The problem with the broader world is we judge people of different lands by our own land's norms. In precolonial Africa, many crimes were punished by just a spear to the gut. No reform in jail. If you break a law, you have to flee the land or be killed. Today, such punishment is illegal in South Africa but we won't judge our forefathers for they lived in a different time despite them being known murderers. Muslims & Jews are homophobic by default because of their holy scripture. Now, if we say they must be inclusive towards homosexuals, to them that's being sinful & against their faith.
Some societies are extremely promiscuous & it's the (controversial) norm. Religious & developed countries might look at this behaviour of promiscuity & think it's degenerate behavior. We live in different lands, worlds, ideologies & cultures... we are not all alike.
We live in different worlds but globalisation has made us concern ourselves with matters of foreign lands. I don't think this is healthy behaviour. There's being your "brother's keeper" & just being nosy. If you don't concern yourself with your cousin's matters, why bother with the matters of people of different races & ethnicities? Many people don't care about the matters of their distant family & cousins... many focus on their mother, father & siblings. The globalised world is strange in that it often forces you to forsake matters in your proximity & focus on matters hundreds of miles away. This causes many a culture clash because of either religion or way of life.
The Cold War was a time of proxy wars where the USA was trying to stop communism & the USSR was trying to defend it. This Cold War proxy war period caused the:-
• Angolan War in which Apartheid South Africa was sent fleeing,
• the splitting of Korea into north & south,
• east & west Germany tensions,
• many African leaders being killed, namely: Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Eduardo Mondlane & Samora Machel who were all leftists & lastly,
• the Cuban Missile Crisis which almost ended the world.
All the above listed events because the U. S. A. felt threatened by a political ideology thousands of kilometres away.
How you view a foreign land is not necessarily how that land views themselves. This goes for other people in general also. What is success to you is not success to others. What is failure to other nations may not seem like failure to you. For example, other African lands that managed to decolonise might see South Africa's multiracialism & multiculturalism as a failure. I've heard of Somalians imply that black South Africans are stupid for letting whites rule their land when among black South Africans multiracialism is not so much a failure. If Somalians were as nosy as some Western lands, they'd fund black nationalists to destroy white infrastructure & coordinate planned massacres of whites. But none of this has happened yet because Somalians still largely mind their own business despite their political views on South Africa. There's a danger in judging people without understanding the world they live in & their background but at the same time, we can't excuse deviance & corruption in our own world.
I think I've blogged this before but globalisation & concerning ourselves with other people's matters & general business is causing more harm & conflict than it's worth. I think keeping regional stability is good for a country but there's no need for you to concern yourself with the Russo-Ukranian War & Israeli-Gaza conflict living in Johannesburg. Our prime concern in South Africa is SADC & issues that directly affect us. Knowing how to prioritise things is important. The terrorists & extremists in northern Mozambique are of more urgent concern than M23 in the D. R. Congo.
Before we get to invested in things, we need to question if they directly affect us & how much of a threat they really are. It makes no sense using an assault rifle to kill a fly. If countries & people would learn this simple concept of focusing on matters that directly affect them, there'd be a lot less conflict in the world because your world is not the same as all others.
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