iskierka:

I think it’s very weird that when one country is criticized y’all tend to be like “oh well my country we would never —” uhh YES in your country too, that’s how states work? Y’all talking about people living in China or the US not knowing their history because the bad parts aren’t taught well in school: sure!!! But I know many people from Belgium who know next-to-nothing about the genocide in the Congo, from the Netherlands who say all their colonies were only trading posts, from Thailand who say that the indigenous people in their country have been and are treated fine only they don’t make an effort to be Thai, from Portugal who will tell you about what an amazingly positive force they were in their… territories, from Czechia who will tell you their country holds no responsibility for treatment of the Roma—but also it was and is justified; all were taught these things in school.

My point isn’t “other countries do this too so it doesn’t matter!!” No! My point is that every single state commits and covers up atrocities in some way. There is no ethical state.

American liberals especially seem to have a tendancy to think that there is a Good and Perfect state and we must only find it and imitate it and then our problems will be fixed. But trust me: it doesn’t exist, (and it’s certainly not in Europe??). We must create our own systems, and have the courage to change those, too, when we see their flaws.