europe.. still divided
Some recent blogs and some comments all over CS made me remember an event from a few years ago..I was for work in freiburg germany.. I had to make a delivery there.. One of the guys working asked me where i was from.. So i answered him i was from belgium. He reacted to it as follows.. Oh so cool so you are american?.. Anyone will be able to understand my confusion .. so i said no i'm from belgium. He was so suprised that i wasn't american.. So i asked him why would he think i was american. Then he explained me... He came originally from siberia russia, during the communisme they had learned in school that their are only 2 countries in the world. Mother russia.. and america. So since i wasn't from russia i must have been american. A logical conclusion. You should have seen the suprise on his face when i explained to him their are allot of different countries in this world and that america was just a small part of this world.
The next time i had to go there i had taken a gift for him.. A worldmap.. I showed him where america was and what else is out there for him to discover. This man was embaressed for the little knowledge he had.. but he was willing to learn new things, ready to learn the truth. And it has been many years now since last time i've seen him but i'm sure he is doing allot of discovering still upon this day. I wish him the best of luck.
Unfortunatly this poor education was common in all eastern europe. And whats even worse, some still don't realise how wrong some of the things they always believed are. Some consider themself smart because they still know everything that they learned in those days or have learned from others that gotten knowledge in those times. I can understand it is hard to realise you actually sound foolish and have no idea about reality.. and offcourse their will always be others that feed your opinion because theirs is as screwed up as yours. I just hope you will someday learn the truth and find the courage to face reality.