Europe isn't one size for all, folks.

[gelbes_gilatier]

So... after my posting on nationality as a privilege (in which I still believe... people, admit it, the dominance of the US in popular culture is staggering and it's time to acknowledge that and try to see what this means for those in the fandoms of American shows, books and movies that aren't American), I did a little further thinking on it. And I came to a conclusion.

People... Europe isn't like the US - many ethnic backgrounds, religious believes and ways of life under one flag. It's a conglomerat of many flags, many states, many religious believes, many ways of life that had more than two millenia (yes, more than 2000 years, no, I'm not exaggerating) to form and be cemented. We're talking about countries here, not federal states. Countries that have been at war with each other for centuries, that were bound together and divided by sometimes extremely complicated systems of contracts and alliances (I'm looking at you, Bismarck... oh, how I loathed the intricacy of your political intrigues at school), some of them stemming from marriages that were engineered in the 14th, 15th or 16th century (in fact, in World War I, half of the states that were at war with each other in Europe were governed by grandchildren of Queen Victoria, I kid you not).

So... no, you can't go and present a political decision from Spain to someone from Greece and expect them to answer the same way about it the Spaniards would. All those countries have intersecting histories (Sofía, Queen of Spain is originally a daughter of the king of Greece and his German wife, which also makes her a great-granddaughter of the Kaiser Wilhelm II. - a good example for what I just told you about royal marriages between countries, even though today it lost its importance in politics) but they also have national histories. They were always influenced by the development of other European countries but the same problems often had different results and repercussions in different countries.

Also, do not forget that European integration only started about 60 years ago and that 20 years ago, Europe was separated by the Iron Curtain. There are fundamental differences between West European and East European countries (and within those blocks as well... I'd not quite recommend you to speak Russian without warning in Poland or Estonia... however, speaking German in Estonia is probably not that a bad idea... unlike speaking German in certain parts of Poland) and you should never mix those up. The same question about... say... homosexuality will be met with sometimes even fundamentally different answers in France, Germany or Poland. Different countries are dominated by different religious believes (the Polish are almost fanatical about their catholicism, the French don't like to talk about religion in general, the Germans have a difficult and guilt-ridden relationship with judaism...) and deal with religious diversity in different ways. Some wounds from WWII are only now starting to fully heal and some maybe will never. I could go on an on but I really hope I made my point here.

Always, always keep that in mind when talking to people from Europe. You're talking to people from different countries, not different federal states. Each of them has a national government (and not all of them work the same... in fact, from the top of my hat I can't name you one other European governmental system that works like the German system), a territorial administrative system (i.e. some are federal states like Germany, some are central states like France, some even consist of provinces that are almost sovereign states themselves like Spain), a national anthem, a national soccer team, a national flag - European integration has made great progress in a relatively short space of time but it doesn't mean we're all part of one European supra-state. We're all still first and foremost citizens of our countries and then citizens of the European Union (and that only applies to citizens of countries that actually are members of the EU - Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Turkey, Croatia and Ukraine are not or not yet, for example) and most of all the first loyalty we feel is to our country and then to Europe.

If you aren't from Europe and ever happen to write a European character in your fics, no matter which fandom... please take the time to do some in-depth research on the history, mentality and political system of the country your character is from. I know that it should be self-evident that a good author does reseach but I do feel the need to caution you all not to write someone from the Netherlands with the same priorities and concerns someone from Latvia might have. For Heaven's sake... please also do your homework regarding music, arts and literature. A band that's all the rage in Germany like Wir sind Helden might be absolutely unknown in Greece and vice versa (I have to admit that I know nothing about Greek popular music and only little about contemporary Greek literature... but hey, right now my parents are spending their holidays in Crete... maybe I should text them and ask them for some Greek music ;)). And not every country is so keen on American pop culture as Germany for example is (France is indeed a good example... they have an incredibly productive movie industry and very sophisticated writers and as far as foreign pop culture goes... German TV shows (and the German pop band Tokio Hotel... eurgh) seem to be quite popular there).

In the last few days I learned a great deal about the US I hadn't known before (despite my sister having had lived in the US for a year (I only did three months in Argentina...), a focus on American sociologists and writers in my three years of university and... 10 years or so in fandom and just generally the contact with Americans), mainly thanks to melyanna who really went out of her way to give me a few valuable lessons in so called "Landeskunde" ("applied geography"... okay, I never heard that term before...). I had to revise a few believes I though were fundamental (like the fact that apparently, Germans skip a step in spotting discrimination that Americans don't and rather focus on improving the situation than exactly dissecting who's discriminating whom and why before getting to it) and I got a few things explained to me I didn't know how to explain before.

All I want to do with this is ask for Americans to be willing and able to do the same: be willing to let themselves be educated about the fundamental differences (and they really are fundamental, folks, believe me) between their country and the European countries... and the differences between the European countries. All I'm asking for is that the first thought you have when talking about Belgium to a person from Romania is "This person is from a different country with a different history and we're talking about a third country we both probably know only from what we saw on TV. I cannot automatically assume that people from either country think like me. It's much more possible that they all have a completely different way to see the world and I should be careful with trying to make them see and discuss the world the same way I see and discuss the world." I will try to do that in the future, even more than I already did. I'm just kindly asking you to do the same.

PS.: One of you Americans that are into SGA write me a story about a French technician on Atlantis (or some other non-American, non English-native-speaker character, other than Radek and Miko)? Please? Pretty please? Yes? Anyone?

Comments

[jane-connor.livejournal.com]

I wanted to thank you for this post. As Stargate fan and as Russian, I agree with you points completely.

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Thank you for agreeing :) (and sorry for not mentioning Russia in my posting... I wasn't quite sure if you count yourselves as European :S)

[jane-connor.livejournal.com]

'Yea, we are Scythians,
Yea, Asians, a squint-eyed, greedy brood.' :))

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Djing... Djing... Djingis-Khan... No, wait, wrong song, wrong country.

But I actually meant that Russia's almost big enough to be a continent all on their own ;) You could combine almost all (other) European countries in just one or something...

[jane-connor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Russia is kind of enormous beast at this point, I get what you're talking about ;)

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Russia's just a bit scary (has always been, in fact...) but also very fascinating. I was there 14 years ago (only Moscow and St. Petersburg, though) and I just have the feeling that not many things are like it was back then ;)

[jane-connor.livejournal.com]

Moscow is the huge city, very Europe oriented, very flashy and modern now. Economic expansion of 2000's had positive effect on Russian big cities. Not so much with provinces, though :).

[asugar.livejournal.com]

I can always count on you to say something really interesting and thought-provoking and take me in a direction I had never considered before. I hope I'm one of those Americans willing and eager to be educated.

[asugar.livejournal.com]

Also I think I've seen fic per your request but will have to root around for it. I'll hit you back with some links when I do.

[gelbes-gilatier.livejournal.com]

I hope I'm one of those Americans willing and eager to be educated.

Of course you are :) Just that the post gave you something to think about proves that. What did it make you think about, if I may ask?

And yes, fic! I want fic! *grabby hands :D