Quote:
Originally posted by AngelsSix
I guess the reason I started this thread was to get a feel for how people think about other cultures.
Does anyone here think that the naysayers would have a different opinion if:
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I'm not comfortable running my mouth, but here's 0.002 cents worth of reverse situation.
My first trip was at the age of five to the USA. That's where I spoke my first words of english by ordering a coke, and where my dad explained that I was a representative of Sweden and ought to behave as one.
We spent a lot of time in WI and on a roadtrip. Since I was so young at the time, it wasn't much of a foreign culture study. It did however give an orientation of the country, showing how it could be structured differently and hence different appearances of peoples' lives. I think that contributed to my early appreciation that there are many ways to do things, big and small.
My family went again when I was 9, and I crossed the ocean once more when I was 14. Both times were mostly spent in WI, since that is where our relatives live. I stayed very much in the background on the last trip, having it serve as a recovery period after a few troubling years at home and for simple observation and getting a feel of the people.
On 9/11 my sister said there had just been a terrorist attack, and I went to the living room, saw a tower burning and went back to the computer. After a minute I comprehended, crap that is bad, that is big. I could identify with the people there and it made me angry. It would not be long before I felt a frustration between how I knew people over here thought about it, how I imagined, heard, saw and read about your pain, and how I saw, heard and felt the response of the large population of middle easterners at school.
You know about dehumanization? You know how to raise dogs? Fame? Fear? Slogans and protestors' one liners? Leadership and role models? What it all boils down to is association.
Bring together association with ignorance and bad sources, and you have a people in total obediance. Give them intelligence and you'll be greeted with misunderstanding.
Imagine somebody who, when they look at the US, see greater rifts between the rich and poor than in Iran or SA, an oil dependant nation run by a president with a record in the oil industry, believe the guy making praised and
seemingly logical flicks about weaponry and deaths (but can't even quote stats correctly) in the USA, who only thinks of Hitler, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and molested children by death squads and bombs when they hear war (which they only hear from the right wing), who think the president "stole" the election and then locks up people without trials for years on end on a desolate island, blah blah blah +ICJ, UN, Israel, whatever.
There is part of the result. Very rudimentary, the problems are the lack of dissemination of good information, and a lack of understanding of evil - how humans work.
Martin sends
I was reading "Hunting the Jackal" when he came to get me.
They lost someone in the WTC's on 9/11
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