"It's a beautiful accent but I can't understand a word you're saying. Good luck, live in peace."
The story I’m highlighting in this post is not the main news to come out of Donald Trump’s explosive press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House earlier this week. No, that would be the unexpected announcement that the US was going to take over the Gaza strip, Gazans were going to be encouraged to leave voluntarily and the strip would be turned into the ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ What the future holds for Gaza remains to be seen, but we are definitely living in a time when the previously unthinkable seems to be turning into US Government policy on a whim.
In light of that, the bit from the White House press conference I’m choosing to focus on may seem trivial, but it isn’t. As regular readers of this newsletter know, I believe that language and culture are interlinked, and that English being the global language amplifies Anglophone culture above all others. So I think this example is symptomatic of which voices carry more weight in our so-called interconnected world.
During that news conference, Trump took questions from the assembled media (the room was packed, unsurprisingly). Most were about trying to clarify his bombshell announcement, but US-based reporter Nazira Karimi, who identified herself as an Afghan journalist, asked about her country:
Do you have any plan to change Afghanistan’s situation? Are you able to recognise the Taliban? What are your future plans for Afghan people?
Pretty understandable line of questioning, journalistically speaking, from a female reporter whose fellow countrywomen have been abandoned by the international community to the Taliban’s increasingly inhumane restrictions. But, linguistically speaking, the question was apparently not understandable enough for President Trump, who replied that even though she had a beautiful voice and accent, he couldn’t understand a word Nazira Karimi was saying. Cue laughter from the assembled White House Press Corps. Not everyone laughed I’m sure, but enough did.
I’m now going to (briefly) give President Trump the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes in news conferences the sound is clearer on TV, where the directional mic is picking up just one voice, than in the room itself were the background noise can be a lot louder. Ok. Benefit of doubt over.
Because when I heard his words my heart sank. I don’t know, and I wouldn’t want to second guess, how Nazira Karimi herself felt. As a female Afghan journalist I suspect she’s made of tougher stuff than most of us and that the problems she has to deal with go beyond ‘someone was disrespectful about my foreign accent.’ But still.
I think it was the patronising ‘You have a beautiful voice, you have a beautiful accent’ that got to me the most. Because that’s hardly the point. As a journalist you’re not there to entertain with the exotic sound of your voice (raise your hand if you hate the word exotic). You’re there to get your point across, to tell a story, to hold power to account and to often speak for people far away who are feeling the impact of decisions made elsewhere . Being told that your voice is beautiful but you’re hard to understand effectively means that you can’t do your job.
Now, I may be biased but I don’t think Nazira Karimi was hard to understand at all. However it was telling how quickly Trump just moved on, without giving her the chance to ask the question again.
Foreign accents are often difficult to understand. Ignoring this doesn’t help anyone and I bang on about the importance of working on your clarity to anyone who’ll listen. But surely you can just say something along the lines of “Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding you, could you please repeat yourself?” As opposed to just moving on to the next person, as if the question in a foreign accent was somehow less important, less valuable. Often it’s the exact opposite, but as we saw on Tuesday evening, the foreign voices are definitely easier to ignore. In this case, to the sound of laughter to boot. And don’t get me started on the ‘live in peace’ at the end from a US President to an Afghan woman.
I know that the first few weeks of the Trump administration have thrown up vastly more serious issues than this. But we have stormy times ahead, and it feels like the international world order, with all its undeniable imperfections, is crumbling.
Keeping channels of communication open is crucial. Hearing all voices in a debate is imperative. Especially the voices that are hard to understand, both linguistically and culturally, because those tend to be the ones we’ll learn from the most, whether we agree with them or not.
Thank you for this, Barbara. Nazira is actually a very close family friend, and it was deeply upsetting to see how Trump dismissed her so casually, as though her voice—and by extension, her country’s suffering—was an afterthought. His patronising remarks struck a painful chord because they weren’t just words; they were a reflection of a much larger betrayal. I’ve worked on Afghan affairs for many years, particularly focusing on women’s rights, and what we’ve witnessed since August 2021—the way the global community has abandoned Afghan women—has been nothing short of shameful.
Afghan women aren’t asking for handouts or empty sympathies. What they seek, and deserve, is solidarity—a willingness to listen, to amplify their voices, and to act with purpose. Trump’s words, whether intentionally or not, translated to something we’ve been hearing too often lately: We no longer care about Afghanistan. Figure out your own peace. Good luck.
I think Trump was simply deflecting. I heard the question and it was clear enough for me (I have what is sometimes referred to as a "posh" accent although it is South African. Trump likes to be rude - especially when he is dealing with non-American people.