Irate at the lack of “Whom?”
5 Likes
As a german, I wasn’t aware we didn’t like Canadians. They have been stationed in Germany as NATO troops since 1951. They are NATO, we are NATO, so why bother?
Depends strongly on personal experience. You may hate some guy, who is from a foreign country and so you hate the whole country. Which is, of course bs. Sometimes this “hate” is baked into you by your parents and friends and doesn’t result from personal experience but from pure prejustice.
For most Germans, canadians live in snowy towns and have polite, red dressed policy officers on horses. Canadians from our point of views seem to be the rational form of Americans, without the Nazi-racistic behaviour. Besides, thats one reason, most of Germans hate America. We recognize the american “patriotic” behavior as the exact same behaviour as Nazi-Germanys “Brown mob”. We’ve been through this all and it didn’t end well.
So, dear Americans, don’t be surprised, no one loves you anymore. At least half of you looks like Nazi-scum for the rest of the world.
7 Likes
Why do I dislike the USA?
1 Like
That Six Nations video really gets to the heart of it. Every other part of the UK hates the English, and we, erm, hate each other?
One of my mates was born in England, grew up in Glasgow, and now lives in England again. As she put it the other day, “I support England, but also I also support anyone playing against England. I also support Scotland, as well as anyone playing against Scotland.”
If you wondering about who she supports when England play Scotland, she’s an optimist so she’s happy whichever way.
Edit: I found a copy of the video that the rest of the world can watch:
3 Likes
That’s impossible. You might have an accent that’s hard to place but nobody anywhere speaks any language without an accent.
What would that even mean? That there is some sort of platonic ideal default English?
2 Likes
Three Words: William H. Macy
3 Likes
There is an English comedian (whose name escapes me) who says “I’m told I have an accent. I don’t. This is how words are supposed to sound when they’re pronounced properly”
4 Likes
Has a thick American accent. Like cut it with a knife thick.
4 Likes
I know, but it’s just so beautiful…
Or more like a historian will swoop in and slap hands for lazy, historically inaccurate stereotyping?
1 Like
You don’t have a gif for that?
3 Likes
Hm… how’s this?
or perhaps…
2 Likes
Ok, it only seemed eternal back in the 1990s, when their myriad Hatfields-vs-McCoys conflicts were on my newsroom’s lineup every damned night and when I was simultaneously studying Russia’s involvement in the First World War in grad school.
I will acknowledge there was a time when that stupid JPF/PFJ feudin’ and fussin’ in the Balkans didn’t exist, and will certainly concede that such raging ethnic and religious hate is not unique to the Balkans. Things have calmed down a bit since 2010. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to see another flare-up there in my lifetime.
My point is that no one “naturally” hates another social constructed group of people from time immemorial - it’s a modernist fiction meant to show how “savage” people in the “exotic” Balkans are/were. In other words, framing it that way is a by-product of the sort of low-level orientalism aimed at Eastern Europe more generally and at the Balkans more specifically. This was of course leaned into and whipped up by the hardliner nationalists on both sides (and seems to be dangerously percolating today, especially in Croatia and along the southern border in Serbia with Kosovo). It also meant that a real solution was never really pursued and as such continues to simmer today. Let’s not forget that the location that took the heaviest level of violence was Sarajevo (and Bosnia more generally) which has a higher level of identification as Yugoslav during the 60s and 70s, and a much higher level of intermarriage between religious/ethnic groups. That wasn’t a mistake or happenstance. That was the entire goal - to absolutely erase the longer history of interconnections between the various religious groups in the region during the Ottoman period.
2 Likes
That was the true tragedy that I remember from our coverage at the time. The most liberal and open-minded areas in the region were the ones targetted by the ultra-nationalist arseholes (which is how all of those “leaders”, regardless of ethnicity, were characterised by the miserable locals when we interviewed them).
“You’ve got to be carefully taught”, as the song goes. And there have been few more effective teachers of hate concentrated in one place than the various religious institutions of the Balkans. Combine that with outside interference from the now defunct empires surrounding them and that was the result.
2 Likes
Wait, is Mary Poppins flying past the … Matterhorn? I assume that’s not from the original movie but rather some Disneyland promotional film.
Historians go anywhere they please.
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
