We Are All People.
This world is vast and separated by so many cultures and countries. Being so far apart and essentially disconnected, I guess it's easy to see other nationalities as completely alien to ourselves and label them in cliché ways. It's easy, even, to imagine that they have nothing in common with us and could potentially be our enemies. Indeed, when we are at war, dehumanising the enemy is what allows us to indiscriminately kill them, or accept and even support their slaughter. Civilians, women and children become just collateral damage.
For a long time, I've accepted that as individuals, when we get to know one another, we actually have a lot in common. My grandmother was German and lived through the second world war. I can only imagine what sort of reception she must have gotten from people around her when she moved to England to marry my grandfather. She never talked to me about it. For a long time many British held a lot of resentment towards the Germans.
I can't claim to not have preconceptions about other cultures still. When the only things you know of a country and its people come from the media, you generally only get to know a small part about them. Until recently, I had this assumption that if someone isn't in a first world country, they won't know about a lot of the modern things and be able to come by modern technologies. I guess I also made an assumption that communication with them would have to be be much more simplified and they might not get jokes or banter; which is probably true for those not very fluent in English, but certainly isn't for those who have any proficiency in the language.
Steem has really been an eye opener. As I meet more people from all around the world I start to even question what is a second or third world country is and I'm certainly questioning whether we are really very different to each other. We value similar things, enjoy similar things, laugh at similar things and experience similar struggles. Yes, there are bad people in all cultures, but there are good people too and the majority of people are good, even if they do have disagreements on certain things.
Recently my daughter was expressing her exasperation about how many people she encountered seemed to have something against Americans and what they felt was "Americanism" taking over. Admittedly, there are often jokes and conceptions about how Americans act, but let's be honest, it's usually the extremes that are shared on social media; the Texan on The Simpsons or People of Wal-Mart. Yet I have never personally met an American I didn't like. Most people who travel outside of their country are pretty open minded, so it was sad to think that some people might be unwelcoming to someone visiting their country, purely based on their nationality.
When we go to war, do we the people choose to do this, or is it our governments/leaders? When Germany started invading its neighbours, how many German people do you think believed that this was a great idea? How many do you think wanted to be at war? When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, how many Japanese people do you think said to their government, “let's attack somewhere American”? How many do you belive thought it would be a great idea to slaughter men, women and children from other countries? I know the Japanese military did some awful things in China, but are the military representatives of the majority of the people? Should they all be blamed for the atrocities of a government and the military they send to do their dirty work?
I know that where I live the majority of people are peaceful and don't want to be funding or supporting war. So I would guess that there are similar feelings in many other countries.
What I've taken from my experiences in life is that each individual should be judged on their own merits. Not every Nigerian will scam you and many will even have the same values as you. Not all Americans think that their country is the centre of the world, in fact most are quite aware that there are a multitude of countries in existence. People in third and second world countries do have access to technology and the internet. Maybe not as much as first world countries, yet even Australia’s average internet speeds trail behind many countries we might think less advanced than us.
We all have much more in common than we might realise. Don't let others make your judgements for you, make your own judgements.
Wonderfully said. I couldn't agree more.
Yesterday I was thinking about how the "leading" world countries' military expansionism policies are to a large extent influenced by lobbyists from defense industries and teams of people who push the idea that if a nation doesn't have the fastest, most lethal weapons then they are at risk from being overrun by the "other guy" while on the other side of the pond, there are other countries mimicking the same train of thought. I think that this was something i mentioned when I did my essay on the zombie in pop culture and the concept of "the other" as expounded by the philosopher Hegel and how it reflects the growth of a self-aware entity coming to terms with an existence shared with other self-aware entities.
This type of reactionary behavior, at its essence is immature, and demonstrates an entity's inability to recognize patterns of interdependence in a shared existence.
It's a little discouraging seeing world leaders operating on a level that is typical for a toddler but not what one would expect with true leadership.
It is interesting however that while we are seeing nations drumming up nationalism on all sides and fear of "the other" that we are seeing at the same time unprecedented levels of interconnection between people of the world via travel and the internet.
This might demonstrate the truly insidious rationale behind the decisions of North Korea and China to control travel and the internet, trying their best to keep their populations in fear and blindness and presumably left with no option but to support the toxic policies of their regimes.
People are quite complex and each one of us has our own struggles or even ways of seeing the world, different opinions and so forth.
It's easy to think "Africa" is just one big massive country that is riddled with drought and war and starvation, but it's several countries and many have skyscrapers and roads and such. A friend of mine recently went to on her second trip to a place called "The Gambia" there. I'd never heard of it, and it really opened my eyes to an entire microcosm of existence.
I also found a charity here helping people in Laos using Steem and it really got me thinking about ways I could start to actually use the platform to make a difference in other people's lives.
Plus, I think using Steempeak there is a choice to delegate the proceeds of a blog entry to individual Steem users. So, if I did a post and said "Every SBD from this post is going to charity!" or something and then did an article highlighting what I was doing, all of the upvotes and such automatically send all the proceeds to that user (I am not sure if a percentage could be set, don't quote me on this yet as I haven't tried it yet).
Well said. In terms of furnishings our one-sided few of the world, the media has played a very important part. For example, people from this side of the world feel when they get to first world countries all their problems will be solved because of the things they see on television or movies, which is not the case. I too want to leave my country to another for better opportunities but I'm fully aware of the fact that no one has it easy, respective of where you come from or the color of your skin. People still struggle in first world countries. In fact, society is even more demanding than ours. Here you can get away with almost anything, but that's not the case here.
I believe travelers to be very open-minded people because they've experienced, first and, different cultures and know things for their true worth. That's will I want to someday travel around the world, see the world through my open eye and I hope next year will be a quantum leap towards that goal
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I think most first world countries have a face they show the rest of the world, but keep hidden the same problems that many other countries face. I know some people believe that America is everything glamorous that they see on adverts for products. I've no idea how Europe is viewed, but I now know Australia isn't all like Crocodile Dundee! Lol!
Something we forget is that western currencies may have a higher value than others, but the cost of living is much higher, so while it buys more elsewhere, in its own country it doesn't go far.
I'd be interested to know what the value my account earnings would mean for you where you are. What does an average $15 per week mean for you?
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When I read about how you had no internet for days, I was amused. For what I thought was - Australia has everything and these problems would be solved in seconds or at far some minutes and the same with how you often complain about your slow internet speed.
We used to have load-shedding for about 18 hrs a day some years ago but now so much has changed. Power cut offs are very rare and we don't need to complain about internet speed a lot. So maybe we aren't living that different lives. It even got me thinking that we, living on the cities here, might sometimes even have a better life infrastructure wise.(Not talking about the rural lives here though!)
Coming from England, it was a bit of a surprise to be experiencing so many power outages. Back in the 80s and early 90s the UK still had them, but most power lines were moved underground out of the weather by the mid to late 90s and power cuts became rare and were quickly sorted When they did occur. When we first came to Australia we experienced forced outages during heatwaves in order to decrease the load and stop sub-stations going down.
Admittedly, South Australia is a bit behind much of the rest of Australia. We're a bit of a country state.
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Hey!! An Aussie!!! Of course you have German roots being in SA. My Nana was from Germany.. migrated post ww2. My other gramdolks were English. Estranged Grandpa from Slovenia. Made me far more aware that a global citizen. No boundaries. One love x
Not quite, I'm an import from England. It was a fun coincidence to discover so many with German ancestry in SA when we arrived, though. Maybe my subconscious led us here! Lol!
I have had the same realizations! As I've met people on Steem, I have found so much in common with them and then found out that are on the other side of the world! It's been beautiful to find that we are all very similar.
Great post!
I think Steemit is a wonderful way to meet people from other countries and cultures! I have met so many interesting people on here and learned so much about the ways of people around the world. It is astounding, actually.
♥
And isn't it interesting how you don't seem to get to know people in quite the same way on other social media platforms? So often I'll talk to people here and we have so much in common that I think they're from the US or the UK, or maybe even Australia (although there aren't many here). Then they say something that hints that English isn't their mother tongue and I discover they're from somewhere I'd never have expected.
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