Attention European Escapist! Why do you hate your country?

[predatorpulse7]

Europeans, in general, don't hate their countries but seeing as most european countries are pretty old(and I mean that as in national conscience, not exactly the date of independence), they can be very cynical about things(including government) and they have a certain detachment that comes from maturity if you will, which the US lacks because of 2 factors:

-the country is pretty young.
-it's the top world power and has been for the last 50 years which only fuels nationalistic garbage.

That's why in the US any sort of major criticism about the country gets met with hostility by many because suddenly the perceived image of the country isn't so perfect and it pisses hardcore nationalists off. Such criticism will be met with commie/eurofag/other insults and such.

In Europe hardcore nationalism has gone the way of the dodo(for good reason, look at all the misery it brought) and most people love their country but they wouldn't shout their love from the rooftops like most americans do.

As someone up above said, the older your national conscience is, the more you amass s**t about your country that will be embarrassing/downright horrifying that will temper the growing love for your country. You'll still love it but you'll get a more realistic perspective.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Huh? All I see on the internet from self-declared Europeans is how their country has healthcare and gun control and smart/skinny people and so on.

That's just relative to the US, though. When you compare the European countries to Scandinavian ones, you see Europeans in the same unfavourable light.

Let's see..
Hungary:
Rampant anti-Semitism
Series of corrupt governments elected by an unthinking populace
Nationalism, despite the country having kicked out all its notable people during the Holocaust
TV dubs sound fucking awful
Obsession with pork
Geographically situated to get very little wind, quite smoggy

I'm glad I live in Ireland. Even with the wankers in government.

 

[Muspelheim]

My personal philosophy is that as a citizen of a democratic nation, it's practically my duty to not allow patriotism to blind me and see the faults as they really are, while exercising my rights towards changing them.

Sweden, for instance, is a rather lovely place when you really get down to it. Sure, most of the people are shy, introverted and are prepared to go to ridiculous lengths to avoid having to talk to a stranger. You can tell that a tourist is Nordic when he's being more or less awkwardly chased down the road by streetpeddlers because he's attempting to ignore them. And the current government is doing its damnest to dismantle the welfare-system and sell the bits of scrap off to their mates. And accusing the sick and disabled for being lazy when they can't turn a profit. And the recent resurgency in xenophobia. And so on for about fifteen pages...

But beyond all those faults and problems, the very framework works really well, being an unusually solid and stable nationstate. And whatever political problem there is, I'm given a small part of changing it for the better. Of course, this demands that I'm prepared to see that there is a problem to be had, which is difficult if you let mindless patriotism blind you.

So I simply think that it's better for everyone if we can critically analyze our nations and do our bit towards resolving the faults, as opposed to simply go "Xland! Fuck yeah! Best land evarr, it's perfect!" because you happened to be born right there.

After all, what is a country beyond an abstract and administrational idea?

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

I don't know about the rest of Europe, but us Brits are renowned for our self deprecating attitude.

It goes happily with our dark and sarcastic humour.

In a sporting sense, ive grown used to dissapointment.

 

[Sam Vimes]

I'm French and I don't hate my country. But I'm feeling way to detached from it that I can't have strong feelings like love or hatred towards it... As far as countries go, France is a nice one, but I would not have minded being born elsewhere, the UK, Ireland, Spain, the USA... Any countries where you can enjoy life, friends and the right amount of freedom would do....

 

[Alade]

Don't even get me started, I'm stuck here (Bosnia and herzegowina) for another year and a half, then off to Ireland and afterward hopefully to my favorite country in the world, America.

what's your native country?

Bosnia and Herzegowina as I stated more or less in my post.

 

[Colour Scientist]

I love Ireland, most people who live here do, but complaining is what we do best.
Give us the perfect health system/effective government/jobs/good weather and we'll find something to ***** about.

It's like a national inside-joke.

I'll probably move away for a while just to experience other countries and cultures but I don't think I'll ever feel at home anywhere else.

 

[DanielBrown]

Because of all the damn polar bears in the streets of course.
I'm from Sweden btw. Polar bears everywhere!

 

[Ruwrak]

I don't hate my country.
I hate it how they

-destroy the economy (By making soft drugs only for sale to locals, thus elliminating the drug tourism because ... be honest. You go to Amsterdam for what? The art? Oh no.. You're not are you?)

-Nag about beeing tolerant (while not picking up on crimes that get worse and worse and punish harder instead of softer.)and bending over backwards to accomodate to everyone's wishes. It's the Netherlands, they want to live here then they can also take our traditions and ways of life in mind. Not the other way around

-***** about eachother in parlement, instead of DOING SOMETHING EXPECTED FROM A POLITICIAN.

I like living here don't get me wrong. But somehow I think I would feel better living somewhere else for a change. Or at least do something about a couple of things, and I don'tmean talking about it.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Im a dane and I don' hate my country. I usually just hate certain elements of my goverment. Oh yea, and I hate people who lump the whole of Europe together, youknow. You could at 'least' try. I mean when talking about issues that is more an issue with a state than the federal goverment I use the names of the states instead of the whole country, it seems if you see a couple of irish and scotts speaking poorly of their country, the whole of Europe. Scandinavia, the south,north,east,west part of the contitent. And the four(or five) parts of the UK, hates themself.

I think you got the wrong end of the stick, certain rightwinged elements of the US simply love their country and their political party to the point of nationalist-fascism. Something most of Europe generally learned was a bad thing in the 100year war. And the 30 year war. And the roses war. And the WW1, and WW2. Heck, if we go back then the Sweeden/Denmark war. And- screw it. The thousands of years of war based on nationalism that we've damn well had with WW2/Cold War with all those American military bases and the fear of nuclear war being the last straw. I think the US has had just about 1 or 2, across the ocean. So they havent learned yet.

 

[Flames66]

Europe isn't a country, it is a continent and, being English, I do not consider myself to be part of it. It is made up of many different countries, all with different customs and outlooks. I think the OP is greatly over simplifying the situation.

Personally, I am of the opinion that Europe and it's centralised governing body can make like a banana and shit. I am not overly fond of the UK government either and I rarely watch the news as anything to do with politics makes me angry. I am still proud of where I come from though.

 

[ChaoticKraus]

Everyone in Sweden hates Sweden. The only exceptions are the nationalists and the succesfull immigrants. But thats because this is a depressing country filled with unbearable cold, whiney people, pretensious people, and no sun for 4 months.

Still, most of us have a cynic belief in the country. It might suck but there are many places that suck far more. We have that self-depriciation that the British tries to steal for themselves.

 

[Thaluikhain]

anyhoo, i believe we call ourselves Americans because we're from the United States of America. simply saying the united states is an abbreviation. even if it wasn't, what would we call ourselves? Statesians?

Apparently, certain groups in South America call US citizens that (in their own language).

I prefer USians or USAliens, myself, at least when I don't have to say it out loud.

Not European, but I hate how people seem to think our politicians are the worst ever, due to having annoying voices and being boring. And, yeah, led around by the media on important issues.

But, as mentioned, there is a massive difference between seeing aspects of your nation you see as problem, and hating it. Being blinded to the possibility of fault with their nation shouldn't be the definition of "patriotism".

 

[TheCruxis]

Everyone in Sweden hates Sweden. The only exceptions are the nationalists and the succesfull immigrants. But thats because this is a depressing country filled with unbearable cold, whiney people, pretensious people, and no sun for 4 months.

Still, most of us have a cynic belief in the country. It might suck but there are many places that suck far more. We have that self-depriciation that the British tries to steal for themselves.

Everyone in Sweden does not hate it. Sure it's cold and dark but I'd say to many swedes still have some missguided belief that our country is number one in eduction, health etc. Not really sure why. They say things like "thank god we live here, nothing bad happens up here". It may sound like we hate it though because swedes are by nature pessimists and whiners (I am too, and proud of it ^^)

I don't have anything against my country really, despite it being a backwater in the european periphery, sort of, like all of Scandinavia. I do dislike our current goverment though cause they are right-wing bastards who take away healh care and social benefits etc.

Also I dislike, nay I detest, the European Union. They sit down on the continent and make moronic decisions about our economy that leads to bankrupcy and unemployment. "But centralizaion is good, it is a must". No it's not you capitalistic, powerhungry, freedom hating twits! Every nation in Europe in a sovreign state but the EU is trying to take that away.

And honestly, the EMU? You still think that was a brilliant idea?

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Europeans, in general, don't hate their countries but seeing as most european countries are pretty old(and I mean that as in national conscience, not exactly the date of independence), they can be very cynical about things(including government) and they have a certain detachment that comes from maturity if you will, which the US lacks because of 2 factors:

-the country is pretty young.
-it's the top world power and has been for the last 50 years which only fuels nationalistic garbage.

That's why in the US any sort of major criticism about the country gets met with hostility by many because suddenly the perceived image of the country isn't so perfect and it pisses hardcore nationalists off. Such criticism will be met with commie/eurofag/other insults and such.

In Europe hardcore nationalism has gone the way of the dodo(for good reason, look at all the misery it brought) and most people love their country but they wouldn't shout their love from the rooftops like most americans do.

As someone up above said, the older your national conscience is, the more you amass s**t about your country that will be embarrassing/downright horrifying that will temper the growing love for your country. You'll still love it but you'll get a more realistic perspective.

As I have pointed out to another person, I think places like South Korea and (PRC) China seem to be very nationalistic even though they are old. Perhaps it is a European thing? Case in point, there was a Korean-American member of a Korean boy band called "2pm" who wrote on his myspace when he was a teen, that "korea is gay" and as a result, there was outrage and ultimately he was dropped from the group and had to return to America to avoid the backlash. So if South Korea reacts like that, then it makes me think that America's patriotism isn't because of its age.

Here is a link on the Korean controversy:
http://sookyeong.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/2pm-jaebum-offends-koreans-with-myspace-posts-plans-for-official-apology/

 

[Hosker]

I don't. Overall, it's pretty good.

 

[Hoplon]

Also I dislike, nay I detest, the European Union. They sit down on the continent and make moronic decisions about our economy that leads to bankrupcy and unemployment. "But centralization is good, it is a must". No it's not you capitalistic, power hungry, freedom hating twits! Every nation in Europe in a sovereign state but the EU is trying to take that away.

And honestly, the EMU? You still think that was a brilliant idea?

Okay, one; the problem is that no one was making any cohesive decisions about economy before this crisis.
Two; centralisation of certain things is a good idea, since it does something call create a larger home market. So instead of say just the 10 million people in Sweden as a market, you have the 750 million people in Europe as that same market.

Why is that a good thing? Because then production costs are massively more defrayed with out having to cut workers wages or move production to a third world country.

No nation in Europe is going to give up it's sovereignty, they are all way to proud of their own history for that, hell Europe might be getting more nations if Scottish nationalist gets their way.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Because of all the damn polar bears in the streets of course.
I'm from Sweden btw. Polar bears everywhere!

lmao I hope that's true! You guys ride them and have polar bear races, right? lol

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

I live in the north east of england and therefore am surrounded on all sides by geordies the single worst accent I can think of beside scouser. Also we have a conservative government which is pretty much perpetuating the horrible economic state, strikes about tuition fees, strikes about pensions, occupy newcastle consists of 6 tents.

I could go effing on and on but I would probably hate whatever country I was born in due to being extremely cynical of everything: it comes with being british.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Attention European Escapist! Why do you hate your country?

I love my country. It's the people i can't stand. And to explain why, i'd need about 7-8 days and substantial amount of alcohol.

In short : it's almost f*king 70 years since WWII and we still can't move on. Jews and Germans have better relationships with each other than we with our history. F*CK !