Nine Minutes of Humiliation for Bulgaria

Editorial |Author: Irina Samokovska | July 13, 2011, Wednesday // 18:53|  views

Ever since Prime Minister Boyko Borisov took office, Bulgaria has been the butt of a translation/ interpretation joke.

As Borisov enjoys being known for his nonchalance about foreign languages, he can often be seen waving at interpreters, giving orders to interpreters, scrambling for interpreters, struggling to fix defective headphones, etc.

While it is moderately funny to watch Borisov pretend that he does not need foreign language skills and that it is all in the air, and all gestures and body (read "power") language, Tuesday's translation gaffe in which Bulgaria got involved was unambiguously not funny.

The case of Borisov's habitually missing interpreter turned into the case of the unexpectedly redundant interpreter.

On Tuesday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul gave a nine-minute speech in Turkish in a village in Northeastern Bulgaria without allowing for interpretation.

Gul, who was visiting Shumen to inaugurate a monument of legendary Bulgarian-Turkish wrestler Koca Yusuf (1864-1898) who is a native of the neighboring village of Cherna, spoke for nine minutes straight, neglecting the attempt of the interpreter for a consecutive rendering and making himself understandable to the local ethnic Turkish population and a host of Turkish journalists.

What would probably have been peddled for something between an act of neighborliness to a peculiar faux pas was actually a blatant disregard of Bulgaria's constitutional provision that the official language in the country is Bulgarian.

Bulgaria's gesture of acknowledging Turkey's heavyweight was met with a display of arrogance.

Turkey has long been a burning issue in Bulgaria, considering the intense debates about the news in Turkish on the state-owned TV channel BNT, the May 20 assault on praying Muslims at the Banya Bashi mosque, the ensuing discussion about the use of loudspeakers to summon Muslims to prayer and the appropriate number of mosques in the capital, attitudes towards Turkey's accession in EU, and so on and so forth.

How vocal is vocal enough for the Turkish minority?

Bulgaria may be undisguisedly interested in stepping up cooperation with neighbors, but it is not all bilateral trade and gas supplies.

"Kom?u", popular a form of address as it may be, denotes proximity, not respect.

Bulgaria is not trading off dignity as part of business deals.

Bulgaria's dignity is a sum total of the dignities of its citizens, who have their pens at the ready to sign a withdrawal unless there is a designated person to be held responsible for not responding to outright provocations as the above.

An apology would be noted, with acceptance pending.

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Tags: Abdullah Gul, Turkish President, Boyko Borisov, Shumen, Hitrino, Boyko Borisov, gas supplies

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