egyptian-Israeli relationships before declaring this a harmless joke. I don't think it's intended to be funny, it's not a Fawlty Towers or Monty Python type spoof. For a start Arabs are not exactly known for their well developed sense of humour.

I'd be shocked if this was being sold in the UK. Places like Egypt, not so much considering the history of the region and the fact they got their ass whooped by Israel.

For a start Arabs are not exactly known for their well developed sense of humour.

Now that is a challenging statement ...

Arabs have got a brilliant sense of humour. It's not exactly in line with Western values, mind...... misogyny, disabilism, anti-semitism, it's all good (so to speak).

Slapstick goes down well, tbf.

Ah, LurkingHusband, so you're allowed to play the 'It's a whole different culture' card when excusing deeply unpleasant references to genocide. But when somebody else points out those 'whole different cultures' aren't particularly renowned for their sense of humour then suddenly that's offensive.

So you are not at all offended by references to genocide which are approving/mocking.

Yet you are offended by the suggestion that Arabs aren't known for there sense of humour.

You sir, are a .

their ffs.

Creepy, that is why I used the phrase that their humour is 'not well developed' rather than 'they have no sense of humour'.

The Viz tshirts, that for example were mentioned, have several different layers of meaning and are self referential and have a deliberate level of offence and are deliberately intended to refer to the offence such images cause and the sensitivity of those who are offended. They also tend to be fairly clear in terms of semantics to most of us that the wearer is probably not serious and not a Nazi, not least because they are worn in Britain, mostly by British people, who are probably the most well known nation to stand against the Nazis and were not collaborators and had few homegrown Nazi supporters during WW2. There is a level of deliberate bad taste where the risqueness is part of the joke. But it doesn't tend to go on in the main stream such as supermarkets or hardware shops.

I doubt that insect killer is as sophisticated a joke. It's a very basic joke on the level of 'Hahaha, Hitler killed Jews like he insect they are'. Not 'Hahaha, look at that post-ironic, self referential insect killer in deliberate bad taste'.

Wow. I saw that picture as incredibly offensive and anti semitic.

And I didn't know that Zyklon B was a pesticide.

Add that information into the picture and it's just ... appalling. Unbelievably so.

I saw your fiancées thread earlier!

Does anyone remember the cockroach scene in Borat when they spend the night at the Jewish-owned b&b?

Booyaka

Ah, LurkingHusband, so you're allowed to play the 'It's a whole different culture' card when excusing deeply unpleasant references to genocide. But when somebody else points out those 'whole different cultures' aren't particularly renowned for their sense of humour then suddenly that's offensive.

So you are not at all offended by references to genocide which are approving/mocking.

Yet you are offended by the suggestion that Arabs aren't known for there sense of humour.

I've not said anywhere in this thread that I am either offended, or not offended - you have no idea what I think.

But carry on with the name calling. It's probably mandatory in AIBU

Holstein
YABU. I see it as ridiculing him, not Jewish people, as in, he's only fit for cockroaches.

No, the inference is that Hitler viewed Jews as subhuman - in his mind, he exterminated "insects/cockroaches".

Remember there has been several hundred years of war and hate between Islam and Judaism. There are elements of the Arab world and Islam denying the holocaust (I'm not sure of the prevalence but this has a bit of info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial#Holocaust_denial_in_the_Arab_world and a short article www.latimes.com/news/la-oe-ali16dec16-story.html)

Wmittens there can't be 'elements in Islam denying the holocaust' the holocaust happened way after the advent of Islam and had nothing to do with Muslims! Certainly not Muslims 1,400 years ago!

fuzzywuzzy

What?

I mean there are muslims who deny the holocaust.

Sadly, there are people of all religions who deny the holocaust.

There are some islamophobic comments here that make me deeply uncomfortable. The comment about a sense of humour, for instance, is simply untrue. I'm no expert, but even I've seen the films of Iranian directors like Kiarostami or Makhmalbaf - there is a deep, subtle, rich and humane sense of humour that runs through many of their social observations that surpasses anything contemporary British cinema has to offer. They also stand artistically alongside (IMO, above) anything that has been produced in Britain, Europe or the US. And alongside them, I am sure there is also a comedy of pratfall jokes and racist jokes and sexist jokes and deep homophobia. But that's the thing - any culture is likely to have a diverse range of comedy and senses of humour. Would we like all British comedy to be judged by the outpourings of so-called "comedians" like Jim Davidson or Roy "Chubby" Brown, I wonder??

Some - not all - humour in cultures is mired in language and custom. The always-worth-listening-to Stewart Lee made some observations on the linguistic differences between German and English which made a lot of English "jokes" unworkable in German. Mainly because some English humour relies on the ambiguity of the language, whereas German tends to be more proscriptive.

But Germans still laugh.

There's a fascinating scene in "Downfall" where a joke is made in German, and it almost survives translation. The bunker staff have been allowed to leave, and are wandering the streets of the shell that is Berlin. One character (slightly drunk) shouts ... "It's nothing but warehouses .... there's only warehouses and they are full of nothing." which raises a laugh from the others, signalling it was a joke. Of sorts.

The French love their puns. (I guess they find them mourish). I knew my immersion in French was paying off when, years ago, there was a terrible news story about dismembered body parts being found in the Seine, and I was able to kludge a (very) bad taste pun out of it. (Like all cultures, the French forgive a lot if you can make them laugh).

Recently, in Iceland, I had to take a moment to compose myself (from laughter) in a supermarket. In a clear demonstration that viking sensibilities still live on, all their meat products are headed with pictures of the source animals. So beef was under a nice picture of a smiling cow. Lamb was under frolicking lambs, and chicken was under a picture of a smiling chicken. Meanwhile the English seem to do everything they can to hide the origin of their meat.

"The French love their puns. (I guess they find them mourish)"

YABVU with that pun

Sadly, there are people of all religions who deny the holocaust.

No doubt, but Egypt is 90% Muslim (Islam is the state religion) and an Arab republic.

At the risk of reviving a thread that may have been better left to die in peace, YANBU OP but I am also not surprised.

This is definitely not a joke. It is meant as we would take it. Egypt is horribly anti Semitic (I find this word strange though, as Egyptians, or at least Arabs are themselves a Semitic people) and there is a complete inability and unwillingness to distinguish between the actions of Israel as a state and Jews in general. It is really sad given the long history of Judaism in Egypt and the huge contribution that Jews have made to Egyptian society over the course of millennia. Egyptian Christians IME are just as bad as Egyptian Muslims in this respect. Pretty much the only exceptions are made for stars who renounced Judaism for political reasons, like Leila Mourad.

While not an excuse, there are some factors behind this. Firstly is the fact that hardly any Egyptians under the age of seventy have met any Jewish people except in the context of war or espionage. There has been a consistent interest on the part of the state to maintain the narrative of Jews as the enemy and this ignorance and hatred is the predictable result. Even intellectuals by and large subscribe to this view and support a complete cultural boycott of Israel and the Hebrew language as a way of upholding solidarity with the Palestinians and pan Arab brotherhood. So long as the Palestinians don't try and settle here, that is.

Secondly I don't believe that the Holocaust has ever been taught in schools. I have met people with PhDs who had never heard of it or believed that it was a Zionist conspiracy perpetrated by Jews themselves to claim the Holy Land.

I have heard this repeated on TV more than once, and whilst patently offensive and untrue, it is sadly not the most ridiculous conspiracy theory doing the rounds. Conspiracy theories here are an essential component of state power.

I have never seen the product in question for sale, but it isn't at all surprising that it exists. You just have to look around at the prevalence of swastika graffiti.