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COVID-19 Has Blown Away the Myth About 'First' and 'Third' World Competence:
One of the planet's – and Africa's – deepest prejudices is being demolished by the way countries handle COVID-19.
For as long as any of us remember, everyone "knew" that "First World" countries – in effect, Western Europe and North America – were much better at providing their citizens with a good life than the poor and incapable states of the "Third World". "First World" has become shorthand for competence, sophistication and the highest political and economic standards.
[...] So we should have expected the state-of-the-art health systems of the "First World", spurred on by their aware and empowered citizens, to handle COVID-19 with relative ease, leaving the rest of the planet to endure the horror of buckling health systems and mass graves.
We have seen precisely the opposite.
[...] [Britain and the US] have ignored the threat. When they were forced to act, they sent mixed signals to citizens which encouraged many to act in ways which spread the infection. Neither did anything like the testing needed to control the virus. Both failed to equip their hospitals and health workers with the equipment they needed, triggering many avoidable deaths.
The failure was political. The US is the only rich country with no national health system. An attempt by former president Barack Obama to extend affordable care was watered down by right-wing resistance, then further gutted by the current president and his party. Britain's much-loved National Health Service has been weakened by spending cuts. Both governments failed to fight the virus in time because they had other priorities.
And yet, in Britain, the government's popularity ratings are sky high and it is expected to win the next election comfortably. The US president is behind in the polls but the contest is close enough to make his re-election a real possibility. Can there be anything more typically "Third World" than citizens supporting a government whose actions cost thousands of lives?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 18 2020, @01:18PM (10 children)
I can't claim to be a "world traveler" since I've "only" been to Europe, Mexico, and the Caribbean, however... as compared to the U.S., Europe has quite a few more languages, much more "time in place" with buildings and institutions that stretch back 1000+ years, significantly more cultural diversity, and a much greater tendency to travel outside of Europe than most 'muricans travel outside their own tri-state area.
Just the contrast between East and West Germany is more than you're going to see in the U.S. - unless you want to compare a broken down Indian reservation in the middle of nowhere desert to some place like San Francisco, and again, most 'muricans don't actually go to the Rez, or Frisco. First thing that happened when the wall came down, East Germany emptied into the West, and the West took every spare minute touristing in the East - big fuss about the working girls in the East not requiring rubbers, not the kind of thing that gets talked about in Peoria.
Now, if we're going to go around starting wars in Iraq, having naval adventures in the South China Sea, etc. - it would be nice if the people making those decisions knew their ass from a hole in the ground around those parts. When 9-11 happened, I knew the wife of one of the six FBI agents in the whole damn country who could understand any amount of Farsi. My grandfather, born and raised in East Tennessee, knew more Farsi than FBI agent #7 just by virtue of a construction contract he worked in Iraq in the 1950s.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Pav on Monday May 18 2020, @02:09PM (2 children)
But Farsi isn't spoken much at all in Iraq. The main language is Arabic, with Kurdish being in the same family but not mutually intelligable with Farsi. Farsi speakers have a much better time with Pashto (spoken in Afghanistan)... so did you mean Afghanistan?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday May 18 2020, @02:29PM
Possibly, as I said, I'm an ignorant rube when it comes to that part of the world. I do know that Granddad was there for the fall of Faisal II (which is probably the source of my confusion with the language named Farsi - and do I feel ignorant about that, sure do... but not half as ignorant as most of my countrymen.) Granddad just spoke some of "the local language" whatever it was, didn't share a lot of that detail with me - though I think the concrete plant he worked on may have been near the Iranian border, if that makes a difference. Now, ask any random non-military related US citizen to pick out Iran and Iraq on a globe... I believe you've got a better chance of dying from COVID-19 than you do of them getting that question right on the first try.
And, of course, you're right - the immediate post 9-11 concern was Afghanistan - so Farsi, spoken by over 100 million people (1.4% of World pop), was the language of interest at the time, but of our ~35,000 FBI agents apparently only 6 (0.017%) had any functional ability to help work the intelligence streams. Apparently they had intercepted and interpreted enough chatter to know that something was "going down" on a flight to San Francisco, so that's where they sent him.... oops.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @09:36PM
"But Farsi isn't spoken much at all in Iraq. The main language is Arabic, with Kurdish being in the same family but not mutually intelligable with Farsi. Farsi speakers have a much better time with Pashto (spoken in Afghanistan)... so did you mean Afghanistan?"
I am far from an expert, so take this with a grain of salt. It is possible that some Iraqis in the southeast of the Iraq understand some Farsi because of their religious affiliation with Shia muslims in Iran. Farsi speakers are unlikely to understand Pashto, the main language of Afghanistan. They would probably have an easier time with Dari as the two languages are related. Pashto is a completely different language from Farsi.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 19 2020, @11:19AM (6 children)
No, it doesn't. You can find pretty much every European language being spoken in some neighborhood in NYC alone, as well as dozens more from Africa and Asia (not South America though since they mostly speak Spanish or Portuguese, which are European). Hell, you can find African languages being spoken in Amarillo, Texas right now. I'm not talking "people who know how to speak $blah", I'm saying you will find areas where $blah is the primary means of communication and the residents even speaking English is by no means a guarantee.
See above plus our very own vastly differing cultures.
Dude, you have no idea how wrong you are. The cultural differences between OK and west TN alone are pretty jarring and they're both ostensibly part of The South. Visit Seattle, Atlanta, Amarillo, Miami, and New York. You will never think this again, I promise. And that's completely discounting all the cultural diversity you'll find outside major urban centers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday May 19 2020, @01:36PM (5 children)
The NYC area has ~10M population, and sure there are plenty of immigrant communities who have held on to a little bit of their language and culture - particularly in the first generation. Does that mean that the US "has" this culture, or that we've just got a smattering of immigrants here and there who haven't fully assimilated yet? Is NYC the source of these languages and cultures, or just a melting pot? When you get outside those immigrant enclaves, does the rest of the country (or even city) embrace those languages and cultures as their own: something to be cherished and preserved, or fear and shun them as something to be belittled, suppressed, oppressed or deported?
I'll grant: Italian Chinese couples in NYC and their children are a rare, but semi-unique phenomenon to the area, same for Jewish-Cuban in Miami (common enough to have their own label "Jewbans"), but they are hardly the culture of the country, and such melting pot families are hardly unique to the U.S. - a Dutch-German couple bought my house in Miami (briefly, before flipping it for an insane profit and returning to Europe), Switzerland was a melting pot before the Americas were discovered, etc.
Hialeah in Miami, for instance. But, that's ~300,000 people - maybe 30,000 who don't actually know functional English (though 250,000 will act like they don't while you're on their turf), in a greater Miami area with a population of millions. And local government does cater somewhat to the Spanish speaking community, which really pisses off the majority of the population in Florida. Most of my high school graduating class from the west coast of Florida was flat out openly afraid of the whole Miami area because there were Spanish speaking communities down there, only 2/200 graduates went to the University of Miami - one of roughly 10 "semi-local" universities that roughly 80 of the graduating class dispersed to - and UM was offering easy scholarships that year. Point? The U.S. doesn't embrace or understand its own melting pot communities, the majority of the culture fears them.
Right back at ya. East Germans in 1990 had a totally fucked up concept of money, to their core they just didn't understand what was coming with the West German economy they had been folded into - that's a real cultural difference. I've got some pretty fuckin' weird family back in East Tennessee, and where we owned our land in Central Florida there were "Crackers" across the road - locals who have been on their land since the 1800s, Cracker patois may be English based but it's harder to understand and follow than Anguilla patois, but much less profane. Crackers and Anguillans can speak proper "tourist" English when they want to, they understand more or less how the other people "tick." Crackers shop in WalMart, they're not happy about it, but they do. Get back in the high valleys of Switzerland and try to relate to a goat herder in his hut... that's a cultural difference, Crackers, Anguillans, Chinese restaurant owners in NYC, Irish pub owners anywhere - they're poseurs, assimilated to the local culture and just parading a bit of their family history for the tourists.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:03AM (4 children)
Origin is irrelevant. The culture exists where the culture exists.
You misunderstand melting-pot. It does not mean you come here, bring your culture, practice it however you like, and not try or refuse to integrate into the American culture that already exists. It means you come here, bring the bits of your culture that are socially acceptable here, lose the bits that aren't, learn to interact with the rest of society, and expect us to grab anything from your culture we think is awesome. We're welcoming as all hell but the national culture belongs to the citizens not the immigrants.
Heh, I'd relate better to a goat herder in a remote Swiss hut than to someone who chooses to live in NYC or SF.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:15AM (3 children)
That would be a perfect description of the Jewish community on Miami Beach.
Not to the (majority of) Mexicans around here and Houston it doesn't mean that.
Except for Trump, and everybody who voted for him.
I dunno man, the one I met was f-in scary - shaking his fist at me and gibbering something that didn't resemble German or Italian (Romansch does resemble German...) I continued to ride my rented bike up the paved road while he retreated into the hut. He got me back, indirectly... after a couple of hours biking and hiking and being out of water, I finally broke down and drank from the snowmelt stream coming down the mountain - hadn't seen a soul or animal in over an hour - 2 minutes later his (I assume his) flock of goats comes wandering over the next peak toward me - I asked them out loud "you wouldn't piss in that stream, would you?" One of them answered me by turning around and unloading a fat stream in my direction.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:43AM (2 children)
Which is why folks have issues with them. They'll get there eventually though.
Bitch, please.
See, we would have gotten along great. I'm a big fan of shaking my fist and yelling barely comprehensible local dialect at city boy tourists.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2020, @03:55AM (1 child)
I'm sure he would make allowance for anyone who realized Trump was a mistake. Kinda leaves you standing on the doormat. Maybe if he bought one of your jump to conclusions mats it would help?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 20 2020, @11:50PM
Yet another tedious ignorance correction: I did not vote for Cheeto Jesus. I just love mocking those who think he's the love child of Hitler and Satan.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.