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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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I'm not American but i've worked in Western Europe. I don't know why but there seems to be a lot of taxes for everything. You have to get govt permission for everything. People seem to rely on the govt to provide things rather than have some agencies fill niches that aren't filled by the govt (for example I saw signs like don't help homeless people, the govt is helping them).
I'm from an Asian country, we don't have much tax, we don't rely on the govt for anything (we can't), and we have many NGOs. I think it's similar in America.
As an Asian, there are a few things I can note about Europeans.
Europeans seem to have lost their sense of traditions, to me as an Asian it doesn't make sense since keeping our traditions and values is a huge part of our culture and society.
Europeans also accept blame for bad things they did in the past (which is a good thing) but I think they can go overboard to compensate for that (to their detriment). I don't think accepting blame for things in the past is a thing that's done in Asia; we rewrite history instead. It would help if we acknowledged what we did and can have better relations with others moving forward.
Europeans identify more with nationality than ethnicity. For example, someone from Czech Republic moving to France is considered French. In North America I think they would be considered Czech-French. In Asia they would be considered to be a Czech expat living in France. Our ethnicity matters a lot.
Dutch here. Yeah, nah, we don't. Maybe some lip service is being made towards the descendants of enslaved peoples in Surinam, but otherwise not really.
When I was young the period when the Dutch VOC flowered was taught as having been a really good thing, something that we could be proud of; the fact that this was accompanied by more than one episode of mass murder was entirely glossed over. I'm pretty sure it's still mostly like that.
Definitely not true for Germany.
For the shit they did? Who was alive 2 centuries ago? And taking responsibility for past actions is a huge thing in the Netherlands for at least since the past 5-10 years.
2 centuries? European colonialism continued well into the mid 20th century. There are still people alive who directly participated in them. Besides that, even thought most alive today did not participate directly they still benifit immensly from the colonial past of their countries as anouther comment allready mentioned.
And taking responsibility has been very slow/late and limited, often being limeted to apologies without reperations. The Belgian Crown for example only apologized for its involvement in forced labor and exploitation in the Congo three years ago. Germany only recognized its genocide in Namibia two years ago and refuses to pay reperations.
So yes for the shit they did (or bear a responsibility for if you wanna be more percise).
2 centuries? European colonialism continued well into the mid 20th century. There are still people alive who directly participated in them. Besides that, even thought most alive today did not participate directly they still benifit immensly from the colonial past of their countries.
And taking responsibility has been very slow/late and limited, often being limeted to apologies without reperations. The Belgian Crown for example only apologized for its involvement in forced labor and exploitation in the Congo three years ago. Germany only recognized its genocide in Namibia two years ago and refuses to pay reperations.
The wealth of the colonial countries is entirely due to wealth extracted from the colonies. If they don’t want the responsibility, they should also give away all their wealth.
You can’t have one and not the other.
Either a free consciousness or the stolen wealth.
Uh huh. Go away and come back when you're done with slogans and want to have an actual conversation based in reality.
Yes, certain countries have taken quite a bit of wealth and discussion can be had about that.
Claiming that these countries got all their wealth "from the colonies" and need to give it all back is just just not true and disingenuous and poisoning the discussion
Nope.
The wealth of your nation is the fruit of colonisation. Your healthcare, public education, safety nets, your entire middle class, are the fruits of the overexploitation of the periphery, through colonialism and neo-colonialism.
You awful, awful person.