To date I have been concentrating on the military forces in Australasia, however one of the things that I have not touched on is the cultural aspects.
As the region around Australia is extremely diverse in cultures, it would take up an entire new volume of posts, so rather than go into that, we can learn from histories pages what happens when two entirely different cultures clash.
Hence the title of this post is "When Cultures Clash" and it involves an entirely different part of this world, Europe. A part of this world that has its roots embedded in Australian culture and morals.
"A smart person learns from other peoples mistakes, the rest of us learn from our own mistakes"
So lets get into it:
Not all that long ago we saw a brutal war in the south of Europe. It went on in what is often referred to as "The former yugoslavia".
Many have gone into the politics of the former yugoslavia which was without any arguments a very bloody totalitarian communist/socialist regime which had a cult like dictator up to the beginning of the 1980's.
A typical totalitarian regime but with a difference, the former yugoslavia was a so called "federation" of states, which had one big issue as such, its capital city and politics was in one of the federations states and as a result the policies were bias, in many ways, from economics to practically every branch of government, which in the early stages even resulted in ethnic cleansing (killing off entire peoples in areas) and so on. Later on in the 1970's some things did start changing after an uprising of educated people, yet this was as expected, crushed using brutal military and militia forces of the government, but it did start a change in the way some people "accepted" things in the regime. Obviously not enough to change the course of the inevitable future.
We saw a bloody and brutal war in the first half of the 1990's.
A war in which people were raped, tortured and murdered using methods that were not seen since the medieval times in most of western Europe, everything from concentration camps to sex slaves in organized bordellos in which civilians were used for RNR, to the organized sale of body parts, to POWs being fead human meat, to you name it, it was done.
Horrors from Vukovar and Srebrenica and many other lesser known places included scenes where children were baked in ovens alive while their mothers were being gang raped to the father/husband being tortured and forced to watch it all.
Scenes that are not fit for any TV screen, yet they did happen in real life.
Why did I go into the gruesome depiction of the crimes that went on a few years ago in countries and by people who now practically border with The European Union?
Well, reality isn't all that pretty when we look at things, there are some things described above that we have seen or read of in the news in more recent years, mainly from the Middle East.
Hence my reasoning for this horrific intro to this post is to put an emphasis on the difference in cultures.
What is acceptable to most western cultures obviously isn't acceptable to many non western cultures and vice versa.
However, when we look at the world map from the cold war era, the former yugoslavia was part of the eastern block, and we didn't see things like this go on in any of the other European states that were a part of the eastern block.
This raises a lot of questions, as to WHY these atrocities were "normal" to some of the states in the former yugoslavia?
It was a clash of cultures.
To be able to understand the difference in cultures one must look back over a 500 even 800 years of history and cultural domination within the region that I am mentioning here.
Why did I mention the Middle East from more recent time?
Well, lets not run from reality, cultural differences do exist, no matter what their catalyst may be, they do exist.
Now try to imagine entire groups of people occupied for some 500+ years and living with and under and in cohesion with a culture that allows for all of the above horrors that I described!
Hard to imagine, but 500 years of lets say "occupation" no matter how much the people of these countries had to assimilate into the different cultural aspects and (i)morality did leave its mark.
Again, to many it is still incomprehensible that this could exist in the "modern day and age".
Well, the modern day and age was based upon an industrial revolution, not a religious cult run totalitarian regime, but a technological revolution from the late 1800's which in the mid to late 1900's evolved into a technological revolution that brought us to where we are today.
So lets take a look at the state of affairs in the late 1800's in the region I am mentioning above:
Is the picture becoming a little clearer?
If not, here is a link to Wiki, in which you can get a brief description of what the Ottoman empire was,
Firstly a factual description of where all this empire ruled and when:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
Then a description of the empire itself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
One term that needs to be understood is "caliphate", so rather than me go into it, here is the outright definition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate
Why is this term so important, well the Ottoman empire was in fact something that we would today call an "islamic state" and the term "caliphate" was used within all the historical documents of the Ottoman empire. So there is no ignoring it or trying to hide it.
The European Union today:
We see that the map today is somewhat a mix of different peoples of different cultural backgrounds, yet the only place where the scenes that would be expected to be seen in the Middle East happened in the former yugoslavia.
After reading through the links above and when we look at the maps, it becomes clear that five centuries of a non European culture left its mark on the (i)morals of some peoples who geographically should be Europeans.
Then add to that half a century of eastern block communist/socialist totalitarian regime rule, it is clear that some people of Europe are just now coming out of what many of us would describe as "the dark ages" as far as morality goes.
A clash of cultures is inevitable when cultures mix and match, however some cultures have evolved to the stage which have brought about what we today know as human rights, while some are far from it.
When you read the newspaper articles of the crimes that are being committed in some parts of Europe and the rest of this world where these very different cultures are now mixing and matching, just go back to what happened in the former yugoslavia and take a look at the aftermath of what can and probably shall happen in correspondence to the numbers of people involved.
Don't fool yourselves, education needs to be the core to changing this, education, education and education, nothing else.
Once people can accept that GOOD is GOOD and EVIL is EVIL, once people can learn to overcome their pride and accept GOOD, then and only then can we hope for a better future for man kind.
However, no matter what the solution may be, we need to be aware of the fact that different nations/peoples have different cultures and (i)morals. In our part of the world we have ALL the cultures of this world and Australia along with New Zealand are what Western Europe is in the above post!
Think about it!
For those who have not yet read up on this series of posts:
The series of posts so far:
"WHAT HAPPENS, WHEN IT HAPPENS"
Links to the posts in this series:
What Happens, When It Happens? Vietnam - Bury The Hatchet! (PART 14)
https://steemit.com/military/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-vietnam-bury-the-hatchet-part-14
What Happens, When It Happens? Philippines - Good Relations and Logistical Partners! (PART 13)
https://steemit.com/military/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-philippines-good-relations-and-logistical-partners-part-13
What Happens, When It Happens? PNG - Logistical Partner and Neighbour! (PART 12)
https://steemit.com/australia/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-png-logistical-partner-and-neighbour-part-12
What Happens, When It Happens? JAPAN - The Return Of The Samurai And/Or Kamikaze (PART 11)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-japan-the-return-of-the-samurai-and-or-kamikaze-part-11
What Happens, When It Happens? THE USA & AUSTRALIA (PART 10)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-the-usa-and-australia-part-10
What Happens, When It Happens? Brothers In Arms - The ANZAC Tradition! (PART 9)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-brothers-in-arms-the-anzac-tradition-part-9
What Happens, When It Happens? Just A Short Boat Trip Away From Australia (PART 8)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-just-a-short-boat-trip-away-from-australia-part-8
What Happens, When It Happens? The Unpredictable (PART 7)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-the-unpredictable-part-7
What Happens, When It Happens? Do We Know The Facts and Figures? (PART 6)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-do-we-know-the-facts-and-figures-part-6
What Happens, When It Happens? HOWS IT GOING, NEIGHBOUR! (PART 5)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-hows-it-going-neighbour-part-5
What Happens, When It Happens? "SHE'll BE RIGHT MATE?" (PART 4)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-she-ll-be-right-mate-part-4
What Happens, When It Happens? READY OR NOT! (PART 3)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-ready-or-not-part-3
What Happens, When It Happens? It Almost Did Happen! (PART 2)
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens-it-almost-did-happen-part-2
What Happens, When It Happens?
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/what-happens-when-it-happens
Related Topics:
The End of The World As We Know it - EUROPE and it's inevitable future!
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-europe-and-it-s-inevitable-future
The End of The World As We Know It - PART 2.
https://steemit.com/politics/@jackmiller/the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-part-2
AGAIN I HAVE TO HIGHLIGHT THE FOLLOWING:
The topic that I am addressing here is a “WAKE UP CALL”, a “REALITY CHECK”.
Jack
