fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3536 ]

[ SECRET POST #3536 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3536 ⌋

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ayrt

For what it's worth, I agree with you completely. People in the west sure do like to overlook misogyny and imperialism when it's being done by non-western countries, though.

Ahaha yeah. 'IMPERIALISM IS BAD THOSE POOR ASIANS IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF US WESTERNS' 'uh I have grandparents who still grudge against the Japanese for taking over the country and forcing their rule on us ps there's a lot of politics and drama and Asians are not a monolithic block, have you looked at Vietnam and China's past -' 'THOSE POOR ASIANS' 'uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'

To be fair I dont think they give it a pass as much as entirely have no idea any of this exists. :/ Which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't go around yelling at people to Educate Themselves about the Imperialistic Past of America or something like that's the only thing that ever happened.

(Also living in Southeast Asia, America was honestly PRETTY FINE as far as colonial rulers went, China and the Netherlands on the other hand...)

"To be fair I dont think they give it a pass as much as entirely have no idea any of this exists."

True, so true. I do wonder how much of it is and how much is willful ignorance and how much is a failing on part of the North American education system. I mean, a lot of people complain that American and Canadian schools don't focus enough on atrocities committed by the American and Canadian governments, especially against our indigenous populations, but seems like they don't really focus much on atrocities committed by non-European countries in general. I've met a disturbing number of university-educated adults (from both American and Canada) who had never heard of the Rape of Nanking, or the Farhud, or the Armenian genocide, and even some relatively recent events like the Rwandan genocide.

It's fucking scary how widespread this sort of ignorance is, but it also explains all the people on tumblr who unironically reblog posts saying shit like "the world would be better if there was no europe/white ppl then all the poc would live in peace and harmony uwu"

I think most people don't really look at the wider / overall context much? Sometimes it seems like people are lacking perspective - I mean none of us would say (I believe, anyway) that WHITE MEN ARE AMAZING or THEY'RE ALL THAT'S STOPPING THE WORLD FROM CHAOS or whatever, that's bullshit and I don't think that at all. Rather, remove ANY group that has a lot of power and control over stuff and you'll have chaos. Take away all Chinese men and Russia would be like oh goodbye Chinese military, hello free land!

The solution to addressing a power imbalance isn't to get rid of the stronger party immediately and suddenly, it's to empower other people more and/or change the status quo.

It's like, was the Cold War good? Arguably no, but the END of it resulted in a huge spike in OPEN war and escalation of conflicts that had previously not happened due to the two big powers metaphorically sitting on people. Removing those power players just meant all the smaller ones had free rein to go after each other instead without worrying about intervention or escalating international tensions since it'd be a 'domestic issue' or 'civil war' (see: Srebrenica massacre, also Rwanda and endless debates over what constituted a humanitarian crisis, etc.).

A lack of perspective is definitely a huge factor.

"The solution to addressing a power imbalance isn't to get rid of the stronger party immediately and suddenly, it's to empower other people more and/or change the status quo."

^ This, I would argue, is the most reasonable position to take, but changing the status quo requires mass organized effort by people who actually know what they're doing and have a good grasp of how the world works. Unfortunately, that's something that seems to be beyond the scope of a lot of modern social activism - or at least, what passes for "activism" on the internet. It's much easier to make cutesy historically inaccurate posts on your blog that inadvertently glorify non-western imperialism and ignore the political realities of, uh, everywhere outside North America & western Europe I guess.

Haha yeah, like - I get the frustration people have and I honestly do share some very similar sentiments as them. And to give them credit I assume they genuinely want the world to be a better place and to feel at least that they are doing something for other people.

But the thing is big changes are sort of... not something that 'us as individuals' can somehow enact, and it's a little pompous-seeming to me to feel that way. In the West you've got the whole 'MY PERSONAL CHOICES WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE' thing like, don't like the practices of this store? BOYCOTT!!! IT!! but in poorer areas or places with less access to things that's simply not an option when there is only so much available. So the attitude towards changing things is less 'I WILL DO THE THING, FOR THE POOR PEOPLES' and more - slow, I guess. Or accepting the fact that it's going to always be a work in progress.

Not being able to make things better by yourself sucks especially when you think you know what the problem is, and that is a sad thing, sort of. It's nice people are trying, but it'd also be nice if they didn't castigate people for not feeling like jumping on board sometimes.

NAYRT--I'd say a lot of it is just a lack of education. Every world history class I ever took stalled out right at the end of WWII. It was though the last 55 years (I graduated high school in 2001) were an ahistorical void. And that was the world history classes that didn't proceed as though non-western countries were fixed points in time or theme parks, like Egypt=pyramids, Cleopatra, King Tut, sand, and camels. Maybe it's gotten better in the last fifteen years. But I doubt it.

Ahahaha I will never forget the look on my 5th-grade teacher's face when 10-yr-old me asked what's happening in Egypt now, and if they're still building pyramids. She was like a deer under the headlights, I wonder if she legit didn't know about what was going on there in current events at the time or if she did know and was just totally unprepared to explain modern Egypt to a class of 10-yr-olds.

Seriously though, this is a problem. No wonder the world is so fucked.

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[ SECRET POST #3536 ]

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