If we go by the rule of the history starts when the country starts, then probably a smaller Caribbean or Oceania island nation that’s only a few decades old. If we have to go back to the beginning of human history in the region then nowhere’s safe.
@@sshadyh I mean only Denmark was better since they at one time ruled over modern day Sweden and Norway. Finland isn’t even Nordic and Norway was never an empire.
@@sshadyh As a swedish person, with a fair grasp of nordic history, my view on how bad each countries history is: Denmark < Sweden < Norway < Finland < Iceland , refering to Denmark being the worst and Iceland being the best
Coming from the Caribbean myself, I would say no country (or culture, ethnicity, etc.) is inherently more or less moral than any other. The only reason Caribbean history seems so spotless is because we simply have not had as many opportunities to persecute others. Racism against indigenous people is very prevalent in the Caribbean, and many of the afrocentrist governments here are either completely oblivious to or deliberately suppress the history of their own indigenous suppression. I feel very confident in saying that the *only* reason that no indigenous genocide has taken place under the afrocentrist governments of the Caribbean is because the Europeans killed and displaced most natives first. Fundamentally, the Caribbean is no different in its treatment of native people than any other settler country created by Europeans.
@@jacobinjacobin7867 I completely agree with you. I think we aren't taught enough about indigenous persons in school, butt to say that they are persecuted is a stretch. There are larger groups that can be prosecuted. The legs of Barbados, the East Indians of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana for example. I am not sure what the original poster is all about. And considering unlike some smaller countries that has have genocides, in my view it further reinforces the point that the Caribbean countries are not as bad as other regions. I am proud to say there has never been a civil war or anything like that in this region.
@@jacobinjacobin7867 You are outright ignoring the era in which modern humanity & society has largely moved towards. People's appetite & tolerance for such rigid oppression is far different from how it was 100 years ago, and even more so than it was hundreds of years prior to that. Sure it still exists, but it's only done so flagrantly by pariah nations & abject failures. Those that do so risk becoming international plagues, black holes where all but the most dubious countries will isolate you. South Africa rid itself of apartheid due to this, while others like North Korea became further & further cut off. Then you have countries like China who put all their resources into hiding human rights abuses from the public, just as former Soviet states did. Conversely, everyone knows about the US's issues because the people of the US itself broadcast & debate it publicly. That's a far, *FAR* cry from even 100 years ago when the average person did not have the means to see the worst of the oppression for themselves. So sure, any country has the "opportunity" in the literalist sense that you detailed, but few have the old school opportunity to get away with it unscathed from sinking their public standing like they used to.
I would say that while all cultures have their moral upsides and downsides, there are certainly some cultures that are more moral than others. That is obviously true. That will be the case with any 2 different groups of people. Different families would follow the same. Its not saying that any people are inherently superior to others, but that some cultures are certainly more moral than others.
The video also forgot to mention Swedish colonial empire, friendliness to nazism and eugenics, forced sterilizations, Vikings, etc. and despite that, Sweden keeps doing virtue signaling to other countries as if the country is perfect and the most moral on Earth, also has a disproportionnally international weight for the reward of Nobel prizes and the presence of NGO
Absolutely. I've been watching J.J. for so long at this point every new video feels like I'm meeting with an old friend. He's just got that type of energy with all of his stuff
Some of the best commentary on contemporary American culture. Granted I am on the left, so I think JJ’s idealism can cloud/sentimentalize his judgement, but all around it’s hard to find such robust analysis of American culture (or maybe how Americans see their culture) these days.
Honestly no country is entirely sinless when it comes to discrimination and bigotry. But I would say as a general rule smaller countries tend to have a smaller list of sins. Not because smaller countries are morally superior, it’s just that bigger countries have more opportunities to do horrible things.
Thnak you. A state's power is directly proportional to its capacity for evil there is no "great power" or wealthy state that sis not engage in horrific acts well and beyond the standard, that's just how you get powerful in this world
*Counterfactual examples* The Pitcairn Islands: 40 people, nearly every woman born there has been sexually abused Qatar: 313,000 citizens and 2.3 million foreign residents, tons of problems Serbia: 7 million people, inspired the creation of a new era in international criminal law, such as the ICTY, the ICTR, and the ICC UAE: 1.4 million citizens and 7.8 million foreign residents Events in countries with larger populations are publicized disproportionately more often than smaller populations. English-speaking countries know disproportionately less about the recent history of Ibero-America, Africa, Asia (west, central, south, east, southeast), eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Oceania-with a couple of exceptions. Africa alone has 54 nations, so most English-speaking countries don't know much about half of the countries in the world.
@@HunterHogan okay first of all I specifically said “as a general rule” meaning I was acknowledging there would be exceptions to that rule. And two that is a huge generalization you just made about English speakers. Do you have any evidence to support that claim or are you just talking out of your ass?
As a Norwegian, I am pretty sure the reason Norway did the things they did during WW2 was because they were occupied by nazi Germany, with a much smaller population and economy than today, that was easy for the nazis to keep control of. I think you glossed over the viking times though. Loads of atrocities were committed by viking raiders in other countries. Edit: Also, Norway hasn't always treated Sami people very well.
True! I find it odd he'd focus on the Quisling government, which was an unelected and illegitimate puppet regime installed by a foreign occupying force (Nazi Germany). Blaming Norway for being occupied is a bit like blaming Ukraine for being invaded by Russia. You can argue it's a shame for Norway that there were Norwegians like Quisling (Nazi collaborators), and you'd have a point, but the framing was odd IMO.
@@Onnarashi the Funny thing about Quisling though is that he claimed to seize power in a coup d'etat, but Hitler and Nazi Germany refused to help him since they had occupied the country. So really, what became the government in war times was not officially recognized since it was a take over by the only party that hadn't run for exile since nazism, so it was effectively running as a "puppet" government by nazi Germany since they had a similar ideology to Hitler, but was technically controlled externally by Terboven
Almost every country has some shameful pages in their histories, but it's also important that some admit it and try to make amends, some just apologize but do nothing, and some just ignore or deny the heinous things they have done.
As a resident of the West Indies-The Bahamas-We in the Bahamas share guilt for widespread prejudice against Haitian and Jamaican Migrants as well as against Asian workers in the country and it is still ongoing tho has not been used radically in any political form....Yet.
1. Most of our teachers are Jamaican though, I don't think I've spoken to anyone who genuinely had a problem with Jamaicans. I think we're pretty cordial with them 2. The Haitian thing makes a bit of sense considering they make up a large majority of our illegal immigrants. With illegal immigrants comes poverty and with poverty comes crime though some people just love being prejudiced
@@dougneon9550 well your grandparents probably don’t think like mine. She stay saying “don’t marry no Jamaican women”.and yes Jamaicans make up a lot of our teachers, gives them all the more reason to resent them.
aaaand like early modern period? the Swedish were like, an actual imperial power responsible for razing countries to the ground and plundering everything on their way
if we're gonna count stuff from 1000 years ago, then several nations fall due to their pre-colonized histories, i.e. mexico and their various tribes that conducted wars for prisoners to use as religious sacrifices.
is there a statute of limitations for national shame? I think he is going by post-independence or post formation of a national identity. so Viking age would be out of the scope.
It seems like he was talking about modern states like Britian, Germany, ect. The government (or people) that caused the vikings stopped existing in around the 1200s. During the 900's these places didnt really exist. It wouldnt be fair to put the blame of the shame of the roman state on Italy, for example.
The myth that being born on a chunk of earth makes you "guilty" of its past, or that being in a relatively inconsequential country makes you more "innocent," goes hand-in-hand with the idea that your country's success makes you better than somebody else. Both national guilt and pride are absurd.
Well, by that measure, patriotism itself is absurd. Apparently I'm supposed to feel a mystical bond with people I've never met and almost certainly will never meet, simply because they were born only a few hundred miles apart from me. And some of them are probably horrible people I would NEVER want to consider my allies.
Bullshit. For example people in Germany still live under the german cultural framework that brought the nazis into existance. Generations aren't isolated, culture is a continuum. You carry your parents' genes and ideas. There are people that still suffer today of the actions the Germans took, so if they suffer who better is there to blame and repent and try to make things better for the descendants of the victims, than the descendants of the perpetrators?
@@utzius8003 Thats an extremely dangerous and tribalistic mindset, framed around hatred and destruction. The same idealogical fallacy that has caused millions of innocent people to be massacred over the course of human history.
I'd agree that guilt isn't necessarily appropriate, but by the same token if the people who directly benefit from horrific acts that predate them don't try to fix things then who will?
Countries with moral pasts are only that way because not because of luck, but because they didn’t have the power to corrupt. I also think we should be taking advice from countries that went through some dark times, and came out on the brighter side of things, because they know how to fix the country from what it used to as opposed to country that has never gone through anything of the sort.
@@dindin8753I mean by that idea then people are very often corrupt and should be prevented from holding too much power. Both thoughts have a similar conclusion.
@@protectdavidchasetaylor2144 It's really not that hard to think they corrupt because of their environment. They can actually hold too much power and still be a good person just look at Nelson Mandela, Cyrus The Great, Ashoka The Great, Harun Al-Rashid, Umar Ibn abd Al-Aziz, Rashidun caliphs, Augustus Caesar and etc you just need them to have a good teachers.
Norway has a lot to be ashamed of both during and after WW2, but I want to point out that the government at the time were chosen by the invading Nazis and were considered as traitors.
Actually, the goverment was over in England. The government at the time of the invasion fled the country and halted all "legal" elections (as far as I know, the only time Norway didn't have democratic elections at the set interval after the last release into independence). So technically, if you want to turn stones, sounds like borderline dictatorship! ^^
The people did everything in their power to fuck over the nazis except a few. Where I live farmers used to lure german vehicles up in the mountains where they knew they would get stuck and then just leave them be. The germans expected norwegians to somewhat be on page with them but they were met with a world of trouble and sabotage with every possibility
Not sure we (Norway) did a lot of horrible things after WWII (yes, there was anti-Sami discrimination). We were also oppressed by the Danes for over 400 years and the Swedes for 91 years. Not saying that makes anything we did OK, just that for over 500 years we didn't run our own nation.
I don't think the "Eastern Block" countries should be blamed for their dictatorships. The Soviet military was stationed there all along, they were continuously occupied. They successfuly revolted many times, but with Soviet help, the dictatorships remained. I don't say they had a perfect past, probably non of them had, but it's more complicated, than simply having a dictatorship.
Well with the exception of Poland and the states which were directly annexed into the USSR, they were all fascist anyways. Romania, Hungary, Slovakia (not czechia but its czechoslovakia so half fascist), Bulgaria all members of the Axis powers.
@@mappingshaman5280 Just because 1/3 of the Czechoslovakia DID something bad doesnt mean the society is bad for example Czechs in their history are actually kinda nice (:
I would say San Marino has the most pure history, the worst thing they have done is not taking part in Eurovision 2009 and 2010, but they did come back luckely.
In South Korea, there is that sentiment of "We're sandwiched between 2 giants" mentality that is so ingrained in the public's mind that it is quite rare to hear about the country's wrongdoings against a foreign country. I heard that Korean soldiers did some attrocities during the Vietnam war, but that part of the history is barely spotlited. There were some dictators and psychopathic kings too, but these leaders pretty much discriminated the whole public, partly because the country was homogenous for the majority of the history. But as the country is getting more and more immigrants these days, I'm afraid the current ethno-national bond could backfire someday.
@@tedioussugar384 China and Japan of course. Just google "Kimchi Paocai dispute" for China, and "Berlin Comfort Woman Statue" for Japan and you'll get the general picture of the whole fuckery that is the situation of Korea. As for the other 2, North Korea at this point is just oinking behind the fence. Koreans are just indifferent now, and don't even bother with the missile tests and stuff. As for Russia though, it's qhite an interesting story. Desipte being the force behind NK's invasion, the Ruso-Korean relationship was quite good. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the the russians had to repay the debt they had to South Korea, but instead of actual cash, they gave away fully functional military equipments. The Koreans went mad, dismantling the tanks and aquiring critical technologies. What's more interesting is that Korea and Russia still has GSOMIA(General Security of Military Information Agreement) between each other, yet the one with Japan is vulnerable to dismantling as Japan is still doing the whole historical revisionism and the denial of comfort women. Also, after the anexation of Crimea in 2014, almost all the foreign companies left, except Korean ones, and to this day, the instant ramen noodle Dosirak(Доширак, 도시락) is still a delicacy in Russia.
Something to remember about Jamaica: homosexuality is still illegal, and men can face up to 10 years of hard labour for an act, which I think is something we need to consider when we discuss shame. Something they may not be ashamed of today, is something they may be ashamed of in the future.
@@terrorgaming459 The criminalization of Homosexuality is never a good thing. I thought that since you watched this video and that JJ is gay, you would think otherwise.
As an Estonian, I would argue that our country was the victim (just like the Carribbean ones) during USSR's occupation. I think Estonia doesn't have as much of a dark past as most other countries, since throughout history it's been occupied by others, and only recently gained independence from them. Estonians themselves have not been dictators or conquerers. I find it odd to be categorised equal to the USSR, when Estonia (as well as the others) were the ones being occupied and weren't dictatorships themselves.
came here to write the same thing. USSR was a brutal occupation, really unfair to get a "dictatorship" slapped onto us because of what the occupiers did
Same here for me. My family was forced to leave their homes in Latvia or else they would have been killed or deported to work camps in Sibera. Lativa was also definitely a punching bag like Estonia as well.
What an ahistorical take. The USSR stopped Estonia either A) being invaded by Nazi Germany or B) willfully submitting to them. They eventually broke away due to chauvinism and now, they're yet another relatively poor country, relatively underdeveloped country, where 1 in 5 of the population live in poverty and the vast majority of over-60 year olds polled say life was better before independence. By all means reject that part of your history if you want, but you can't reject that it was the most successful part of it.
Kind of odd that the UK is categorised on that map as having been both an imperial power and a dictatorship. The last time Britain had a truly absolute ruler was in the 1600s, which is longer ago than in any of the Scandinavian countries and yet they aren't classified as being former dictatorships.
A somewhat similar point could be made about the fact that all of Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are marked as dictatorships, now surely some of them did have dictatorships between then and now, but all of them? If we label absolute monarchies as dictatorships, then sure I can see why, but as you said then the Scandinavian countries should be labeled as such too
For Ireland, I think the Magdalene laundries and the mother and baby homes are a better example of the shameful things a country can do to its own people. The civil war was a very bitter split, but it was much more evenly split through the population, instead of a small persecuted minority and a hostile majority. There was also the factor of the British still being involved through supporting the government of the Irish Free State. The mother and baby homes and laundries on the other hand, was a situation that the Free State government allowed to develop and continue because it was easier than setting up a proper system in a newly independent country. They only closed in the 1990s, and so are still in very recent living memory, with only really one generation that's too young to remember them.
I think a lot of Irish shame (that's not directly tied to the British) can be attributed to extreme Catholicism in one form of another. Yes, plenty of other nations did the same over the years, but arguably the Irish kept such practices for longer than most other nations with a large catholic population.
It really shocked me to find out that even a right as basic as divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1996, when it passed basically 50/50. Rates of poverty and violence were also comparable to a third world nation in living memory, yet now Ireland is one of the richest and most peaceful countries on earth. They've gone from one of the most troubled European countries to one of the most free and prosperous in a remarkably short time, which I think is often overlooked by the world at large.
@@Sillykat321 also being gay was illegal till 1993. Considering we made gay marriage legal very recently its remarkable how much we have changed in the last 30ish years.
As an Argentinian I think we have all of these. We displaced, killed and mistreated natives, had a civil war, had multiple dictatorships, and had nazi sympathies during and after WW2.
Yea but sympathy for fascism was all over the Americas, Mexico and Brazil had the largest fascist movements in the Americas and in Bolivia the Falangist party was the second largest party for a good part of the 20th century
@@cristeromexico3366 That and white supremacy is still an ongoing belief system in Latin America why else are nearly all the rich and powerful people in Latin America are White or light skinned people.
@@millevenon5853 I wouldn't say that we are proud, but a lot of people really don't give it much thought because it's not something that is talked about nor taught as much as it should be. In school we don't learn a lot about how the indegenous or afro argentinian people were treated and there aren't many surviving voices that can tell their stories today
@@juannietoacuna most Argentinians are proud of taking in Nazis who escaped justice. Complete disregard for the lives of afro Argentinians and indigenous that you wiped out as well
Right. While I do agree with J.J.'s statement that Ireland doesn't have a squeaky-clean history, I do think he's gone and used some poor examples of why that is. Despite how he described it there, the Irish Civil War only lasted about 10 months and had no more than a couple thousand casualties (which by the standards of civil wars is notable for its lack of bloodshed). Now that's not to say it didn't have any lasting impact. The two sides of the war were defined by their support or opposition to the Treaty that ended the Irish War of Independence with a partial Irish victory (at the cost of letting the British keep complete control of 6 Northern counties), and after the conflict ended, they eventually morphed into the two main political parties in the Republic - Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and for most of the 20th century which party you supported was decided in part by which side you or your parents had supported in the Civil War. What's more, the Civil War ended in 1923. The conflict that J.J. is referring to in Northern Ireland, The Troubles, was a sectarian conflict that began in the late 1960s after the pro-British, Protestant government (the Unionists) violently repressed the Irish Nationalist Civil Rights movement that was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s successes in America, which resulted in mass rioting and unrest, most notably in Derry, with The Battle of The Bogside. As a result, the British army was deployed, supposedly as a neutral force, but they quickly began supporting the Unionist government in suppressing the Catholics. This lead to the IRA (There's a big debate about whether or not the IRA of the Troubles was the same organisation as the one that fought the War of Independence, mostly because it went dormant to the point of being defunct in the 1940s-ish. Not going to get into that right now, but it's a fun rabbit hole to dive into if ye're interested) expanding massively because of the failure of peaceful means (Seen by the events of Bloody Sunday and other such occurrences) to achieve equality in the North, and that kicked off a 30 year long bombing campaign and terrorist conflict between the IRA, the British army, and Unionist terror groups like the Ulster Volunteer Force. This only ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, and there is still some level of animosity between the different sides. I've laid all this out to make the point that this actually isn't on the Irish Government to apologise for - no matter your side in this conflict, the fact remains that ever since 1922, Northern Ireland has remained a part of Britain (And no, I'm not picking a side in this, just laying out the facts at the moment), and was never under the authority of the Republic of Ireland. That said, there is still plenty of skeletons in our closet - the clerical abuse, the Mother and Baby homes, etc. But if you're going to judge Ireland's history, at least judge us for things that we actually had a hand in, yeah?
Thought it would have been more apt for Ireland to be put under the WW2 neutrality point, especially since De Valera sent his condolences to Hitlers family upon his death.
@@anglebars6084 neutrality was definitely the correct decision for Ireland at the time, although yeah what De Valera did wasnt appropriate to put it lightly
Came here to comment the same! If you’re going to critique the states actions, and right so for the horrors of the Catholic Church, then that is well informed but the Civil War did not play out like that and it is not something that our government apologises for. Really crucial oversight.
I agree, he should've mentioned how 40% of the britrish colonial army was irish and how we genocided the native picts in scotland in the 6th and 7th centuries
The “West Indies” as they are called often, and as JJ specifically mentions, the “British West Indies” are very nice places to visit. They have very tourist-based towns and cities with extremely charming locals who will talk to you about anything and always make you feel welcome. They have a very unique place in the world because of their history, but many of the people there are very laid back and humble people with low crime rates and relatively stable governments
@@professorrosenstock5026 same. I’m very proud of my country (born in mobay, raised in Clarendon and Spanish town) but it’s not all rainbows and sunshine (pun intended). It’s a very nice place to visit but people shouldn’t lose their senses just bc the beaches are pretty. If they use their heads they’ll be fine. And for all the tourists reading I suggest travelling in a group. It’d honestly be kinda dumb to travel alone lol
Many "West Indies" countries still criminalize same sex relations, and almost all kept the British anti-gay laws in effect for decades after their independence.
@@MM-gt9uy Hm, interesting. I’ve never seen anything on that and I’d say I read more left wing sources on that matter. I will do some research, even though you’re probably right
Those are the viewpoints that are popular on Canada's left/far left, and it is the left who control the dominant cultural narratives in Canada. If you believe that Canada should become more like the US, Canadians on the left will accuse you of being a pro American sympathizer who hates Canada's alleged "progressive values" and want America to annex Canada. If you believe that Canada shouldn't be consumed by self loathing/guilt about our past/present relationships with indigenous peoples the far left will accuse you of being a "white supremacist capitalist colonizer who denies the cruel realities of colonial extractivist capitalism". I reject both narratives, I don't believe that Canada should whitewash our past and pretend that we are a perfect nation but at the same time I don't believe that we should be consumed with self loathing either. Unfortunately the Canadian left/far left doesn't understand this.
I think it's good to take the smug "We're so much better than the USA" Canadians down a peg, but at the same time there's no need to turn it into a struggle session.
I would agree with the idea that national historic “goodness” is very circumstantial, and that’s because it seems to apply to countries that have not been independent for a good deal of time. Many countries became independent after it stopped being acceptable to commit mass atrocity, so they didn’t have the opportunity to engage in such atrocity. I have no doubt in my mind that had said states more independence, more wealth or more stability, etc. similar events would’ve occurred.
I'd say that most European countries that did not collaborate with either fascists or communists hold up pretty well. While most of them did maintain empires at some point, support for those empires was by no means universal among the native citizenry; most liberal and social-democratic parties opposed imperialism, and resisted it or tried to lessen it while they were in power. Perhaps the question should be, "Which SEGMENT of a country's population is guilty?" Even if that's cherry-picking, I feel it's a crucial distinction to make. It's not fair that EVERYONE should be punished.
It puzzles me a lot when apologists make the claim that "morality was different in the old days." When was it ever socially permissible to be evil? The biblical book of Exodus, which describes events that are over 3,000 years old, outright states that it's wrong to commit murder, among other things. Even before that there was Hammurabi's Code in ancient Mesopotamia - and yes, that code mandated capital punishment for even minor crimes, but (as far as I know) it didn't permit killing by private individuals for just any reason. Before Hammurabi, it was acceptable to murder someone if they had wronged you in any way or just because you felt like committing murder. But that changed very quickly.
@@SeasideDetective2 Well that’s with few exceptions, almost no one. Pretty much anyone personally culpable in the affairs of dead empire is quite elderly or has since passed away.
A fun thought experiment, but I think this is an impossible question to answer because it depends on what you would define as a "country" and when it began. Then you also have to bear in mind that outside of Europe, there was certainly all kinds of brutal history, but Westerners may not consider these tribes, or even full on civilizations, as "nation-states."
I think the distinction is the continuity. Tribes in precolonial Africa, for instance, may have been brutal, but the current governments are not built from those, so much as they were built by Europeans and handed to Africans relatively recently. In many (most?) cases the tribal leadership continued separately from government or ceased, so in a sense the guilt of these tribes' history has not "passed down" to the modern government. For a very cut and dry example, there's no national shame about Jack the Ripper's murders in England, because there's no sense of responsibility or accountability of anyone today in government or society, and few or none are descended from him. It was a tragedy, but the government didn't do it, and society didn't either. The national shame of the Nazis in Germany however, exists because society was largely responsible for their rise to power and many today are direct descendants of Naz*s or naz* supporters. Something i would call more ambiguous is the national shame of imperialism/slavery in countries like Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These countries were colonised themselves, indeed England's first colonies, but they also engaged in imperialism as part of the British empire nonetheless. What muddies it even more, is that the Irish (and to a lesser extent the Welsh) were then oppressed in the colonies they helped create (e.g. _No Irish Need Apply_ ).. so should the country focus on both its victimhood of oppression and its perpetration of oppression, is one more important than the other, or do these cancel out in the way that afro-carribean ownership of Jamaica cancels out the national guilt of historic slavery...?
I like how Sweden is often depicted as super nice and everything but systematically colonized Finland and continues to seemingly not even be aware of it
They still have some Finnish skulls and bones in their natural museums that they refuse to give back for burials.. I love our western neighbors, but they can be a bit much at times.
This is nonsense. Fins were not seen as "others". Do you know how many Swedes are related to Fins? How many Fins joined Swedes to move to the Americas. Some areas of Finland was simply inhabited by Swedes. It didn't mean Swedes tried to replace them
Coming from Sweden its weird hearing people claim we have some sort of spotless legacy Utopia here. I would say our modern era is fairly "alright" but pre 1850 it was fighting wars as much as anyone else in europe, the Poles like to remind us of that. Then again in modern times we take the notion of legacy a bit too serious I think, in the many years to come these horrible things will still be a part of history and if a nation can atone for them I think we need to be able to look past it morally speaking. The current people of Germany has practically nothing to do with the Germany of 1939, I have nothing to do with the Swedish Empire of the 1600s and the indonesians have nothing to do with the Majapahit Empire if we regard the moral lens we today see these times from.
We legit killed so many poles during the great northern war that itd be considered genocide by todays standard. Also, we were really into eugenics for quite a while, which doesnt look quite so nice in retrospect
Kinda weird of you to shame Norway for supporting the Nazis, when they were invaded by the Nazis and were forced to surrender. By this standard you could just say Poland and France supported the Nazis.
There were major factions in the allies that considered france to be an axis power and deserving of punishment/occupation. So your example might not be as far fetched as you think. to summarize it as short as possible; After losing the battle of france, the french government surrendered and moved to the city of vichy, where post-surrender, they attempted to be neutral. After which the british attacked the neutral french as they feared this weakened and neutral french government might strike up an alliance with germany. Combined with several french colonies openly siding with britain agains the french government. Until britain took all the french colonies and sank most of the french navy, shortly after which germany overthrew the french government. So yeah, for a while you had neutral france fighting the british.
In France, where I live, it is a publicly discussed and held opinion that France indeed support the nazis, and that despite our efforts with the Résistance, we still did loads of harm. we often refer to the Vichy Governmnt as a collaborative govt bc they collabed and helped the Germans. One important point that is often brought up over here is how the French government kept lists of all the jewish people in France and made them wear stars, but as an Anticipatory action. that means, Germany hadn't even asked France to do that yet, and the collaborative leaders decided "oh I guess they'll want the jews one day, let's just start the process and make things easier for them". And the Nazis sure were glad for that since they did then also establish train lines to deport french jews. they teach this to us in school, to make sure no one grows up with the illusion that France managed to keep it's hands clean during the occupation and that we're winners just as much as the other Allies.
They did. There were many French and Polish people who fought for the Nazis and even joined the SS. That counts as supporting the Nazis. But it's also important to realize to what extent. In Norway there was a much larger amount of support for the Nazis than in Poland or France.
If only you ignore the fact that Poland never surrendered and had the biggest underground state in WW2 fighting the Germans and France had some too but Norway cooperated really easily.
Interesting how the USSR got rejected from joining NATO for being a ‘dictatorship’ (which it wasn’t, it was a one-party state), but Portugal was a founding member.
@@socire72 No dictatorship admits that it is a dictatorship. “Not a dictatorship, just a one-party state” feels like the weakest self-defense ever and I’m not sure why anyone would still be repeating it for Soviet Russia’s sake in the current day.
Hey JJ, as a Swede, I am very happy you talked a bit about the samis. They have been horribly treated by our gouvernment ever scince we took over their lands, and not many people here even think about it. Would you ever consider doing a video about the samis? I feel like they are very unknown to basically everyone
Is this because of northward expansion? As I understand it (as a non-Scandinavian!), the Germanic people have been around in southern Sweden since basically forever too, so is the national guilt due to exploitation of forest and mining resources up north, and then the persecution and forced assimilation that happened as a consequence?
@@acewarthog1882 wasn't it like one island and 50 square miles of Africa though? Maybe that was the Danish one. I remember there was a comically tiny Scandinavian "empire"
@@LaunchKaffee He always poses questions or topics I wasn't necessarily thinking about? But by the end of the video I'm always glad I took the time to listen and learn.
What you fail to mention about Finland is that while yes, they did have a military alliance with Germany, Carl Gustav Mannerheim (leader of Finland at the time) did it on the condition that the Jewish population of Finland would be left in peace. If you ask me, Finland's pretty clean on that front. Yes, Finland have treated the Sami People badly, and that is something that should qualify them as a nation with an "unclean" history, but I thought it was very short-sighted of you in an otherwise brilliant and informative video just to assume that a military alliance with Nazi Germany in itself is a terrible thing to do. When you are sandwiched between that and Communist Russia (who you only gained independence from in the 1900s), there's only one choice, I think. Also, on the topic of Norway, you hold the Quisling government as a reason to qualify Norway's past as unclean, and then completely ignore the fact that the Quisling government was not elected by the Norwegians (he just "proclaimed" himself as leader of Norway on a radio broadcast), and that he was executed by the Nazis a few months later.
@Prororo Finland's role in the siege of Leningrad was minor at best. The Finnish army stopped on the outer defensive line of the city leaving the siege incomplete, did not bomb the city nor allow Germans to use the territory it controlled for attacking or bombing. The reason they joined the war in the first place was to reclaim the territory the USSR had conquered before The actual "sins" of the Finnish nation are the treatment of the Sami people and the civil war of 1918. Not WW2
@@Prororo A lot of the resistance fighters in Norway had served in the military in Finland when Finland defended itself from Russia not that long before WW2. It is hard to blame Finland for going with the one side that could protect them from it happening again.
Having written an academic essay on Finland’s involvement in WW2 just want to correct you on your defensive take about Finland’s treatment of Jews. A study by Ahonen, P., Muir, S. and Silvennoinen, O. (2019.) argued that “the lack of research led to a widespread view that antisemitism was a marginal phenomenon in Finnish society...this was not the case-Finland was no exception when it came to antisemitism” Crucially even more so, the Finnish government has released a report acknowledging it was “very likely” that Finnish SS volunteers carried out organised murder of Jews. This report from 2019 has been cited by Israeli historians as one of the few examples of true humility to aknowledge the extent of anti semitism in a country’s history
@@Prororo And even if it were significant, why the fuck would it matter, as if people of Leningrad are all innocent and didn't take part in supporting their fucked up government committing multiple genocides? USSR was the aggressor of WW2 alongside Nazi Germany. Just because they did a huge part of defeating Nazies doesn't erase all the fucked up shit their did to their own people and people of freshly captured territories. What you see Russia doing today in Ukraine, USSR did all the same, but more and worse.
Concerning your parting question about the significance of a country's goodness (i.e., if it's mere happenstance or not), I think it pretty clear that it's mostly a matter of power. If we look at the countries with the best track records, particularly the ones you mentioned, as well as many of the small Polynesian countries, they are more peaceful mostly because they're small and weak, and have been for basically they're entire existence, and have not really had the ability or opportunity to oppress many people. Conversely, if you look at the countries with the worst, or most obvious track records, they are the ones who are powerful, large, and central to global affairs. So to answer your question, it seems clear to me that it's happenstance, and that there isn't anything to really learn from those countries who happened to avoid large scale atrocities.
Dunno. "Power" tends to be a sought after quality, either for conquest or defense, but how it's wielded is just as important as who it is wielded against. That is hardly happenstance, especially when viewed less from the lens of atrocities but of nobleness If countries bear no burden for the crimes they have committed just because, then they bear no credit for restraint and brotherhood either.
@@quintessenceSL Power, when sought for any reason, leads to its justification for use and abuse; that's how it has always been. Of course some use it better than others, I'd say the US used it better than N@zi Germany for example; but that doesn't go against what has been said about the use and abuse of power. That's not to say powerful countries bear no responsibility, just that it's easy for a small and weak nation that depends on everyone playing nice to play moral arbiter than it is for a powerful country that has every incentive to act badly for their interests.
Basically every nation has a history that by MODERN STANDARDS is deserving of criticism. In fact just think about this; today we view a society that would deny gay marriage as oppressive, bigoted and consequently condemnable. But every single nation in the world did not allow gay marriage until the 21st century. Also, and this has been referenced in other comments, the nations that have the "least bad" histories are almost always the ones with the least amount of power; ie they were the ones oppressed because they did not have power, meaning if they did have power, there's no reason to view them as unlikely to do condemnable things. I have long said that you need to use CONTEXT when discussing how much a society has done bad. And I by no means would say that just because all societies have done bad, that we should just ignore problems in society now. What I'm saying is you need PERSPECTIVE, because without that, you could say that a nation like the US or Canada is monstrous and must have their entire society deconstructed, when in reality, they are quite good compared to most other societies and when you understand context (ie any nation widely involved around the world in complex matters will have a track record that included bad things).
I don't think that's true. It's not happenstance. Countries that became powerful sought power. Countries don't just fall backwards into colonising foreign lands and brutalising the population as a byproduct of economic success or innovation.
@@krombopulos_michael That isn’t entirely true. Look at the Scramble for Africa as an example. It was caused more by competition with the other nations than anything else. Colonisation of the new world was the same. If England had allowed Spain to control the Americas, Spain would have built up a huge navy and invaded England. I mean, they tried to anyway, but they might have actually won. If empire is necessary for the survival of your people, is it really immoral? Britain wouldn’t have survived the world wars or the Seven Year’s War etc without her empire.
I might be a little late to the party, but as a Dane i find it odd that both Norway and Sweden are not included as imperial nations, Sweden held Norway as a unwilling subject for a long period of time(which is imperial if Germany was an empire), and also had multiple colonies around the Atlantic(which is what the Danes stole and then became an "empire" of sorts, so them being excluded is just wrong if you ask me). Norway settled and pushed much of Greenland's population out of the most habitable parts of their landmass, which Denmark then got awarded(way later), making it odd to be seen and an imperial possession. since they just didn't want independence like Iceland wanted and got. To exclude Sweden as an empire, is to say the colonies where fine until they where owned by Denmark, or exclude those colonies and then say that Greenland and Iceland are imperial possessions, but again only when the Danes got them.
And as a swede i find it pretty weird our imperialism during our "Stormaktstid" (Great power era) and in general the viking times for pretty much all scandinavian nations at the time was glossed over. I'm pretty sure norse, swedes and danes alike commited several atrocities during our raider phases.
Before the Kalmar Union, yes, we Norwegians had our own little empire, although it was either mostly uninhabited land or land inhabited by Norwegian (and other European) settlers. The part about Greenland is disputed from what I've heard. I've heard the Greenlanders arrived after the Norse came there, but maybe that's incorrect.
they also held finland and waged wars that killed third of our people because we were pretty much used as cannon fodder by them, on top they were making racial arguments that we were literally subhumans and so they would have the right to treat us how ever they wanted.
Jamaica actually does have a pretty vicious recent history when it comes to persecuting gay people, both in terms of homosexual sex still being illegal, and regular violence and sexual violence against them as a form of vigilante punishment. At one point Jamaica was called by human rights groups “the most homophobic place on earth”. In most other former British Caribbean colonies, homosexual acts are still technically illegal, if not actively prosecuted anymore. In Barbados, for example, sodomy officially carries a penalty of life imprisonment. I don’t think the Anglo-Caribbean countries are some terrible place for human rights, but they aren’t exactly clean by western liberal standards either.
Never use western liberal standards, in their eyes the worst countries of all time (USA, Britain, France) are the “best countries in the world” and countries that haven’t been at war in decades and never colonised like China and DPRK are “evil empires”.
I always felt like the nicest countries are those that haven’t had much of a history as a country - the less agency a nation had, the less bad things they could have done.
I don't think it's accurate to characterise the Northern Ireland troubles as being a continuation or successor of the Irish civil war. Not only was there the 40-50 year gap between them, but also the circumstances and goals of the combatants. The civil war was about the question of "what's the best way to achieve an Irish Republic", while the troubles was "should Northern Ireland join the Republic of Ireland or not". Not to mention that there was no ethnic element to the Irish civil war, whilst the troubles was generally sectarian, with two ethnic groups fighting each other.
I don't think you can say there was no ethnic element to the Irish civil war when Protestants and Catholics have been at odds in Ireland since the British first took control of Ireland. As for the troubles, they are certainly a continuation of the same issue when ultimately the two parties are still a small Protestant class of Irish (Pro Treaty) vs a large class of Catholic Irish (Anti-Treaty). You can ask the question in different ways, but of course you would if time had passed. Ethnic tension born of historic resentment, fear and wrongdoing on both sides still played a not insignificant role in both.
@@mrplague9881 I don't think it's accurate to characterise the motives and goals of Michael Collins as being the same as James Craig or Ian Paisley's. Northern Protestants were actively against Irish independence or at least unification, while the pro-treaty forces in the civil war were fighting over an issue as to how to achieve Irish independence. I agree that there are parallels and think that (pro-treaty) Fine Gael has similarities with Northern unionists, but they ultimately have never and do not share the same goals. I suppose you could say there is a spectrum of Irish constitutional opinion and depending on your world view you either see the pro-treaty forces as on the Unionist side or the nationalist one. But that's just my view (I'm trying to be civil as the troubles are an understandably sensitive topic)
I think we should see history's attrocities as mankind's. I am a german citizen and have learned a lot about Nazism in school. I think that people all over the world should be educated on one of humanty's most evil sins as well all the others; I consider it as an important part of basic humanitarian education. I do not feel ashamed for it/them due to not being complicit in it (I am only 18), but as a human I feel obligated to remember, reflect on and retell it - and so should everyone.
WRONG, it was the racism in NORTHERN EUROPE, the one stemming from BARBARIAN logic which simmered after (possibly since before) the fall of the Roman Empire. And turned into the killings, segregations (and genocide of some) of Jews, Gypsy's, "Witches", Africans, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, Aboriginal, Catholic Irish, and Native American people.
I think small oceania island countries have a more 'spotless' history because of these nations' remoteness helped them escape the evils of imperialism (at least early on) and helped them avoid getting into wars with each other. In particular, I think Tuvalu might be the country that has the strongest claim to the title
As an actual Pacific Islander, I was just waiting for J.J to mention some South Pasifika countries like Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, and such. It honestly sucked, but hey, he didn't mention Fiji 💀💀💀
@@giovannimieli4271 Yeah, but I have the impression that even as a fascist state it was a pretty defanged one. They aproved a law against interracial marriage only 6 months before Italy fell, they had jews acting in their army (which only had 80 rifles), and even the guy who tried to overthrow the government was sentenced to 20 years but never arrested.
I don't think that putting Poland in the same basket as the USSR gives justice, blaming the victim for the sins of its oppressor would be exactly the same as blaming a woman for getting raped. Also Poland hasn't waged wars on its neighbours for hundreds of years, it has been a safe haven for the Jews when antisemitism ravaged across Europe, and it was the events in Poland and formation of the Solidarity movement that ignited the spark of an eventual fall of communism (you remember that Nobel peace prize for Lech Wałęsa?). I can't think of many other countries that would have even remotely as least bad history as Poland does.
Most of the "good" countries just never had the circumstances to inflict evil in my opinion. Let's say the historic power dynamic had been reversed between English and Irish. The Irish would have conquered England and probably would have had a colonial empire. The geopolitics of history is more pragmatic and less moral.
@@Thetonn Yes i'm aware of that but Dublin was founded by the Vikings who originated from Denmark and Norway. The slave market was also primarily run by them the Gaelic irish were often chattel slaves.
And everyone in North America and the British Isles would speak Irish except for pockets of Northeast England and Scotland known collectively as the Anglotacht
That's what i've always said, that's why i hate the kinda reductionist view of history that people have right know when they only care about the last 500 years, when pretty much a lot of the anymosity is way older, like when the Japanese did the occupation of China and Korea, people forget that those 3 countires have pretty much being enemies for pretty much milenia, because they have always being the 3 big powers of the region and have alway fought for control of the region, so what the Japanese did (which was awful) was just the culmination of all of those milenia of history, and if China and Korea had the opportunity to do so they would a 100% do the same, like you say history is more pragmantic, less moral and way more complex.
As a Canadian, there's another question about guilt beyond just comparisons to other countries. What about new arrivals? Do Canadians who arrived here relatively recently deserve to feel any guilt? Especially given many of those Canadians were perhaps fleeing areas of danger? If they don't, then how far back does your family have to be from here to feel guilt? Is it simply the act of living on Canadian land? You could say, as I've heard argued, that only European Canadians need to feel guilty since Europeans colonized, but how do you break that down then? Most Franco Canadians I know would scoff at the idea of feeling guilt, given that they pride themselves on their relations with the Iroquois (which you may agree or disagree with), and that they see themselves as a minority unjustly treated. So is it just Anglo-Canadians that should feel bad? But then what is an Anglo Canadian? There are plenty of Canadians today who are of European ancestry and speak English, but don't have much of a connection to the British Empire, such as the many Slavic descended Canadians fleeing the old Russian Empire. If we go with that only British descended Canadians are "Anglo" where do Scots or Irish fleeing unfair treatment comparative to the English within Britain fit? In a country like Canada these questions get rather convoluted, and that's before you toss in the Metis.
I would say that noone who partook in it should feel guilt, like you were just born in a country that did some horrible stuff, and you should feel guilty (well idk how long the canadian indiginous people is going on so feel free to correct me.) But as an American, why should I feel guilt about the Slave trade that went on more than a century ago, or that racists are still here today even in government discriminating against minorities when I fight against it? In conclusion I don't think someone should feel guilt about what has happened in the past and stopped, but should if it's happening in the present and not fighting against it.
Personally, I don't think any Canadians should feel guilt about a past we weren't alive for. Of course we should still work to rectify the wrongs of the past and definitely feel guilty about terrible actions in living memory (e.g. residential schools).
I’d say that we should have country wide shame but not guilt because the system the country was based on is very racist no one should suffer for it but we should keep the past in mind while fixing the issues like the water for indigenous people
How are the Sami the "only indigenous people in Europe"? I mean what about the Germanic and Slavic peoples? What about the Basque people who's ancestors were in Europe long before the Sami
I guess that in this context, 'indigenous' means 'indigenous AND then became a minority' with groups that would be indigenous by conventional definition not counting. Nonetheless, even by this definition Basques would count so Sami aren't the only ones.
Germanic and Slavic peoples both descended from Proto-Indo-Europeans, who originated from the Pontic-Caucasian steps in Southern Russia/the Caucusus. The concept of being "indigenous" is vague anyway, and is mostly defined by how far back we can trace a people group's ancestry.
I don’t understand how the Sami are the “only indigenous people in Europe”. Are ethnically French people indigenous to France? Aren’t Spaniards indigenous to Spain? Can someone explain that to me?
When referring to "indigenous people", it's typically implied that they were colonized and/or displaced. Even so, this leaves out a ton of groups, such as the Basque or the Celtic Britons.
@@magnushmann Yeah the Norse have been there for pretty much the same amount of time and even more than the Sami, from what i know they came from what is now Finland to Norway and Sweden after the norse were there, so how thay are more indigenous than the Norwegians and the Swedes, i mean if you said they are the indigenous Finns then yeah i can agree with that, but from Norway and Sweden i don't see it.
@@Ms666slayer An indigenous people is not literally the first people to have inhabited an area - they must have been colonized and/or displaced. If you can understand that homophobia doesn't mean a literal phobia of gay people, you can understand this too. Don't you think it's kinda weird to put the Sámi people on the same pedestal as the Norse who kidnapped their children, photographed their naked bodies for eugenics and tried to wipe out their languages and culture?
Personally, given that inequality, bigotry and prejudice are on-going problems in the world, I feel like we have more to learn from countries that have been through darker periods in their history and manged to pull themselves out of it and improve.
Agreeable cuz people in America can stay the same thing with all the woke slave reparations and all that hoodoo you punished for slavery hardly half the country is even born here from people who were here during that time
@UlisesHeureaux To be blunt; that was literally FORCED on it in the first place. It wasn't like the Germans woke up one day and decided to be better, it took millions of lives, an invasion, an occupation, and millions of $ in rebuilding to lead to that state. It also doesn't really focus on atoning any of its imperialist actions prior to WW2. It hyper-focuses on WW2 which while far more explicitly evil, is also an issue in of itself. It lets other actions get off the hook at "not as bad".
Basically every nation has a history that by MODERN STANDARDS is deserving of criticism. In fact just think about this; today we view a society that would deny gay marriage as oppressive, bigoted and consequently condemnable. But every single nation in the world did not allow gay marriage until the 21st century. Also, and this has been referenced in other comments, the nations that have the "least bad" histories are almost always the ones with the least amount of power; ie they were the ones oppressed because they did not have power, meaning if they did have power, there's no reason to view them as unlikely to do condemnable things. I have long said that you need to use CONTEXT when discussing how much a society has done bad. And I by no means would say that just because all societies have done bad, that we should just ignore problems in society now. What I'm saying is you need PERSPECTIVE, because without that, you could say that a nation like the US or Canada is monstrous and must have their entire society deconstructed, when in reality, they are quite good compared to most other societies and when you understand context (ie any nation widely involved around the world in complex matters will have a track record that included bad things).
@UlisesHeureaux Well, unlike in Germany, the US did not push a "war guilt" idea in Japanese education like in Germany. Mostly due to the fact that the US needed to reorient Japanese society to be more democratic and the maintaining of many important Japanese central figures like the Emperor. And those other countries you named? They were not forced to think that way by an occupying nation, or rather; they have but it came from the USSR who themselves committed horrible war crimes on their people thus made it more than a little unpopular. The German experience of Western occupation was almost saintly in comparison, making what they taught about N@zi war crimes stick. Imho anyway.
@@demnbrown Bro segregation was really not that long ago. There are people still alive from then, it's no suprise that so many of them are economically disadvantaged. If we'd finished reconstruction, stopped segregation and done reperations from the traitors so long ago we'd not have to have this conversation. But our country did not succeed then so unfortunately something has to be done if we want to solve this inequality.
It's weird to me that African slavery is almost always brought up in the Atlantic context, when the Red Sea/ Indian Ocean slave trade to the Middle East and elsewhere was just as long, brutal, and numerous as the Atlantic one, and possibly even worse in all three ways. My mothers side is descended from slaves originally from East Africa who were enslaved by Arabs. I guess it's because history in the West is of course Western centric, or Eurocentric to a degree, but still, I almost never hear about it in Asia or the Middle East where it was practiced either.
That's because your assertion that the Indian Ocean slave trade was "possibly even worse in all three ways" is heavily disputed by historians. Modern estimates put the number of slaves traded in the Indian Ocean at around 17 million over 1300 years, while the Atlantic slave trade had the same number in some 400 years. There's also the fact that the Atlantic slave trade was philosophically grounded in white supremacy, which the Indian Ocean trade didn't have--slaves of all races, including Eastern Europeans, Arabs, and Chinese were traded, not just Africans. But I think more relevant is that the European slave trade is just closely associated with European imperialism, which had a bigger impact on the modern world than Asian/Middle Eastern colonialism.
@@JuanBautista-fd7yv because we learn Mostly our own country history. An american will see more documentaries closely related to his country or curent world affairs in americans medias than an african would will learn more about stuff on africans slave trader and wars. Another thing is in, western countries, guilt on these subjects as become weaponised to a absurd level compared to others continents.
From my personal experience I've noticed that history in North America and Europe is much more discussed and analyzed than in the Middle East, where oftenly it's mixed with that kind of nationalism that makes one imagine a golden past without its dark sides. Both were horrible things but apart from familiarity, I think the Atlantic slave trade is seen in a more negative light since it was based on race while Arab and Ottoman slave trade targeted any non-Muslim, from Africans to Europeans and in some cases it allowed slaves to get free only through conversion.
@@gkky-xx4mc That's why I said possibly. But a lot of historians think that there were a few million more Africans traded in the Indian Ocean over the Atlantic Ocean. Also, don't make me laugh over that the Atlantic trade was uniquely grounded in white supremacy, as if the Indian Black slave trade wasn't heavily based on the supposed racial inferiority of Blacks compared to the lighter, "whiter" Arabs Persians Turks etc. As a black person whose been to countries in the Middle East and has older family members who grew up there, there's a huge amount of racism and a form of "white supremacy" or Brown/pale brown supreamacy historically and even today in much of the Middle East. Your point about "Eastern Europeans" being traded in the Indian Slave trade is also laughable, they were mostly traded in Europe, the Black Sea, and on other route NOT the Indian Ocean. Chinese and Arab slaves were a tiny fraction of slaves in the Indian Ocean compared to Black Slaves. Guess what, there were Chinese and East Indian slaves in the Atlantic slave trade too, but they were a small number compared to the black ones, just like how it was in the Indian/Red Sea slave trade.
Back during the Cold War their was actually some paranoia about Jamaica becoming communist due to being close to Cuba and ruled by a white minority for a while post independence and that might be an interesting topic to look into.
Yeah, there was some worry. I've moved in the Jamaican expat community here in Houston and loved what I learned. I still don't understand the rules of Cricket even though I have been to a few matches. I even went to a match when the largest Cricket complex in the US opened in Prairie View, TX.
i went to norway a few years ago and while i was there i listened to a lecture by a person with sami ancestry in the university in tromsø and quite honestly it’s pretty dark and weird to hear as an american who had barely ever heard of the sami beforehand. it’s even worse when you realize that the us did FAR WORSE to the native americans. since then, indigenous rights have been a topic that i have cared about more than almost any other. i would love to hear your take, jj, on the treatment of native peoples across the world, especially the sami people and their history. they are a group so few outside of scandinavia and finland have ever even heard of so i think it would be an amazing idea to help bring awareness to these types of groups all across the world
The Sami are indeed not somehow more indigenous than, they are only Treated as such" because they weren't treated well, similar to *actual* indigenous people in other places, when they in a certain sense found themselves legally within the area of other countries's territories. People often don't understand how remote the areas we are talking about are, especially in the not even distant past. Add to that the fact that most of them effectively came over from the east _after_ country boarders were effectively legally set, and you get a situation where effectively, the Sami people are the ones who "invaded" and "settled within land that "wasn't their own" etc. etc. Obviously, non of this should justify human atrocities, but it is annoying how so many people end up conveniently leaving out so much of the history of which I only scratched the surface here.
@@magnushmann by that logic tho you could probably say that all indigenous people are fake unless they are in ethiopia because that is where humanity came from. people say the sami are indigenous because even tho there were people there before them, their culture has been rooted to the land and they have used it for thousands of years. it doesn’t mean that they originated from there per se because no human originated outside of africa, but that they are culturally tied to their homeland which was then encroached on by other peoples.
@@mikearndt8210 That is indeed why attempting to quantify "how native" to some land any "group of people" are, is essentially futile or at least extraneous. How do we define Native? Well it depends. How do we define people group? Well it depends. Again, that doesn't mean human atrocities and cultural genocide is ay okay, but we get into strange or even dangerous territory if we begin citing some of these things as the primary reasons why we deem it abhorrent with today's eyes. There are better, universally applicable reasons to cite, most should be obvious.
Continuing on that idea of Scandinavian countries, I was surprised to find out that sweden had an active eugenics program up until 1974! It's one of those almost never talked about things I guess.
Now it's the opposite. Sweden is using an open-border policy so that Arabian refugees will replace the native Scandinavian men. There was even a case where a pack of youths sodomized a man and that same man didn't want to press charges because he's scared that the youths will be deported.
It wasnt a racial thing, but prevention of dissabilities being passed on. In a small country build on the idea of "Everyone takes care of the nation, and the nation takes care of everyone", it's not unreasonable to prevent people who don't contribute from having children.
I think that every country has a bad past, one way or another, and what matters is how it accounts for its past and how it treats its people in the present time. It's ridiculous to blame people in the present day for what their ancestors may have done centuries ago or even just people who look like them (a practice which basically amounts to racism.) Every person is accountable for their own actions, not the actions of others or ancestors, and should be held accountable only for their own actions. The current culture of blame ridiculously pins blame based off of everything from race to nationalism to religion, ignoring the actions of people belonging to certain races/cultures/religions TODAY. It is incredibly divisive and counterproductive towards achieving lasting peace.
I had the same thought as Henrik Myrhaug. Norway being held responsible for the Quisling government feels disingenous. The legitimate government of Norway kept working from Britain, and made a good effort in organizing the local resistance. It would be very unfair to blame Norway for being occupied and having a puppet government forced on us. It becomes especially absurd when in the next breath mentioning Swedens neutrality as a reason of shame, since Sweden joining the allied forces very likely would have led to them being invaded by Germany as well. It is very likely that the same thing that happened to Norway, would have happened in Sweden if circumstances were different. Quislings government was something that happened to Norway, it was not something that Norway did. In addition to the mistreatment of the sami people, I would also add that Norway have had policies towards roma people that are shameful. Forced castration was in force before and during WW II, but the roma people was treated badly also after the war. How we treated people with mental disabilities in even more recent history is also quite unpleasant. However, I find it weird that Denmark and Sweden, who both at times have ruled over Norway, get's a pass for their imperialist history. Both have been rather large empires in the past.
Denmark didn't get a pass for Imperialism, he mentioned it. Not sure why he excluded Sweden, maybe because he doesn't go that far back, in which case Sweden's only Imperial holding was Norway, after they lost Finland, New Finland, and the Baltic States to other powers. Alternatively, he just wanted to make a smooth transition to disproving Scandinavian perfectionism, which he did. Also, I am ethically Sami from Northern Norway, and for a time lived in Kautokeno, a Sami majority municipality, as well as other parts of Troms and Finnmark. There's a real sense of generational shame left by Norwegianization (Fornorsking), a lot of people still don't want to admit their Sami cultural heritage. As well as other problems, like more radical religious believes and a higher rate of alcoholism.
@@Ranked_Journey I just found out that New Finland is a district in Canada. I guess you meant some different area by new Finland? As a Finn I never heard that kind of term except for a newspaper called Uusi Suomi.
Denmark didn’t hold sway over Norway and Norway was never a colony. To begin with the Danish royalty was asked by Norway to be their protector and king, then later followed the Kalmar Union and the double monarchy Denmark-Norway. Also people seem to forget that the whole Viken area as a settlement was founded by Danish chiefs and that early petty kings were vassals to and supported by the Danish rule rather than in opposition, and so the histories of Norway and Denmark were both intertwined right from the start.
I think there is a sort of neo-noble savage myth that sometimes plays a role in the way some people talk about non-western countries. I had a class in college try to tell me the British Raj brought the idea of social classes and control to India, a country with a longer history of government, conquest, civil society, and social structures then England could even claim without trying to pull that "we are the extension of Athens" stuff. Oppressive systems and horrific acts are social technologies, and they are no more a thing unique to the "Western Mind" than mathematics or logic or engineering. I think the comparison game is a mistake and we can see it with the way everyone has to engage with whataboutism now, with the current war. It's natural to want to pick the absolute moral good vs evil, but realistically, that's not going to work, nor is it the point. It stops us from engaging with whats happening now in favor of grand narratives that don't work. But it doesn't mean anyone is off the hook for the past, especially when its very rare for these things not to have continued effects either directly or through national mythmaking. Just because someone else is worse, doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't right your wrongs.
I'd argue that having been a dictatorship doesn't necessarily mean that there is some kind of a historical shame. Imprisoning political opponents or faking elections are of course bad things, but they're not comparable to genocides. Furthermore, dictatorships often aren't the fault of people in the country, for example the communist bloc was largely a form of Soviet imperialism
Some dictatorships persecuted and tortured a lot of people within their lands. And the argument that it wasn't the people's fault doesn't make much sense since you could argue that most of these horrible things aren't the people's fault as well, because just think, an average english peasant living their life on a farm in the 18th or 19th century had little or nothing to do with the horrible things the British empire was doing during that time for example. But the discussion is about bad things the countries have done throughout their history, so that includes their government's actions
Here the Bahamas, arguably our biggest crime is the constant mistreatment of Haitian immigrants. The government has a tendency to clear out Haitian shanty-towns with little-to-no remorse and it’s been happening for a while.
Tough question, but in my personal opinion I would have to argue for a European country, actually. San Marino, as far as I can tell, is extremely unproblematic. The closed thing I could see being a problem is neutrality in the Second World War, but to me it is entirely different from the Swedish position, due the fact that they were literally inside Italy. I may be overlooking something, but that’s my stance.
“Studies have suggested that the two genes most associated with lighter skin colour in modern Europeans originated in the Middle East and the Caucasus about 22,000 to 28,000 years ago” -Wikipedia
While I agree with the end result in this video, I feel like it's a bit unfair to use the Soviet governments as representations for countries like Estonia, Moldova, Georgia etc. I think the post Soviet countries that haven't been ravaged by brutal dictatorships should've at least been mentioned. I would say as a Baltic person our independent history is really peaceful (not counting the duchy of Courland for Latvia since it was ruled by Germans) but considering that we did have a dictatorship, in the end the video has the same result. Just wanted to clarify that the communist governments do not represent us
I would somewhat agree (although places like Lithuania do have some level of "guilt" for Nazi collusion when fighting against the Soviets, much like Finland). Also, unlike the leadership of the Caribbean nations, it was locals that were involved in the governance of those repressive regimes - you wouldn't say Romania is free from "guilt" considering the reign of Ceaușescu for instance. Ultimately, the whole question of "national guilt" is very complex and doesn't have a straightforward answer. That said, I absolutely adore the Baltic nations and definitely would put them low on an overall "guilt" list.
@UlisesHeureaux i genuinely forgot about that, fuck you're right. We did align ourselves with the Nazis to fight back against the communist regime so we definitely helped in the holocaust.....that genuinely slipped my mind
As a Finn, from oulu we are taught about our relations with Germany in school, sadly we didn’t have a choice, it was either side with them for food and protection or become an SSR of Russia , our history is not clean, but we did what we had to
You did have a choice, to fight back. What, no muh “White Death” or more bragging about how Finns are so strong in war when it comes to Germany? Finns we’re butthurt about losing the Winter War so they wanted it back. Finland was lukewarm about Nazism based on their Air Force logo up until recently. They wanted their land back and didn’t give two shits about tagging up with genocidal freaks. And they ended up losing even MORE land afterwards
Our history of treating the Sami the way we did and the Finnish civil war are much bigger reason why it's not spotless, but during world war 2 there was actually a Nazi volunteer group in Finland what did similar war crimes as other Nazis. It wasn't as prevalent but definitely existed.
That is a weak argument. The same reasoning also applies to Switzerland. The importance of the trade between Switzerland and Germany during WW2 was one of the key reasons why Switzerland remained free during WW2. That doesn‘t make Switzerlands actions right or justified.
I am aware but you must know that we were very reliant on Germany for food and protection, we definetely didn’t try to stop or go against their policies, but that was only to ensure protection against the soviets. Otherwise , there would be no Finland
Finland isn't a part of scandinavia since our language is completely different(and arguably barely even a functional one at times) but at this point I've heard people make this mistake so many times I don't really even care anymore
well our 2 countries was once part of the same kingdom (swede), and since sweden is scandianavian and nordic and finland just nordic i guess you get honorary scandiavian status aswell let's just throw in iceland and hell even estonia aswell since they want to be nordic anyway
@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 Well, geographically it's the Scandinavian peninsula, which just covers Norway and Sweden. Denmark is often included for geopolitical reasons, as you say. Culturally and linguistically, Iceland arguably also belongs in there, while Finland has strong historical and political connections, largely due to being part of Sweden for about 600 years. Bottom line is that I think it's flawed to say "Scandinavia is X, not Y", when in reality it kind of depends on your viewpoint.
@@Richard-W0 The term relates to both language and geography, as well as politics. You can think of it like this: If you as a country want to be in the "Scandinavia club" you need to fulfill three points. 1. You need to be a monarchy (preferably a constitutional one since we aren't authoritarian barbarians anymore). 2. You must either own or have owned, or been part of a country that owns or has owned, the county that is the namesake for "Scandinavia" ie.: Scania. 3. You must speak a north germanic language. Iceland isn't part of Scandinavia because of point 1 (and honestly the whole being an island very far away from the region in general doesn't help). Finland fails on both point 1 and point 3.
@@spaceythehuman5530 thousands? I'm not sure since there are barely thousands San Marinese people. They do have helped, like many Italians in the countryside. But thousands is too big a number methinks.. then again, I'm not so sure about it. What are your sources?
I think everyone should understand the dark historical events in their countries past. It’s obviously important to recognize that bad things did happen. However, I’ve noticed that in the US, recognizing the many past injustices has increasingly been replaced by people simply despising the country in its entirety, especially in my generation. I think refusing to accept any of the good a country has done is just as ignorant and just as dangerous to society as refusing to accept any of the bad.
To paraphrase the philosopher Jeff Spicoli "If we don't come up with some cool rules, pronto, we'll be bogus too". The US was formed with some pretty high minded ideals. It's up to our leaders to guide us to live up to them. When ANY of us fall short of them, it's up to all of us to get back on the path.
The most shameful chapter in history of Finland is finnish civil war, witch happened right after Finland declared it's independance. In that war, many died in battles, but more where executed "on the spot" or by door to door deathsquads and even more died in prison camps, mostly by starving to death. Both side comitted executions, but winning side committed 4-5 times more and caused all the deaths in prison camps.
It should be also noted that on top of that shame was a build a culture of discourse and mutual understanding. Finnish opposing parties have always been excelent at finding middle ground, and the civil war layed the foundations for that.
3:04 Allright, since when does being conquered by a hostile neighbour that forced a governement change and did't let you get rid of it for 50 years despite countless tries, mean "a shameful past"?
THIS and even if it wasn't causes by another country, I don't think it counts as shameful history since the people were the victims. Also I would argue that it's unfair to automatically connect communism with fascism or dictatorship, it's literally part of red scare propaganda. Also a lot of the dictatorships in latin america were anti communist (USA trying to stop communism).
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. All of these have had issues with other countries in the past, but that does not excuse their own brutality, just as the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was extremely harsh on Germany after WW1 did not excuse their actions in WW2. Cuba, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, these were terrible countries, at least at some point. To deny this, is idiotic at best.
@@casual_speedrunner1482 I'm not talking about cuba dude, I'm talking about eastern europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. were all forcefully converted. If the revolution happened in your country and it changed then that's a shameful past. If someone went over and forced you, it's not. Just being communist is also not automatically shameful.
@@ywoisug8845 It was still their government, led by their people, even if they were subservient to the USSR. Even if you were to not count that for WHATEVER reason, that period of time isn’t the only time that these countries did bad things.
I absolutely dont feel like sin of my country is being under communist regime set by soviet russians, my whole family despised this system from start to the end, it was nightmare to live in this country, but its not poles our fault, more like people who particpated in it
2:08 Holland is a province of the Netherlands,that also divided in 2;North Holland and South Holland. Please use the correct word "Netherlands" if you are referring to the country "Netherlands"(which you are).
@@carlin6493 how can you drop a nickname? Especially if you're a country. People will still probably call them Holland. If it's "official nicknames" then that's fine
I think JJ was just quoting a line that people often use to describe the Sami. I agree, as far as I can tell the case of the Sami is not about a settler society subjugating an indigenous one but rather a larger indigenous society subjugating a smaller one. EDIT: JJ basically confirms this in another comment
Actually the Carabien countries participate highly in sex trafficking. I get that a lot of countries do this... but it doesn't make it right. The worst part about this is that unlike most other nation's, family, government and even friends of Caribbean sex traffickers turn a blind eye to the actions. While other countries simply aren't capable of keeping up with it, the Caribbean countries know and just do nothing. I know this mostly because I have had two friends who fled to America after escaping from a sex trafficking ring from Jamaica. I have also talked with people online who are not only recovering from the trauma of working for sex traffickers, but they have told me most of the time there victims come from Caribbean families and are approved by government officials. I know this is all still on going, but you honestly can't just act like something isn't happening, especially when there is so much evidence of it.
"Carabien" You couldn't even spell it right lol. Anyways, its not like sex trafficking is legal here or encouraged by any of our governments. Actually, we make great effort to stop it. Your argument is null.
I think an interesting trend is that essentially the weakest countries will have the least shameful histories (and thus probably the least prideful histories too). The less control the people in the country had over the governments' political decisions, and the smaller the impact of those decisions, the less likely an atrocity is to be committed. So the Caribbean nations, eastern Europe, micronations, etc likely to have less shame just because they've had less autonomy and power historically.
Eastern nations ? Didn't they beat the crap out of each other , damn even poland and Lithuania almost killed russia ,. So no they are like the rest of europe , like us
If you're calling Eastern Europe less prideful than you're wrong man, just look at the Balkans for ONE example, many Empires, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, I know that Bulgaria and Greece were truly dominant Empires of Europe at their peaks, Bulgaria the first Slavic cultural hub and a great power you might say, so the Eastern Europe bit is false
@@sherlocksmuuug6692 Depends, even in eastern europe the rule holds true- Estonia and Latvia have relatively shameless histories because they were under constant subjugation (except maybe that one time when they sided with Hitler against the USSR?) Poland and Lithuania obviously have worse histories, but it is also because of power. Both nations actively suppressed minority languages (Ruthenian, later Polonized into Ukrainian) in their territories, and waged wars against their neighbors (as all countries did). I think the rule is still true, just less so for eastern europe. But the principle (power) is the same.
I don't think the Norwegians have that much to be ashamed about in terms of WW2. Their nazi occupation regime was near-universally despised and the Norwegian people put up a strong resistance.
In some ways the most shameful part was the treatment of kids of german soldiers and their mothers within the country. I do believe the government has apologized for that l, but I'm not sure. (Edit: treatment after the war to be clear)
There was also German resistance in Nazi Germany so why should Germans feel ashamed about their country itself? I don't think that anyone should feel ashamed about their country rather we should celebrate those who stood up for what's right when governments do evil instead of feeling this weird need to identify ourselves as a country with the government. My country is not the government, its officials, and institutions my country is me, my family, my neighbors, my community of common people and the communities around it who promote all its well-being. If I was a German in WW2 my country would be the German resistance not the Nazis and I hope Germans today celebrate them as what is actually their country. If I was a Russian today my country would not be Putin, not his administration, and not his military in Ukraine my country would be those Russians setting military offices on fire and doing what they can to oppose, sabotage and stop the current war.
I think the “badness” criteria would be 1. How many people were affected 2. How many people are still affected 3. How apologetic is the government 4. What were the measures to make it right 5. What percentage of the people affected are still upset Which I think would cover everything, or most of it.
As a Norwegian, I don’t feel like there is much war guilt. The Quisling regime is widely viewed as an occupation, and not a continuation of the government. You make lots of great points otherwise though
Completely agree. It also makes little sense to lump in Denmark with the actual colonial powers of France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Holland and Spain as if Denmark's actions are even close to be comparable in scope.
Yes, the Quisling regime is certainly not something for Norway to be "shameful" of. It was widely disliked and opposed. Better candidates are: - The treatment (cultural genocide) of the Sami people, as mentioned in the video. - The participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (We like to pretend we're not "guilty", because Norwegians themselves were subjects of Denmark, but being an integrated part of Denmark at the time, makes us equaly "responsible" as the people of modern day Denmark.)
@@nordichistorian6719 I think our second greatest shame is the treatment of children of German soldiers and the mothers after the second world war, which is not a very shining moment of our history. I think Norwegians don't really feel much connection to the slave trade, so it's not really considered a "shame". People do talk about it, but it's much more "historical curiosity" than any historical shame. I really don't feel any shame for the Norwegian part of the slave trade, it's just so far removed from the modern day Norway.
@@jrgenm.dsollie4849 Good point. The treatment of those associated with the Germans after war war, could be on the list. My point is not that we should be ashamed of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (I'm not advocating being "shameful" of anything one's ancestors did, really.) My point was that there is no reason for us to be less so, than other countries that also have such a past (we conveniently forget that the area and ancestors of what today is Norway, was an integral part of the Danish crown at the time).
@@nordichistorian6719 I don't think Norway shares equal blame with Denmark in terms of colonialism and slavery. Sure, there were likely Norwegians that benefitted from Denmark's colonies and slave trade, but to say we bare the same guilt as the actual colonial power that subjugated those places is a stretch.
I honestly really love the unique sponsors. You've picked ones that truly add value to your viewers! Thanks for taking the sponsorship, legitimately enjoying it, and it's a useful experience to briefly view news and see the bias shown explicitly
I wouldn't say it's fair to count countries that used to be part of the soviet block as bad because of it, when most of them were only part of it because they got invaded and very much wanted to leave
I am from Finland. The situation of Finland in WW2 was difficult because Finland had 2 really bad options - to ally with Russia and lose our independency (and later become part of Soviet Union) or ally with Germany. Hitler had previously offered to give Finland to Russia so Finnish people were really offended of that. But Finland definitely didn't want to become part of Russia again so we just allied with nazis to fight against Russia. It is worth knowing that Finland was not a very good friend with the nazis even thought we fought in the same side. The war between Finland and Russia is a fascinating part of WW2 history if anyone wants to study more about it. A very small country fighting against a massive monolith.
Hitler was the one to make the deal with Stalin to give Finland under USSR in the first place. Finland also went to war against Germany to drive them off Lapland after the war ended with the Soviets.
My great grandfather was a British volunteer who fought in the winter war for Finland and gave his life for Finnish independence. A great man who should have survived. I remember meeting a bigoted Finn in Brussels who completely undermined and laughed at him when I mentioned that, the biggest story of my family's history which was sad.
Great video, but I have to say that immediately dismissing all countries that made up the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia is quite unfair. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova have a decently clean history as far as I am aware of and so does Slovenia. My own country of Croatia comes guilty as charged though and definitely not only because of the communist dictatorship it was under.
@@kakashihatake8422 Though for a long while before the partition, the Polish-lithuanian commonwealth was a large and power state, that even occupied Moscow for a bit in a war with the Russians at one point.
It's also interesting to consider ongoing cultural events that may be condemned by future governments as cultural ideals shift. There is a particular current event in eastern Europe that comes to mind, but I also think of places like Jamaica, which was listed as a contender for being among those with the most "righteous" history. Jamaica has been labeled by various publications as being "the most homophobic place on earth", where it is fully legal for civilians to murder anyone who exhibits homosexual behaviour (edit: as someone pointed out, there doesn't seem to be anything supporting that last fact. I don't remember where I got it from).
"where it is fully legal for civilians to murder anyone who exhibits homosexual behaviour." As a Jamaican, I'm gonna have to ask you to stop capping. You can't just murder someone for being gay here. There's an actually justice system and human rights here.
I do not remember where I got the 'murdering gay people is legal' thing, so yeah I might be way off, my bad. I'll edit the comment. It is definitely a place where being gay is highly dangerous, though. Violence is towards gay people is pretty high and engaging in homosexual sex is punishable by up to ten years in prison. So yeah, it's hardly anarchy with people killing each other left and right with no consequences, but it's certainly among some of the least safe places in the world for anyone who isn't straight.@@major_kukri2430
One place I have found to be quite surprising with wholesome history is Senegal. They mostly have always been on the receiving end and the only time it formed kingdoms/empires it was through diplomacy.
2:05 You clearly forgot Germany. It had the 3rd biggest colonial empire at the time and was infamous in the world because of genocides and atrocities. Just look at the Herero and namaqua genocide or the Maji-Maji uprising.
How did he come up with Denmark in picking colonial powers Maybe he confused them for the dutch (the Netherlands) I only know Denmark for having some islands in the north Atlantic such as Greenland and Iceland, nothing in Africa.
It wasn't really Poland's fault that it was a dictatorship after ww2. It was installed by USSR as a satellite state while the legal (and democratically elected after the war) government was still in excile. A better example of Polish dictatorship would be the post-1926 oligarchic Colonels' Regime
Great video as always JJ! One point i would add. The Irish Civil war and the troubles have caused huge division, but collectively most Irish people would feel these were all symptoms of the fall out from British colonialism. I would say what Irish society would feel most ashamed about would be the systematic abuse by the Catholic Church in all its forms and how this was supported by successive Irish governments and society at large. Things like sexual abuse scandals, Magdalene Laundries, Tuam Babies etc would be a very dark piece of Ireland's history not directly associated with British colonialism.
There's no doubt the church has done wrong in Ireland both as a whole and through individual members of it, however to compare them to the centuries of wonton violence, repression and discrimination the British enacted upon the isle is foolhardy at best. Of them all, the period of British rule was the darkest chapter of Irish history.
@@stateofflorida5082 well this was all done by the British empire so it doesn't count. That's like blaming Poland for Auschwitz and Treblinka. They only happened after a foreign power invaded them.
If I had to choose I would say Iceland, since there were no indigenous peoples there before the vikings discovered it around the 800s, and it has been spared from basically every European war due to its isolation
I was just thinking this. Iceland happens to be my favorite country, but objectively, their isolation and small population means they haven't done much to hurt anyone else.
Well, there were the Cod wars, if you want to count those. Also, they don't have a standing army. They can't afford one. Their country is protected by isolation and a lightly armed coast guard. That alone keeps them out of a lot of trouble, so long as you don't decide to fish in international waters, closer to their shores than they want you to be.
@@app103 Don't worry, we don't do much against people fishing in our waters, but you might have to go home without your fishing net. We do have big scissors.
@@JohnDaker_singerLMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. You genocide millions and think you have the right to say you’re the best? Nah, the answer is Cuba. In terms of non-socialist nations, maybe Ireland.
it could be argued about the Polynesian empire. I think is a bit far fetched tbh because maybe some islands were unhabited so idk. Maybe just the uncontacted tribes in the amazon are the ones higher in the list
@@JJMcCullough If historical sex relations count then there's not a square centimeter of dirt on the planet that's getting off scot-free. If that's where the line is drawn then why make a video at all?
I absolutely DESPISE the entire “you should feel guilty because youre living on their land” argument. Literally every single country or people ever have always at one point lived on someone else’s land. Why is nobody angry at the europeans? They’re living on land that was inhabited by Neanderthals, that’s bad, right?
It's not so much the actual land as how indigenous people have been sidelined by colonisers through the centuries. Where I live, indigenous folk even now have had no means of gathering inter-generational wealth or to amass property etc.- It's even financially unviable for them to complete a degree at university and then going forward, if they start a family it will be forever a relatively low income household. If they had been given the same opportunities and equity as people like me, there is no doubt they could have done just as well as any European has, but generational trauma, poverty, alcohol abuse- all the things that come with high stress and low incomes- take their toll. We all see it happen, and I do think we should all be doing more to level the playing field since most good things in our lives have come at the expense of those ousted by those who came before.
But there was widespread racial mixing with the Neanderthals. In some of those countries, the line between Neanderthal and "modern" human is very blurry, as DNA tests will confirm. I am part-Neanderthal, and I don't feel any anguish about Neanderthals as a culture disappearing. It's just like when a Christian and a Jew get married; most of the time, the family chooses to celebrate Christmas. But that doesn't mean the Jewish spouse is being persecuted.
If we go by the rule of the history starts when the country starts, then probably a smaller Caribbean or Oceania island nation that’s only a few decades old. If we have to go back to the beginning of human history in the region then nowhere’s safe.
D
Switzerland?
@@juanmanuel3418 Did you watch the video?
I nominate Tuvalu.
Have there been any major conflicts in Antarctica? If it becomes a country in the future it could be the best in both categories.
Everyone forgets Swedish imperialism, when Sweden almost controlled all of the land around the Baltic sea.
historically sweden was worse it seems than the other nordics
@@sshadyh I mean only Denmark was better since they at one time ruled over modern day Sweden and Norway. Finland isn’t even Nordic and Norway was never an empire.
@@President-JonSnow.Malkowich Finland is Nordic, however they are not Scandinavian.
@@sshadyh Worse? Denmark slaughtered poor Swedish people and brutally was in control of Norway. Think of the poor!!!
@@sshadyh
As a swedish person, with a fair grasp of nordic history, my view on how bad each countries history is:
Denmark < Sweden < Norway < Finland < Iceland
, refering to Denmark being the worst and Iceland being the best
Coming from the Caribbean myself, I would say no country (or culture, ethnicity, etc.) is inherently more or less moral than any other. The only reason Caribbean history seems so spotless is because we simply have not had as many opportunities to persecute others.
Racism against indigenous people is very prevalent in the Caribbean, and many of the afrocentrist governments here are either completely oblivious to or deliberately suppress the history of their own indigenous suppression. I feel very confident in saying that the *only* reason that no indigenous genocide has taken place under the afrocentrist governments of the Caribbean is because the Europeans killed and displaced most natives first. Fundamentally, the Caribbean is no different in its treatment of native people than any other settler country created by Europeans.
@@jacobinjacobin7867 I completely agree with you. I think we aren't taught enough about indigenous persons in school, butt to say that they are persecuted is a stretch. There are larger groups that can be prosecuted. The legs of Barbados, the East Indians of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana for example. I am not sure what the original poster is all about. And considering unlike some smaller countries that has have genocides, in my view it further reinforces the point that the Caribbean countries are not as bad as other regions. I am proud to say there has never been a civil war or anything like that in this region.
#justsettlercolonythings :' )
@@jacobinjacobin7867 You are outright ignoring the era in which modern humanity & society has largely moved towards. People's appetite & tolerance for such rigid oppression is far different from how it was 100 years ago, and even more so than it was hundreds of years prior to that.
Sure it still exists, but it's only done so flagrantly by pariah nations & abject failures. Those that do so risk becoming international plagues, black holes where all but the most dubious countries will isolate you. South Africa rid itself of apartheid due to this, while others like North Korea became further & further cut off. Then you have countries like China who put all their resources into hiding human rights abuses from the public, just as former Soviet states did.
Conversely, everyone knows about the US's issues because the people of the US itself broadcast & debate it publicly. That's a far, *FAR* cry from even 100 years ago when the average person did not have the means to see the worst of the oppression for themselves. So sure, any country has the "opportunity" in the literalist sense that you detailed, but few have the old school opportunity to get away with it unscathed from sinking their public standing like they used to.
I would say that while all cultures have their moral upsides and downsides, there are certainly some cultures that are more moral than others. That is obviously true. That will be the case with any 2 different groups of people. Different families would follow the same. Its not saying that any people are inherently superior to others, but that some cultures are certainly more moral than others.
ain't no way you're comparing hundreds of years of genocide, slavery, rape and imperialism to current day discrimination...
Poland literally has a memorial holiday for when Sweden killed 1/3 of poland-lithunias population
The video also forgot to mention Swedish colonial empire, friendliness to nazism and eugenics, forced sterilizations, Vikings, etc. and despite that, Sweden keeps doing virtue signaling to other countries as if the country is perfect and the most moral on Earth, also has a disproportionnally international weight for the reward of Nobel prizes and the presence of NGO
One thing I love about this channel is the creativity. The topics are always unique and interesting.
Absolutely. I've been watching J.J. for so long at this point every new video feels like I'm meeting with an old friend. He's just got that type of energy with all of his stuff
I was kinda talking about this topic with my girlfriend and 3 minutes later I check my phone and this was uploaded. crazy.
Some of the best commentary on contemporary American culture. Granted I am on the left, so I think JJ’s idealism can cloud/sentimentalize his judgement, but all around it’s hard to find such robust analysis of American culture (or maybe how Americans see their culture) these days.
Always*
*Yep, like what country has the **_"least bad"_** history...?!* 🤔
*... Well, isn't that an interesting way to say it...???!!!!! (LOL)* 🙂
Honestly no country is entirely sinless when it comes to discrimination and bigotry. But I would say as a general rule smaller countries tend to have a smaller list of sins. Not because smaller countries are morally superior, it’s just that bigger countries have more opportunities to do horrible things.
Thnak you.
A state's power is directly proportional to its capacity for evil
there is no "great power" or wealthy state that sis not engage in horrific acts well and beyond the standard, that's just how you get powerful in this world
Yeah it's not much of a brag to say, "My nation never invaded anyone!" when your nation has never had the capability to do so.
*Counterfactual examples*
The Pitcairn Islands: 40 people, nearly every woman born there has been sexually abused
Qatar: 313,000 citizens and 2.3 million foreign residents, tons of problems
Serbia: 7 million people, inspired the creation of a new era in international criminal law, such as the ICTY, the ICTR, and the ICC
UAE: 1.4 million citizens and 7.8 million foreign residents
Events in countries with larger populations are publicized disproportionately more often than smaller populations. English-speaking countries know disproportionately less about the recent history of Ibero-America, Africa, Asia (west, central, south, east, southeast), eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Oceania-with a couple of exceptions. Africa alone has 54 nations, so most English-speaking countries don't know much about half of the countries in the world.
@@HunterHogan okay first of all I specifically said “as a general rule” meaning I was acknowledging there would be exceptions to that rule.
And two that is a huge generalization you just made about English speakers. Do you have any evidence to support that claim or are you just talking out of your ass?
This seems like an entropy argument. Like that we see more.good and more bad just since there are so many ways for that to exist
As a Norwegian, I am pretty sure the reason Norway did the things they did during WW2 was because they were occupied by nazi Germany, with a much smaller population and economy than today, that was easy for the nazis to keep control of. I think you glossed over the viking times though. Loads of atrocities were committed by viking raiders in other countries.
Edit: Also, Norway hasn't always treated Sami people very well.
Yeah, I'm not too well-educated on World War II yet, so the Vikings were my first thought when the Scandinavian countries were mentioned.
True! I find it odd he'd focus on the Quisling government, which was an unelected and illegitimate puppet regime installed by a foreign occupying force (Nazi Germany). Blaming Norway for being occupied is a bit like blaming Ukraine for being invaded by Russia.
You can argue it's a shame for Norway that there were Norwegians like Quisling (Nazi collaborators), and you'd have a point, but the framing was odd IMO.
@@Onnarashi the Funny thing about Quisling though is that he claimed to seize power in a coup d'etat, but Hitler and Nazi Germany refused to help him since they had occupied the country. So really, what became the government in war times was not officially recognized since it was a take over by the only party that hadn't run for exile since nazism, so it was effectively running as a "puppet" government by nazi Germany since they had a similar ideology to Hitler, but was technically controlled externally by Terboven
as far as raiders go the vikings were actually pretty mild. For war mongering raiders....cough
True we were pretty bad towards the traveller people too trying to ethnicly cleanse their bloodline
Almost every country has some shameful pages in their histories, but it's also important that some admit it and try to make amends, some just apologize but do nothing, and some just ignore or deny the heinous things they have done.
Pakistan
I'm going to say something controversial. I don't think A and RD will ever make up to each other. They're too close to each other.
@@hailthequeenFMwhat’s a and rd?
lol Japan
@@luce6764They are just gonna ignore Unit 736 lets be honest.
As a resident of the West Indies-The Bahamas-We in the Bahamas share guilt for widespread prejudice against Haitian and Jamaican Migrants as well as against Asian workers in the country and it is still ongoing tho has not been used radically in any political form....Yet.
1. Most of our teachers are Jamaican though, I don't think I've spoken to anyone who genuinely had a problem with Jamaicans. I think we're pretty cordial with them
2. The Haitian thing makes a bit of sense considering they make up a large majority of our illegal immigrants. With illegal immigrants comes poverty and with poverty comes crime though some people just love being prejudiced
South or East Asians
@@TrickiVicBB71 mostly east
@@dougneon9550 well your grandparents probably don’t think like mine. She stay saying “don’t marry no Jamaican women”.and yes Jamaicans make up a lot of our teachers, gives them all the more reason to resent them.
@@TyresaerysTargaryen unfortunate, we shouldn't hate you guys.
A lot of East Asians are xenophobic and colorist.
Ironic for Scandinavia to be considered "uniquely sinless" when taking into account their Viking Age.
aaaand like early modern period? the Swedish were like, an actual imperial power responsible for razing countries to the ground and plundering everything on their way
if we're gonna count stuff from 1000 years ago, then several nations fall due to their pre-colonized histories, i.e. mexico and their various tribes that conducted wars for prisoners to use as religious sacrifices.
is there a statute of limitations for national shame? I think he is going by post-independence or post formation of a national identity. so Viking age would be out of the scope.
It seems like he was talking about modern states like Britian, Germany, ect. The government (or people) that caused the vikings stopped existing in around the 1200s.
During the 900's these places didnt really exist. It wouldnt be fair to put the blame of the shame of the roman state on Italy, for example.
@@lubu4u312 yeah in that case Mongolia got the worst history by far 🤣 them or Romania
The myth that being born on a chunk of earth makes you "guilty" of its past, or that being in a relatively inconsequential country makes you more "innocent," goes hand-in-hand with the idea that your country's success makes you better than somebody else. Both national guilt and pride are absurd.
Very well said.
God I fkn love JJ's comment section. Theres no other place more informed yet moderate at the same time
Well, by that measure, patriotism itself is absurd. Apparently I'm supposed to feel a mystical bond with people I've never met and almost certainly will never meet, simply because they were born only a few hundred miles apart from me. And some of them are probably horrible people I would NEVER want to consider my allies.
Bullshit. For example people in Germany still live under the german cultural framework that brought the nazis into existance. Generations aren't isolated, culture is a continuum. You carry your parents' genes and ideas. There are people that still suffer today of the actions the Germans took, so if they suffer who better is there to blame and repent and try to make things better for the descendants of the victims, than the descendants of the perpetrators?
@@utzius8003 Thats an extremely dangerous and tribalistic mindset, framed around hatred and destruction. The same idealogical fallacy that has caused millions of innocent people to be massacred over the course of human history.
I'd agree that guilt isn't necessarily appropriate, but by the same token if the people who directly benefit from horrific acts that predate them don't try to fix things then who will?
Countries with moral pasts are only that way because not because of luck, but because they didn’t have the power to corrupt. I also think we should be taking advice from countries that went through some dark times, and came out on the brighter side of things, because they know how to fix the country from what it used to as opposed to country that has never gone through anything of the sort.
Power didn't corrupt people it reveal people true feelings.
What is a "true feeling" it sounds stupid
@@hansmohammed5486 Google exist for a reason.
@@dindin8753I mean by that idea then people are very often corrupt and should be prevented from holding too much power. Both thoughts have a similar conclusion.
@@protectdavidchasetaylor2144 It's really not that hard to think they corrupt because of their environment. They can actually hold too much power and still be a good person just look at Nelson Mandela, Cyrus The Great, Ashoka The Great, Harun Al-Rashid, Umar Ibn abd Al-Aziz, Rashidun caliphs, Augustus Caesar and etc you just need them to have a good teachers.
Norway has a lot to be ashamed of both during and after WW2, but I want to point out that the government at the time were chosen by the invading Nazis and were considered as traitors.
Indeed, that is very true. The way he depicted it was quite misleading.
Actually, the goverment was over in England. The government at the time of the invasion fled the country and halted all "legal" elections (as far as I know, the only time Norway didn't have democratic elections at the set interval after the last release into independence).
So technically, if you want to turn stones, sounds like borderline dictatorship! ^^
@@krissen98 Who knew a Canadian would mislead people online. Eternal Leaf!
The people did everything in their power to fuck over the nazis except a few. Where I live farmers used to lure german vehicles up in the mountains where they knew they would get stuck and then just leave them be. The germans expected norwegians to somewhat be on page with them but they were met with a world of trouble and sabotage with every possibility
Not sure we (Norway) did a lot of horrible things after WWII (yes, there was anti-Sami discrimination). We were also oppressed by the Danes for over 400 years and the Swedes for 91 years. Not saying that makes anything we did OK, just that for over 500 years we didn't run our own nation.
Antarctica is the least problematic country, I hope to live there
Not a country
Climate change though
@@AskewBlueCanoe the leopard seal population is very discrimatory to the avian population
I thought you were joking mate
Wrong, its sealand
I don't think the "Eastern Block" countries should be blamed for their dictatorships. The Soviet military was stationed there all along, they were continuously occupied. They successfuly revolted many times, but with Soviet help, the dictatorships remained.
I don't say they had a perfect past, probably non of them had, but it's more complicated, than simply having a dictatorship.
Many of them collaborated with the Nazis a dacade ago, it's debatable weather it was available or not...
Well with the exception of Poland and the states which were directly annexed into the USSR, they were all fascist anyways. Romania, Hungary, Slovakia (not czechia but its czechoslovakia so half fascist), Bulgaria all members of the Axis powers.
@@mappingshaman5280 Yeeeah but we (Bulgaria) were essentially threatened into it
@@lincselo Slovakians got away with what they did only because they united with the Czechs (Basicly saved by them)
@@mappingshaman5280 Just because 1/3 of the Czechoslovakia DID something bad doesnt mean the society is bad for example Czechs in their history are actually kinda nice (:
I would say San Marino has the most pure history, the worst thing they have done is not taking part in Eurovision 2009 and 2010, but they did come back luckely.
How despicable!
In South Korea, there is that sentiment of "We're sandwiched between 2 giants" mentality that is so ingrained in the public's mind that it is quite rare to hear about the country's wrongdoings against a foreign country. I heard that Korean soldiers did some attrocities during the Vietnam war, but that part of the history is barely spotlited.
There were some dictators and psychopathic kings too, but these leaders pretty much discriminated the whole public, partly because the country was homogenous for the majority of the history. But as the country is getting more and more immigrants these days, I'm afraid the current ethno-national bond could backfire someday.
Which 2 giants are you referring to, specifically? China and North Korea? Russia and Japan?
@@tedioussugar384 China and Japan of course. Just google "Kimchi Paocai dispute" for China, and "Berlin Comfort Woman Statue" for Japan and you'll get the general picture of the whole fuckery that is the situation of Korea.
As for the other 2, North Korea at this point is just oinking behind the fence. Koreans are just indifferent now, and don't even bother with the missile tests and stuff. As for Russia though, it's qhite an interesting story. Desipte being the force behind NK's invasion, the Ruso-Korean relationship was quite good. During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the the russians had to repay the debt they had to South Korea, but instead of actual cash, they gave away fully functional military equipments. The Koreans went mad, dismantling the tanks and aquiring critical technologies. What's more interesting is that Korea and Russia still has GSOMIA(General Security of Military Information Agreement) between each other, yet the one with Japan is vulnerable to dismantling as Japan is still doing the whole historical revisionism and the denial of comfort women.
Also, after the anexation of Crimea in 2014, almost all the foreign companies left, except Korean ones, and to this day, the instant ramen noodle Dosirak(Доширак, 도시락) is still a delicacy in Russia.
Funny, it's the exact same thing in Poland😂
@@tedioussugar384 china and japan; tbh, its mostly a 20th century perspective
I was thinking South Korea initially, too, but then I had forgotten about the Gwangju massacre and Chun Doo-hwan's overall repression of the country.
Something to remember about Jamaica: homosexuality is still illegal, and men can face up to 10 years of hard labour for an act, which I think is something we need to consider when we discuss shame. Something they may not be ashamed of today, is something they may be ashamed of in the future.
Good based jamaica
@@terrorgaming459 The criminalization of Homosexuality is never a good thing. I thought that since you watched this video and that JJ is gay, you would think otherwise.
based
@@danielgreen1557 No sympathy.
Based af
As an Estonian, I would argue that our country was the victim (just like the Carribbean ones) during USSR's occupation. I think Estonia doesn't have as much of a dark past as most other countries, since throughout history it's been occupied by others, and only recently gained independence from them. Estonians themselves have not been dictators or conquerers. I find it odd to be categorised equal to the USSR, when Estonia (as well as the others) were the ones being occupied and weren't dictatorships themselves.
came here to write the same thing. USSR was a brutal occupation, really unfair to get a "dictatorship" slapped onto us because of what the occupiers did
Same here for me. My family was forced to leave their homes in Latvia or else they would have been killed or deported to work camps in Sibera. Lativa was also definitely a punching bag like Estonia as well.
Only the Nazi collaborators were really the bad thing
same for latvia
What an ahistorical take. The USSR stopped Estonia either A) being invaded by Nazi Germany or B) willfully submitting to them. They eventually broke away due to chauvinism and now, they're yet another relatively poor country, relatively underdeveloped country, where 1 in 5 of the population live in poverty and the vast majority of over-60 year olds polled say life was better before independence.
By all means reject that part of your history if you want, but you can't reject that it was the most successful part of it.
I feel like we are conflating "this country has done one or more bad things" and "this country owes its existence to atrocity".
Kind of odd that the UK is categorised on that map as having been both an imperial power and a dictatorship. The last time Britain had a truly absolute ruler was in the 1600s, which is longer ago than in any of the Scandinavian countries and yet they aren't classified as being former dictatorships.
I assume it's referring to Oliver Cromwell.
@@biscuitsandbananas3433 who was only lord protector for 5 years from 1653 to 1658, which is before the 1700s
@@The_Fabricator still a dictator tho. If it was like 5 days then I guess it wouldn’t matter.
A somewhat similar point could be made about the fact that all of Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia are marked as dictatorships, now surely some of them did have dictatorships between then and now, but all of them? If we label absolute monarchies as dictatorships, then sure I can see why, but as you said then the Scandinavian countries should be labeled as such too
@@VMohdude- but it's before the 1700s though...
For Ireland, I think the Magdalene laundries and the mother and baby homes are a better example of the shameful things a country can do to its own people. The civil war was a very bitter split, but it was much more evenly split through the population, instead of a small persecuted minority and a hostile majority. There was also the factor of the British still being involved through supporting the government of the Irish Free State. The mother and baby homes and laundries on the other hand, was a situation that the Free State government allowed to develop and continue because it was easier than setting up a proper system in a newly independent country. They only closed in the 1990s, and so are still in very recent living memory, with only really one generation that's too young to remember them.
I think a lot of Irish shame (that's not directly tied to the British) can be attributed to extreme Catholicism in one form of another. Yes, plenty of other nations did the same over the years, but arguably the Irish kept such practices for longer than most other nations with a large catholic population.
It really shocked me to find out that even a right as basic as divorce was illegal in Ireland until 1996, when it passed basically 50/50. Rates of poverty and violence were also comparable to a third world nation in living memory, yet now Ireland is one of the richest and most peaceful countries on earth. They've gone from one of the most troubled European countries to one of the most free and prosperous in a remarkably short time, which I think is often overlooked by the world at large.
@@Sillykat321 also being gay was illegal till 1993. Considering we made gay marriage legal very recently its remarkable how much we have changed in the last 30ish years.
Yea that’s a good example for sure. Has the government apologized for it?
@@JJMcCullough Yup. Last year.
As an Argentinian I think we have all of these. We displaced, killed and mistreated natives, had a civil war, had multiple dictatorships, and had nazi sympathies during and after WW2.
Yea but sympathy for fascism was all over the Americas, Mexico and Brazil had the largest fascist movements in the Americas and in Bolivia the Falangist party was the second largest party for a good part of the 20th century
@@cristeromexico3366 That and white supremacy is still an ongoing belief system in Latin America why else are nearly all the rich and powerful people in Latin America are White or light skinned people.
Argentina is very messed up because you guys are proud of your racist past
@@millevenon5853 I wouldn't say that we are proud, but a lot of people really don't give it much thought because it's not something that is talked about nor taught as much as it should be. In school we don't learn a lot about how the indegenous or afro argentinian people were treated and there aren't many surviving voices that can tell their stories today
@@juannietoacuna most Argentinians are proud of taking in Nazis who escaped justice. Complete disregard for the lives of afro Argentinians and indigenous that you wiped out as well
Right. While I do agree with J.J.'s statement that Ireland doesn't have a squeaky-clean history, I do think he's gone and used some poor examples of why that is. Despite how he described it there, the Irish Civil War only lasted about 10 months and had no more than a couple thousand casualties (which by the standards of civil wars is notable for its lack of bloodshed).
Now that's not to say it didn't have any lasting impact. The two sides of the war were defined by their support or opposition to the Treaty that ended the Irish War of Independence with a partial Irish victory (at the cost of letting the British keep complete control of 6 Northern counties), and after the conflict ended, they eventually morphed into the two main political parties in the Republic - Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and for most of the 20th century which party you supported was decided in part by which side you or your parents had supported in the Civil War.
What's more, the Civil War ended in 1923. The conflict that J.J. is referring to in Northern Ireland, The Troubles, was a sectarian conflict that began in the late 1960s after the pro-British, Protestant government (the Unionists) violently repressed the Irish Nationalist Civil Rights movement that was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s successes in America, which resulted in mass rioting and unrest, most notably in Derry, with The Battle of The Bogside. As a result, the British army was deployed, supposedly as a neutral force, but they quickly began supporting the Unionist government in suppressing the Catholics.
This lead to the IRA (There's a big debate about whether or not the IRA of the Troubles was the same organisation as the one that fought the War of Independence, mostly because it went dormant to the point of being defunct in the 1940s-ish. Not going to get into that right now, but it's a fun rabbit hole to dive into if ye're interested) expanding massively because of the failure of peaceful means (Seen by the events of Bloody Sunday and other such occurrences) to achieve equality in the North, and that kicked off a 30 year long bombing campaign and terrorist conflict between the IRA, the British army, and Unionist terror groups like the Ulster Volunteer Force. This only ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, and there is still some level of animosity between the different sides.
I've laid all this out to make the point that this actually isn't on the Irish Government to apologise for - no matter your side in this conflict, the fact remains that ever since 1922, Northern Ireland has remained a part of Britain (And no, I'm not picking a side in this, just laying out the facts at the moment), and was never under the authority of the Republic of Ireland.
That said, there is still plenty of skeletons in our closet - the clerical abuse, the Mother and Baby homes, etc. But if you're going to judge Ireland's history, at least judge us for things that we actually had a hand in, yeah?
Thought it would have been more apt for Ireland to be put under the WW2 neutrality point, especially since De Valera sent his condolences to Hitlers family upon his death.
@@anglebars6084 neutrality was definitely the correct decision for Ireland at the time, although yeah what De Valera did wasnt appropriate to put it lightly
Came here to comment the same! If you’re going to critique the states actions, and right so for the horrors of the Catholic Church, then that is well informed but the Civil War did not play out like that and it is not something that our government apologises for. Really crucial oversight.
I agree, he should've mentioned how 40% of the britrish colonial army was irish and how we genocided the native picts in scotland in the 6th and 7th centuries
@@irishspudladireland wasn't colonised at that point. There was viking activity on the east coast but thats very different to direct irish action
The “West Indies” as they are called often, and as JJ specifically mentions, the “British West Indies” are very nice places to visit. They have very tourist-based towns and cities with extremely charming locals who will talk to you about anything and always make you feel welcome. They have a very unique place in the world because of their history, but many of the people there are very laid back and humble people with low crime rates and relatively stable governments
My father is from Jamaica and he could tell you some thing about Jamaicas insalely very HIGH crime rate
@@dogzabob Thank you, Jamaican as well and the crime rate is insane. Still I am happy to say we have a nearly completely clean history.
Lol the West Indies countries have some of the highest murder rates in the world.
@@professorrosenstock5026 same. I’m very proud of my country (born in mobay, raised in Clarendon and Spanish town) but it’s not all rainbows and sunshine (pun intended). It’s a very nice place to visit but people shouldn’t lose their senses just bc the beaches are pretty. If they use their heads they’ll be fine. And for all the tourists reading I suggest travelling in a group. It’d honestly be kinda dumb to travel alone lol
Many "West Indies" countries still criminalize same sex relations, and almost all kept the British anti-gay laws in effect for decades after their independence.
Canada needs to form a view of it's history that rejects both self-loathing and guilt as well as smug Maple washing
@@MM-gt9uy at least these don’t happen today
@@MM-gt9uy Hm, interesting. I’ve never seen anything on that and I’d say I read more left wing sources on that matter. I will do some research, even though you’re probably right
Bruh, 🍁 washing? 🤣
Those are the viewpoints that are popular on Canada's left/far left, and it is the left who control the dominant cultural narratives in Canada. If you believe that Canada should become more like the US, Canadians on the left will accuse you of being a pro American sympathizer who hates Canada's alleged "progressive values" and want America to annex Canada. If you believe that Canada shouldn't be consumed by self loathing/guilt about our past/present relationships with indigenous peoples the far left will accuse you of being a "white supremacist capitalist colonizer who denies the cruel realities of colonial extractivist capitalism". I reject both narratives, I don't believe that Canada should whitewash our past and pretend that we are a perfect nation but at the same time I don't believe that we should be consumed with self loathing either. Unfortunately the Canadian left/far left doesn't understand this.
I think it's good to take the smug "We're so much better than the USA" Canadians down a peg, but at the same time there's no need to turn it into a struggle session.
I would agree with the idea that national historic “goodness” is very circumstantial, and that’s because it seems to apply to countries that have not been independent for a good deal of time. Many countries became independent after it stopped being acceptable to commit mass atrocity, so they didn’t have the opportunity to engage in such atrocity. I have no doubt in my mind that had said states more independence, more wealth or more stability, etc. similar events would’ve occurred.
I'd say that most European countries that did not collaborate with either fascists or communists hold up pretty well. While most of them did maintain empires at some point, support for those empires was by no means universal among the native citizenry; most liberal and social-democratic parties opposed imperialism, and resisted it or tried to lessen it while they were in power. Perhaps the question should be, "Which SEGMENT of a country's population is guilty?" Even if that's cherry-picking, I feel it's a crucial distinction to make. It's not fair that EVERYONE should be punished.
@@ggmgreenscreens3573 You underestimate how little is holding nations back from committing violent atrocity, and BELIEVE ME, it is not morality
It puzzles me a lot when apologists make the claim that "morality was different in the old days." When was it ever socially permissible to be evil? The biblical book of Exodus, which describes events that are over 3,000 years old, outright states that it's wrong to commit murder, among other things. Even before that there was Hammurabi's Code in ancient Mesopotamia - and yes, that code mandated capital punishment for even minor crimes, but (as far as I know) it didn't permit killing by private individuals for just any reason. Before Hammurabi, it was acceptable to murder someone if they had wronged you in any way or just because you felt like committing murder. But that changed very quickly.
@@SeasideDetective2 Well that’s with few exceptions, almost no one. Pretty much anyone personally culpable in the affairs of dead empire is quite elderly or has since passed away.
A fun thought experiment, but I think this is an impossible question to answer because it depends on what you would define as a "country" and when it began. Then you also have to bear in mind that outside of Europe, there was certainly all kinds of brutal history, but Westerners may not consider these tribes, or even full on civilizations, as "nation-states."
I think the distinction is the continuity. Tribes in precolonial Africa, for instance, may have been brutal, but the current governments are not built from those, so much as they were built by Europeans and handed to Africans relatively recently. In many (most?) cases the tribal leadership continued separately from government or ceased, so in a sense the guilt of these tribes' history has not "passed down" to the modern government.
For a very cut and dry example, there's no national shame about Jack the Ripper's murders in England, because there's no sense of responsibility or accountability of anyone today in government or society, and few or none are descended from him. It was a tragedy, but the government didn't do it, and society didn't either.
The national shame of the Nazis in Germany however, exists because society was largely responsible for their rise to power and many today are direct descendants of Naz*s or naz* supporters.
Something i would call more ambiguous is the national shame of imperialism/slavery in countries like Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These countries were colonised themselves, indeed England's first colonies, but they also engaged in imperialism as part of the British empire nonetheless. What muddies it even more, is that the Irish (and to a lesser extent the Welsh) were then oppressed in the colonies they helped create (e.g. _No Irish Need Apply_ ).. so should the country focus on both its victimhood of oppression and its perpetration of oppression, is one more important than the other, or do these cancel out in the way that afro-carribean ownership of Jamaica cancels out the national guilt of historic slavery...?
I like how Sweden is often depicted as super nice and everything but systematically colonized Finland and continues to seemingly not even be aware of it
and the baltics
Deluge in Poland killed a big part of population. I think even 2 mln people.
They still have some Finnish skulls and bones in their natural museums that they refuse to give back for burials..
I love our western neighbors, but they can be a bit much at times.
Poland remembers.
This is nonsense. Fins were not seen as "others". Do you know how many Swedes are related to Fins? How many Fins joined Swedes to move to the Americas. Some areas of Finland was simply inhabited by Swedes. It didn't mean Swedes tried to replace them
Coming from Sweden its weird hearing people claim we have some sort of spotless legacy Utopia here. I would say our modern era is fairly "alright" but pre 1850 it was fighting wars as much as anyone else in europe, the Poles like to remind us of that. Then again in modern times we take the notion of legacy a bit too serious I think, in the many years to come these horrible things will still be a part of history and if a nation can atone for them I think we need to be able to look past it morally speaking. The current people of Germany has practically nothing to do with the Germany of 1939, I have nothing to do with the Swedish Empire of the 1600s and the indonesians have nothing to do with the Majapahit Empire if we regard the moral lens we today see these times from.
Nah that cap, Sweden liberated nations
Also, don't forget that Sweden gave the world Abba. Probably the single worst crime against humanity in the history of mankind.
;-)
@@WizardOfOss Blasphemy!
@@Xavier_Renegade_Angel I wouldn’t describe the Deluge as liberating
We legit killed so many poles during the great northern war that itd be considered genocide by todays standard. Also, we were really into eugenics for quite a while, which doesnt look quite so nice in retrospect
Kinda weird of you to shame Norway for supporting the Nazis, when they were invaded by the Nazis and were forced to surrender.
By this standard you could just say Poland and France supported the Nazis.
There were major factions in the allies that considered france to be an axis power and deserving of punishment/occupation.
So your example might not be as far fetched as you think.
to summarize it as short as possible;
After losing the battle of france, the french government surrendered and moved to the city of vichy, where post-surrender, they attempted to be neutral.
After which the british attacked the neutral french as they feared this weakened and neutral french government might strike up an alliance with germany.
Combined with several french colonies openly siding with britain agains the french government.
Until britain took all the french colonies and sank most of the french navy, shortly after which germany overthrew the french government.
So yeah, for a while you had neutral france fighting the british.
In France, where I live, it is a publicly discussed and held opinion that France indeed support the nazis, and that despite our efforts with the Résistance, we still did loads of harm. we often refer to the Vichy Governmnt as a collaborative govt bc they collabed and helped the Germans. One important point that is often brought up over here is how the French government kept lists of all the jewish people in France and made them wear stars, but as an Anticipatory action. that means, Germany hadn't even asked France to do that yet, and the collaborative leaders decided "oh I guess they'll want the jews one day, let's just start the process and make things easier for them". And the Nazis sure were glad for that since they did then also establish train lines to deport french jews. they teach this to us in school, to make sure no one grows up with the illusion that France managed to keep it's hands clean during the occupation and that we're winners just as much as the other Allies.
They did. There were many French and Polish people who fought for the Nazis and even joined the SS. That counts as supporting the Nazis. But it's also important to realize to what extent. In Norway there was a much larger amount of support for the Nazis than in Poland or France.
If only you ignore the fact that Poland never surrendered and had the biggest underground state in WW2 fighting the Germans and France had some too but Norway cooperated really easily.
They were still constantly fighting until the liberation.
"the only indigenous people's in Europe"?
that's hilarious haha
Portugal should have been included in the dictatorship metric as well, it literally had the longest-running 20th century European dictatorship.
Interesting how the USSR got rejected from joining NATO for being a ‘dictatorship’ (which it wasn’t, it was a one-party state), but Portugal was a founding member.
@@socire72NATO was formed in 1949… Stalin was still in power in the USSR until his death in 1953.
@@socire72 No dictatorship admits that it is a dictatorship. “Not a dictatorship, just a one-party state” feels like the weakest self-defense ever and I’m not sure why anyone would still be repeating it for Soviet Russia’s sake in the current day.
@@LoudWaffleI mean Lukashenko publicly called himself a dictator lol (not trying to argue you are definitely right)
@@socire72Yeah with one leader who rules until death, making it a dictatorship
Hey JJ, as a Swede, I am very happy you talked a bit about the samis. They have been horribly treated by our gouvernment ever scince we took over their lands, and not many people here even think about it. Would you ever consider doing a video about the samis? I feel like they are very unknown to basically everyone
Is this because of northward expansion? As I understand it (as a non-Scandinavian!), the Germanic people have been around in southern Sweden since basically forever too, so is the national guilt due to exploitation of forest and mining resources up north, and then the persecution and forced assimilation that happened as a consequence?
@@orbitrons6731 Thank you for the informative answer!
haha yeah samis got some rough treatment.. but you swedes DID stop the finns burning all the forests down 😏
You also had an empire
@@acewarthog1882 wasn't it like one island and 50 square miles of Africa though? Maybe that was the Danish one. I remember there was a comically tiny Scandinavian "empire"
New J.J on a Saturday? Instant click. No questions asked.
Can only agree, all of his videos are so interesting
@@LaunchKaffee He always poses questions or topics I wasn't necessarily thinking about? But by the end of the video I'm always glad I took the time to listen and learn.
Woodley wuzzle
What you fail to mention about Finland is that while yes, they did have a military alliance with Germany, Carl Gustav Mannerheim (leader of Finland at the time) did it on the condition that the Jewish population of Finland would be left in peace. If you ask me, Finland's pretty clean on that front. Yes, Finland have treated the Sami People badly, and that is something that should qualify them as a nation with an "unclean" history, but I thought it was very short-sighted of you in an otherwise brilliant and informative video just to assume that a military alliance with Nazi Germany in itself is a terrible thing to do. When you are sandwiched between that and Communist Russia (who you only gained independence from in the 1900s), there's only one choice, I think.
Also, on the topic of Norway, you hold the Quisling government as a reason to qualify Norway's past as unclean, and then completely ignore the fact that the Quisling government was not elected by the Norwegians (he just "proclaimed" himself as leader of Norway on a radio broadcast), and that he was executed by the Nazis a few months later.
But they did invade the ussr with Germany and took part in the brutal siege of Leningrad
@Prororo Finland's role in the siege of Leningrad was minor at best. The Finnish army stopped on the outer defensive line of the city leaving the siege incomplete, did not bomb the city nor allow Germans to use the territory it controlled for attacking or bombing. The reason they joined the war in the first place was to reclaim the territory the USSR had conquered before
The actual "sins" of the Finnish nation are the treatment of the Sami people and the civil war of 1918. Not WW2
@@Prororo A lot of the resistance fighters in Norway had served in the military in Finland when Finland defended itself from Russia not that long before WW2. It is hard to blame Finland for going with the one side that could protect them from it happening again.
Having written an academic essay on Finland’s involvement in WW2 just want to correct you on your defensive take about Finland’s treatment of Jews.
A study by Ahonen, P., Muir, S. and Silvennoinen, O. (2019.) argued that “the lack of research led to a widespread view that antisemitism was a marginal phenomenon in Finnish society...this was not the case-Finland was no exception when it came to antisemitism”
Crucially even more so, the Finnish government has released a report acknowledging it was “very likely” that Finnish SS volunteers carried out organised murder of Jews. This report from 2019 has been cited by Israeli historians as one of the few examples of true humility to aknowledge the extent of anti semitism in a country’s history
@@Prororo And even if it were significant, why the fuck would it matter, as if people of Leningrad are all innocent and didn't take part in supporting their fucked up government committing multiple genocides? USSR was the aggressor of WW2 alongside Nazi Germany. Just because they did a huge part of defeating Nazies doesn't erase all the fucked up shit their did to their own people and people of freshly captured territories. What you see Russia doing today in Ukraine, USSR did all the same, but more and worse.
Concerning your parting question about the significance of a country's goodness (i.e., if it's mere happenstance or not), I think it pretty clear that it's mostly a matter of power. If we look at the countries with the best track records, particularly the ones you mentioned, as well as many of the small Polynesian countries, they are more peaceful mostly because they're small and weak, and have been for basically they're entire existence, and have not really had the ability or opportunity to oppress many people. Conversely, if you look at the countries with the worst, or most obvious track records, they are the ones who are powerful, large, and central to global affairs. So to answer your question, it seems clear to me that it's happenstance, and that there isn't anything to really learn from those countries who happened to avoid large scale atrocities.
Dunno.
"Power" tends to be a sought after quality, either for conquest or defense, but how it's wielded is just as important as who it is wielded against. That is hardly happenstance, especially when viewed less from the lens of atrocities but of nobleness
If countries bear no burden for the crimes they have committed just because, then they bear no credit for restraint and brotherhood either.
@@quintessenceSL Power, when sought for any reason, leads to its justification for use and abuse; that's how it has always been. Of course some use it better than others, I'd say the US used it better than N@zi Germany for example; but that doesn't go against what has been said about the use and abuse of power. That's not to say powerful countries bear no responsibility, just that it's easy for a small and weak nation that depends on everyone playing nice to play moral arbiter than it is for a powerful country that has every incentive to act badly for their interests.
Basically every nation has a history that by MODERN STANDARDS is deserving of criticism. In fact just think about this; today we view a society that would deny gay marriage as oppressive, bigoted and consequently condemnable. But every single nation in the world did not allow gay marriage until the 21st century. Also, and this has been referenced in other comments, the nations that have the "least bad" histories are almost always the ones with the least amount of power; ie they were the ones oppressed because they did not have power, meaning if they did have power, there's no reason to view them as unlikely to do condemnable things. I have long said that you need to use CONTEXT when discussing how much a society has done bad. And I by no means would say that just because all societies have done bad, that we should just ignore problems in society now. What I'm saying is you need PERSPECTIVE, because without that, you could say that a nation like the US or Canada is monstrous and must have their entire society deconstructed, when in reality, they are quite good compared to most other societies and when you understand context (ie any nation widely involved around the world in complex matters will have a track record that included bad things).
I don't think that's true. It's not happenstance. Countries that became powerful sought power. Countries don't just fall backwards into colonising foreign lands and brutalising the population as a byproduct of economic success or innovation.
@@krombopulos_michael That isn’t entirely true. Look at the Scramble for Africa as an example. It was caused more by competition with the other nations than anything else.
Colonisation of the new world was the same. If England had allowed Spain to control the Americas, Spain would have built up a huge navy and invaded England. I mean, they tried to anyway, but they might have actually won.
If empire is necessary for the survival of your people, is it really immoral? Britain wouldn’t have survived the world wars or the Seven Year’s War etc without her empire.
I might be a little late to the party, but as a Dane i find it odd that both Norway and Sweden are not included as imperial nations,
Sweden held Norway as a unwilling subject for a long period of time(which is imperial if Germany was an empire), and also had multiple colonies around the Atlantic(which is what the Danes stole and then became an "empire" of sorts, so them being excluded is just wrong if you ask me).
Norway settled and pushed much of Greenland's population out of the most habitable parts of their landmass, which Denmark then got awarded(way later), making it odd to be seen and an imperial possession. since they just didn't want independence like Iceland wanted and got.
To exclude Sweden as an empire, is to say the colonies where fine until they where owned by Denmark, or exclude those colonies and then say that Greenland and Iceland are imperial possessions, but again only when the Danes got them.
And as a swede i find it pretty weird our imperialism during our "Stormaktstid" (Great power era) and in general the viking times for pretty much all scandinavian nations at the time was glossed over. I'm pretty sure norse, swedes and danes alike commited several atrocities during our raider phases.
Before the Kalmar Union, yes, we Norwegians had our own little empire, although it was either mostly uninhabited land or land inhabited by Norwegian (and other European) settlers. The part about Greenland is disputed from what I've heard. I've heard the Greenlanders arrived after the Norse came there, but maybe that's incorrect.
@@Acke00 I think it's mostly because that he looks at history from the 1700s and up to now
they also held finland and waged wars that killed third of our people because we were pretty much used as cannon fodder by them, on top they were making racial arguments that we were literally subhumans and so they would have the right to treat us how ever they wanted.
Japan was also excluded as an empire
Jamaica actually does have a pretty vicious recent history when it comes to persecuting gay people, both in terms of homosexual sex still being illegal, and regular violence and sexual violence against them as a form of vigilante punishment.
At one point Jamaica was called by human rights groups “the most homophobic place on earth”.
In most other former British Caribbean colonies, homosexual acts are still technically illegal, if not actively prosecuted anymore. In Barbados, for example, sodomy officially carries a penalty of life imprisonment.
I don’t think the Anglo-Caribbean countries are some terrible place for human rights, but they aren’t exactly clean by western liberal standards either.
No country is perfect , but if the only majorflaw in your country is that homosexuality is illegal , then you’re doing pretty good 😂
Good point, I think JJ neglected LGBT persecution in his analysis.
Being called More homophobic than Saudi Arabia where they Stone The gays is hardly a good thing
@@JackRowleyy Really? I wouldn’t call prosecution of an entire group of people pretty good.
Never use western liberal standards, in their eyes the worst countries of all time (USA, Britain, France) are the “best countries in the world” and countries that haven’t been at war in decades and never colonised like China and DPRK are “evil empires”.
I always felt like the nicest countries are those that haven’t had much of a history as a country - the less agency a nation had, the less bad things they could have done.
Okay ,
pretty good Insight
Usa doesnt have a long history as a country yet its one of the worst on the list
I don't think it's accurate to characterise the Northern Ireland troubles as being a continuation or successor of the Irish civil war.
Not only was there the 40-50 year gap between them, but also the circumstances and goals of the combatants. The civil war was about the question of "what's the best way to achieve an Irish Republic", while the troubles was "should Northern Ireland join the Republic of Ireland or not".
Not to mention that there was no ethnic element to the Irish civil war, whilst the troubles was generally sectarian, with two ethnic groups fighting each other.
I don't think you can say there was no ethnic element to the Irish civil war when Protestants and Catholics have been at odds in Ireland since the British first took control of Ireland. As for the troubles, they are certainly a continuation of the same issue when ultimately the two parties are still a small Protestant class of Irish (Pro Treaty) vs a large class of Catholic Irish (Anti-Treaty). You can ask the question in different ways, but of course you would if time had passed. Ethnic tension born of historic resentment, fear and wrongdoing on both sides still played a not insignificant role in both.
@@mrplague9881 I don't think it's accurate to characterise the motives and goals of Michael Collins as being the same as James Craig or Ian Paisley's. Northern Protestants were actively against Irish independence or at least unification, while the pro-treaty forces in the civil war were fighting over an issue as to how to achieve Irish independence. I agree that there are parallels and think that (pro-treaty) Fine Gael has similarities with Northern unionists, but they ultimately have never and do not share the same goals. I suppose you could say there is a spectrum of Irish constitutional opinion and depending on your world view you either see the pro-treaty forces as on the Unionist side or the nationalist one.
But that's just my view (I'm trying to be civil as the troubles are an understandably sensitive topic)
I think we should see history's attrocities as mankind's.
I am a german citizen and have learned a lot about Nazism in school. I think that people all over the world should be educated on one of humanty's most evil sins as well all the others; I consider it as an important part of basic humanitarian education.
I do not feel ashamed for it/them due to not being complicit in it (I am only 18), but as a human I feel obligated to remember, reflect on and retell it - and so should everyone.
I completely agree
WRONG, it was the racism in NORTHERN EUROPE, the one stemming from BARBARIAN logic which simmered after (possibly since before) the fall of the Roman Empire. And turned into the killings, segregations (and genocide of some) of Jews, Gypsy's, "Witches", Africans, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, Aboriginal, Catholic Irish, and Native American people.
@@sct1718 Italy has also done horrible things you know.
@@wannabehistorian371 👍
@@sct1718 Native Americans have also done horrible things to each other you know
I think small oceania island countries have a more 'spotless' history because of these nations' remoteness helped them escape the evils of imperialism (at least early on) and helped them avoid getting into wars with each other. In particular, I think Tuvalu might be the country that has the strongest claim to the title
As an actual Pacific Islander, I was just waiting for J.J to mention some South Pasifika countries like Samoa, Tonga, Kiribati, and such.
It honestly sucked, but hey, he didn't mention Fiji 💀💀💀
First I thought of San Marino but then I also thought about Tuvalu.
@@AntonioKatan san marino was fascist for some time during the fascist rule in italy.
@@giovannimieli4271 Yeah, but I have the impression that even as a fascist state it was a pretty defanged one. They aproved a law against interracial marriage only 6 months before Italy fell, they had jews acting in their army (which only had 80 rifles), and even the guy who tried to overthrow the government was sentenced to 20 years but never arrested.
Don't forget that the people of those islands existed there through conquest and enslavement.
I don't think that putting Poland in the same basket as the USSR gives justice, blaming the victim for the sins of its oppressor would be exactly the same as blaming a woman for getting raped. Also Poland hasn't waged wars on its neighbours for hundreds of years, it has been a safe haven for the Jews when antisemitism ravaged across Europe, and it was the events in Poland and formation of the Solidarity movement that ignited the spark of an eventual fall of communism (you remember that Nobel peace prize for Lech Wałęsa?). I can't think of many other countries that would have even remotely as least bad history as Poland does.
Most of the "good" countries just never had the circumstances to inflict evil in my opinion. Let's say the historic power dynamic had been reversed between English and Irish. The Irish would have conquered England and probably would have had a colonial empire. The geopolitics of history is more pragmatic and less moral.
@@Thetonn Yes i'm aware of that but Dublin was founded by the Vikings who originated from Denmark and Norway. The slave market was also primarily run by them the Gaelic irish were often chattel slaves.
@@Thetonn Norman's we're also basically Danish vikings who assimilated to French culture
And everyone in North America and the British Isles would speak Irish except for pockets of Northeast England and Scotland known collectively as the Anglotacht
@@aronchai I wish, the Irish language died with the millions in the great famine.
That's what i've always said, that's why i hate the kinda reductionist view of history that people have right know when they only care about the last 500 years, when pretty much a lot of the anymosity is way older, like when the Japanese did the occupation of China and Korea, people forget that those 3 countires have pretty much being enemies for pretty much milenia, because they have always being the 3 big powers of the region and have alway fought for control of the region, so what the Japanese did (which was awful) was just the culmination of all of those milenia of history, and if China and Korea had the opportunity to do so they would a 100% do the same, like you say history is more pragmantic, less moral and way more complex.
As a Canadian, there's another question about guilt beyond just comparisons to other countries. What about new arrivals? Do Canadians who arrived here relatively recently deserve to feel any guilt? Especially given many of those Canadians were perhaps fleeing areas of danger? If they don't, then how far back does your family have to be from here to feel guilt? Is it simply the act of living on Canadian land?
You could say, as I've heard argued, that only European Canadians need to feel guilty since Europeans colonized, but how do you break that down then? Most Franco Canadians I know would scoff at the idea of feeling guilt, given that they pride themselves on their relations with the Iroquois (which you may agree or disagree with), and that they see themselves as a minority unjustly treated. So is it just Anglo-Canadians that should feel bad?
But then what is an Anglo Canadian? There are plenty of Canadians today who are of European ancestry and speak English, but don't have much of a connection to the British Empire, such as the many Slavic descended Canadians fleeing the old Russian Empire. If we go with that only British descended Canadians are "Anglo" where do Scots or Irish fleeing unfair treatment comparative to the English within Britain fit?
In a country like Canada these questions get rather convoluted, and that's before you toss in the Metis.
I would say that noone who partook in it should feel guilt, like you were just born in a country that did some horrible stuff, and you should feel guilty (well idk how long the canadian indiginous people is going on so feel free to correct me.)
But as an American, why should I feel guilt about the Slave trade that went on more than a century ago, or that racists are still here today even in government discriminating against minorities when I fight against it?
In conclusion I don't think someone should feel guilt about what has happened in the past and stopped, but should if it's happening in the present and not fighting against it.
Personally, I don't think any Canadians should feel guilt about a past we weren't alive for. Of course we should still work to rectify the wrongs of the past and definitely feel guilty about terrible actions in living memory (e.g. residential schools).
@@graham1034 yep
I’d say that we should have country wide shame but not guilt because the system the country was based on is very racist no one should suffer for it but we should keep the past in mind while fixing the issues like the water for indigenous people
@@theunfortunateone7488 True
How are the Sami the "only indigenous people in Europe"?
I mean what about the Germanic and Slavic peoples? What about the Basque people who's ancestors were in Europe long before the Sami
The issue of the Indo-Iranian migrations complicate the matter slightly, plus people like to be hyperbolic
I guess that in this context, 'indigenous' means 'indigenous AND then became a minority' with groups that would be indigenous by conventional definition not counting.
Nonetheless, even by this definition Basques would count so Sami aren't the only ones.
Germanic and Slavic peoples both descended from Proto-Indo-Europeans, who originated from the Pontic-Caucasian steps in Southern Russia/the Caucusus. The concept of being "indigenous" is vague anyway, and is mostly defined by how far back we can trace a people group's ancestry.
@@rivera147 the Sami have a lot of Asian DNA too, more so then for example your average native Swede.
Also I believe icelanders are indigenous to Iceland as they were the first one to settle the Island
Bhutan just up in the mountains chilling
I don’t understand how the Sami are the “only indigenous people in Europe”. Are ethnically French people indigenous to France? Aren’t Spaniards indigenous to Spain? Can someone explain that to me?
You're right. That was a ridiculously American commentary on Europe. Totally ignorant
When referring to "indigenous people", it's typically implied that they were colonized and/or displaced. Even so, this leaves out a ton of groups, such as the Basque or the Celtic Britons.
I hate when people call them that, because it potentially leads you down such a wrong path and understanding of demographic history.
@@magnushmann Yeah the Norse have been there for pretty much the same amount of time and even more than the Sami, from what i know they came from what is now Finland to Norway and Sweden after the norse were there, so how thay are more indigenous than the Norwegians and the Swedes, i mean if you said they are the indigenous Finns then yeah i can agree with that, but from Norway and Sweden i don't see it.
@@Ms666slayer An indigenous people is not literally the first people to have inhabited an area - they must have been colonized and/or displaced. If you can understand that homophobia doesn't mean a literal phobia of gay people, you can understand this too. Don't you think it's kinda weird to put the Sámi people on the same pedestal as the Norse who kidnapped their children, photographed their naked bodies for eugenics and tried to wipe out their languages and culture?
Personally, given that inequality, bigotry and prejudice are on-going problems in the world, I feel like we have more to learn from countries that have been through darker periods in their history and manged to pull themselves out of it and improve.
Agreeable cuz people in America can stay the same thing with all the woke slave reparations and all that hoodoo you punished for slavery hardly half the country is even born here from people who were here during that time
@UlisesHeureaux To be blunt; that was literally FORCED on it in the first place. It wasn't like the Germans woke up one day and decided to be better, it took millions of lives, an invasion, an occupation, and millions of $ in rebuilding to lead to that state.
It also doesn't really focus on atoning any of its imperialist actions prior to WW2. It hyper-focuses on WW2 which while far more explicitly evil, is also an issue in of itself. It lets other actions get off the hook at "not as bad".
Basically every nation has a history that by MODERN STANDARDS is deserving of criticism. In fact just think about this; today we view a society that would deny gay marriage as oppressive, bigoted and consequently condemnable. But every single nation in the world did not allow gay marriage until the 21st century. Also, and this has been referenced in other comments, the nations that have the "least bad" histories are almost always the ones with the least amount of power; ie they were the ones oppressed because they did not have power, meaning if they did have power, there's no reason to view them as unlikely to do condemnable things. I have long said that you need to use CONTEXT when discussing how much a society has done bad. And I by no means would say that just because all societies have done bad, that we should just ignore problems in society now. What I'm saying is you need PERSPECTIVE, because without that, you could say that a nation like the US or Canada is monstrous and must have their entire society deconstructed, when in reality, they are quite good compared to most other societies and when you understand context (ie any nation widely involved around the world in complex matters will have a track record that included bad things).
@UlisesHeureaux Well, unlike in Germany, the US did not push a "war guilt" idea in Japanese education like in Germany. Mostly due to the fact that the US needed to reorient Japanese society to be more democratic and the maintaining of many important Japanese central figures like the Emperor.
And those other countries you named? They were not forced to think that way by an occupying nation, or rather; they have but it came from the USSR who themselves committed horrible war crimes on their people thus made it more than a little unpopular. The German experience of Western occupation was almost saintly in comparison, making what they taught about N@zi war crimes stick. Imho anyway.
@@demnbrown Bro segregation was really not that long ago. There are people still alive from then, it's no suprise that so many of them are economically disadvantaged.
If we'd finished reconstruction, stopped segregation and done reperations from the traitors so long ago we'd not have to have this conversation. But our country did not succeed then so unfortunately something has to be done if we want to solve this inequality.
It's weird to me that African slavery is almost always brought up in the Atlantic context, when the Red Sea/ Indian Ocean slave trade to the Middle East and elsewhere was just as long, brutal, and numerous as the Atlantic one, and possibly even worse in all three ways. My mothers side is descended from slaves originally from East Africa who were enslaved by Arabs. I guess it's because history in the West is of course Western centric, or Eurocentric to a degree, but still, I almost never hear about it in Asia or the Middle East where it was practiced either.
That's an interesting point. Why do you think that is?
That's because your assertion that the Indian Ocean slave trade was "possibly even worse in all three ways" is heavily disputed by historians. Modern estimates put the number of slaves traded in the Indian Ocean at around 17 million over 1300 years, while the Atlantic slave trade had the same number in some 400 years. There's also the fact that the Atlantic slave trade was philosophically grounded in white supremacy, which the Indian Ocean trade didn't have--slaves of all races, including Eastern Europeans, Arabs, and Chinese were traded, not just Africans. But I think more relevant is that the European slave trade is just closely associated with European imperialism, which had a bigger impact on the modern world than Asian/Middle Eastern colonialism.
@@JuanBautista-fd7yv because we learn Mostly our own country history. An american will see more documentaries closely related to his country or curent world affairs in americans medias than an african would will learn more about stuff on africans slave trader and wars.
Another thing is in, western countries, guilt on these subjects as become weaponised to a absurd level compared to others continents.
From my personal experience I've noticed that history in North America and Europe is much more discussed and analyzed than in the Middle East, where oftenly it's mixed with that kind of nationalism that makes one imagine a golden past without its dark sides.
Both were horrible things but apart from familiarity, I think the Atlantic slave trade is seen in a more negative light since it was based on race while Arab and Ottoman slave trade targeted any non-Muslim, from Africans to Europeans and in some cases it allowed slaves to get free only through conversion.
@@gkky-xx4mc That's why I said possibly. But a lot of historians think that there were a few million more Africans traded in the Indian Ocean over the Atlantic Ocean.
Also, don't make me laugh over that the Atlantic trade was uniquely grounded in white supremacy, as if the Indian Black slave trade wasn't heavily based on the supposed racial inferiority of Blacks compared to the lighter, "whiter" Arabs Persians Turks etc. As a black person whose been to countries in the Middle East and has older family members who grew up there, there's a huge amount of racism and a form of "white supremacy" or Brown/pale brown supreamacy historically and even today in much of the Middle East.
Your point about "Eastern Europeans" being traded in the Indian Slave trade is also laughable, they were mostly traded in Europe, the Black Sea, and on other route NOT the Indian Ocean. Chinese and Arab slaves were a tiny fraction of slaves in the Indian Ocean compared to Black Slaves. Guess what, there were Chinese and East Indian slaves in the Atlantic slave trade too, but they were a small number compared to the black ones, just like how it was in the Indian/Red Sea slave trade.
4:46 You mean the goverment that was put in power after Germany’s occupation and the guy who’s last name has become a synonym for “land traitor”?
Back during the Cold War their was actually some paranoia about Jamaica becoming communist due to being close to Cuba and ruled by a white minority for a while post independence and that might be an interesting topic to look into.
Yeah, there was some worry. I've moved in the Jamaican expat community here in Houston and loved what I learned. I still don't understand the rules of Cricket even though I have been to a few matches. I even went to a match when the largest Cricket complex in the US opened in Prairie View, TX.
i went to norway a few years ago and while i was there i listened to a lecture by a person with sami ancestry in the university in tromsø and quite honestly it’s pretty dark and weird to hear as an american who had barely ever heard of the sami beforehand. it’s even worse when you realize that the us did FAR WORSE to the native americans. since then, indigenous rights have been a topic that i have cared about more than almost any other. i would love to hear your take, jj, on the treatment of native peoples across the world, especially the sami people and their history. they are a group so few outside of scandinavia and finland have ever even heard of so i think it would be an amazing idea to help bring awareness to these types of groups all across the world
The Sami are no more indigenous to Europe than Swedes or Norwegians, if anything less so.
I don't see how the swedes or norwegians can be considered any less indigenous than the Sami are
The Sami are indeed not somehow more indigenous than, they are only Treated as such" because they weren't treated well, similar to *actual* indigenous people in other places, when they in a certain sense found themselves legally within the area of other countries's territories. People often don't understand how remote the areas we are talking about are, especially in the not even distant past. Add to that the fact that most of them effectively came over from the east _after_ country boarders were effectively legally set, and you get a situation where effectively, the Sami people are the ones who "invaded" and "settled within land that "wasn't their own" etc. etc. Obviously, non of this should justify human atrocities, but it is annoying how so many people end up conveniently leaving out so much of the history of which I only scratched the surface here.
@@magnushmann by that logic tho you could probably say that all indigenous people are fake unless they are in ethiopia because that is where humanity came from. people say the sami are indigenous because even tho there were people there before them, their culture has been rooted to the land and they have used it for thousands of years. it doesn’t mean that they originated from there per se because no human originated outside of africa, but that they are culturally tied to their homeland which was then encroached on by other peoples.
@@mikearndt8210 That is indeed why attempting to quantify "how native" to some land any "group of people" are, is essentially futile or at least extraneous. How do we define Native? Well it depends. How do we define people group? Well it depends.
Again, that doesn't mean human atrocities and cultural genocide is ay okay, but we get into strange or even dangerous territory if we begin citing some of these things as the primary reasons why we deem it abhorrent with today's eyes. There are better, universally applicable reasons to cite, most should be obvious.
Continuing on that idea of Scandinavian countries, I was surprised to find out that sweden had an active eugenics program up until 1974! It's one of those almost never talked about things I guess.
@@jpd9355No???
@@ilovewritingessays2017Its true. Sweden used forced sterilization against certain ”unwanted” groups until 1975 .
Now it's the opposite. Sweden is using an open-border policy so that Arabian refugees will replace the native Scandinavian men. There was even a case where a pack of youths sodomized a man and that same man didn't want to press charges because he's scared that the youths will be deported.
You have to be specific because banning incest isn’t bad and part of eugenics.
Also screening if you know you are a carrier of something fatal
It wasnt a racial thing, but prevention of dissabilities being passed on. In a small country build on the idea of "Everyone takes care of the nation, and the nation takes care of everyone", it's not unreasonable to prevent people who don't contribute from having children.
I think that every country has a bad past, one way or another, and what matters is how it accounts for its past and how it treats its people in the present time.
It's ridiculous to blame people in the present day for what their ancestors may have done centuries ago or even just people who look like them (a practice which basically amounts to racism.)
Every person is accountable for their own actions, not the actions of others or ancestors, and should be held accountable only for their own actions.
The current culture of blame ridiculously pins blame based off of everything from race to nationalism to religion, ignoring the actions of people belonging to certain races/cultures/religions TODAY.
It is incredibly divisive and counterproductive towards achieving lasting peace.
I had the same thought as Henrik Myrhaug. Norway being held responsible for the Quisling government feels disingenous. The legitimate government of Norway kept working from Britain, and made a good effort in organizing the local resistance. It would be very unfair to blame Norway for being occupied and having a puppet government forced on us.
It becomes especially absurd when in the next breath mentioning Swedens neutrality as a reason of shame, since Sweden joining the allied forces very likely would have led to them being invaded by Germany as well. It is very likely that the same thing that happened to Norway, would have happened in Sweden if circumstances were different. Quislings government was something that happened to Norway, it was not something that Norway did.
In addition to the mistreatment of the sami people, I would also add that Norway have had policies towards roma people that are shameful. Forced castration was in force before and during WW II, but the roma people was treated badly also after the war. How we treated people with mental disabilities in even more recent history is also quite unpleasant.
However, I find it weird that Denmark and Sweden, who both at times have ruled over Norway, get's a pass for their imperialist history. Both have been rather large empires in the past.
Denmark didn't get a pass for Imperialism, he mentioned it. Not sure why he excluded Sweden, maybe because he doesn't go that far back, in which case Sweden's only Imperial holding was Norway, after they lost Finland, New Finland, and the Baltic States to other powers. Alternatively, he just wanted to make a smooth transition to disproving Scandinavian perfectionism, which he did.
Also, I am ethically Sami from Northern Norway, and for a time lived in Kautokeno, a Sami majority municipality, as well as other parts of Troms and Finnmark. There's a real sense of generational shame left by Norwegianization (Fornorsking), a lot of people still don't want to admit their Sami cultural heritage. As well as other problems, like more radical religious believes and a higher rate of alcoholism.
I find it a bit odd that Switzerland got a pass for Kinder der Landstrasse. ~Cherri
@@Ranked_Journey I just found out that New Finland is a district in Canada. I guess you meant some different area by new Finland? As a Finn I never heard that kind of term except for a newspaper called Uusi Suomi.
Denmark didn’t hold sway over Norway and Norway was never a colony. To begin with the Danish royalty was asked by Norway to be their protector and king, then later followed the Kalmar Union and the double monarchy Denmark-Norway. Also people seem to forget that the whole Viken area as a settlement was founded by Danish chiefs and that early petty kings were vassals to and supported by the Danish rule rather than in opposition, and so the histories of Norway and Denmark were both intertwined right from the start.
@@FenceThis Still, Norway was never a colonist power. Sweden and Denmark was.
I think there is a sort of neo-noble savage myth that sometimes plays a role in the way some people talk about non-western countries. I had a class in college try to tell me the British Raj brought the idea of social classes and control to India, a country with a longer history of government, conquest, civil society, and social structures then England could even claim without trying to pull that "we are the extension of Athens" stuff. Oppressive systems and horrific acts are social technologies, and they are no more a thing unique to the "Western Mind" than mathematics or logic or engineering.
I think the comparison game is a mistake and we can see it with the way everyone has to engage with whataboutism now, with the current war. It's natural to want to pick the absolute moral good vs evil, but realistically, that's not going to work, nor is it the point. It stops us from engaging with whats happening now in favor of grand narratives that don't work. But it doesn't mean anyone is off the hook for the past, especially when its very rare for these things not to have continued effects either directly or through national mythmaking. Just because someone else is worse, doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't right your wrongs.
Wonderful comment. Thank you for the insightful perspective!
I'd argue that having been a dictatorship doesn't necessarily mean that there is some kind of a historical shame. Imprisoning political opponents or faking elections are of course bad things, but they're not comparable to genocides. Furthermore, dictatorships often aren't the fault of people in the country, for example the communist bloc was largely a form of Soviet imperialism
Some dictatorships persecuted and tortured a lot of people within their lands. And the argument that it wasn't the people's fault doesn't make much sense since you could argue that most of these horrible things aren't the people's fault as well, because just think, an average english peasant living their life on a farm in the 18th or 19th century had little or nothing to do with the horrible things the British empire was doing during that time for example. But the discussion is about bad things the countries have done throughout their history, so that includes their government's actions
Here the Bahamas, arguably our biggest crime is the constant mistreatment of Haitian immigrants. The government has a tendency to clear out Haitian shanty-towns with little-to-no remorse and it’s been happening for a while.
Tough question, but in my personal opinion I would have to argue for a European country, actually. San Marino, as far as I can tell, is extremely unproblematic. The closed thing I could see being a problem is neutrality in the Second World War, but to me it is entirely different from the Swedish position, due the fact that they were literally inside Italy. I may be overlooking something, but that’s my stance.
Yeah San Marino is what popped up in my head too!
It had a fascist regime for as long as Mussolini's.
@@DOCTORKHANblog Fascism in Italy wasn't really a Totalitarian system like in Germany or the Soviet Union.
Other small countries like Tuvalu might also be considered
They were under a fascist system from the 1920's to 1943 and were complicit in the crimes of Italy at the time.
4:21
..."the only indigenous people in europe?"
Where do you think white people come from? The moon?
magic, obviously
“Studies have suggested that the two genes most associated with lighter skin colour in modern Europeans originated in the Middle East and the Caucasus about 22,000 to 28,000 years ago”
-Wikipedia
Please stop using the term "white" outside of the new world
@@bigguy9579 then I suppose call white people then
@@bigguy9579Uh... no thanks...
While I agree with the end result in this video, I feel like it's a bit unfair to use the Soviet governments as representations for countries like Estonia, Moldova, Georgia etc. I think the post Soviet countries that haven't been ravaged by brutal dictatorships should've at least been mentioned. I would say as a Baltic person our independent history is really peaceful (not counting the duchy of Courland for Latvia since it was ruled by Germans) but considering that we did have a dictatorship, in the end the video has the same result. Just wanted to clarify that the communist governments do not represent us
You are removing the agency of the locals who participated in the regimes on their own will.
I would somewhat agree (although places like Lithuania do have some level of "guilt" for Nazi collusion when fighting against the Soviets, much like Finland). Also, unlike the leadership of the Caribbean nations, it was locals that were involved in the governance of those repressive regimes - you wouldn't say Romania is free from "guilt" considering the reign of Ceaușescu for instance. Ultimately, the whole question of "national guilt" is very complex and doesn't have a straightforward answer. That said, I absolutely adore the Baltic nations and definitely would put them low on an overall "guilt" list.
@UlisesHeureaux i genuinely forgot about that, fuck you're right. We did align ourselves with the Nazis to fight back against the communist regime so we definitely helped in the holocaust.....that genuinely slipped my mind
@UlisesHeureaux I am Latvian
all 3 baltic states had dictatorships before the Soviet regime, so I think they certainly count as having issues in their history.
As a Finn, from oulu we are taught about our relations with Germany in school, sadly we didn’t have a choice, it was either side with them for food and protection or become an SSR of Russia , our history is not clean, but we did what we had to
look i'm not sure here, but wasn't the continuation war, an finish attack? aka join the germans to get land back?
You did have a choice, to fight back. What, no muh “White Death” or more bragging about how Finns are so strong in war when it comes to Germany? Finns we’re butthurt about losing the Winter War so they wanted it back. Finland was lukewarm about Nazism based on their Air Force logo up until recently. They wanted their land back and didn’t give two shits about tagging up with genocidal freaks. And they ended up losing even MORE land afterwards
Our history of treating the Sami the way we did and the Finnish civil war are much bigger reason why it's not spotless, but during world war 2 there was actually a Nazi volunteer group in Finland what did similar war crimes as other Nazis. It wasn't as prevalent but definitely existed.
That is a weak argument. The same reasoning also applies to Switzerland. The importance of the trade between Switzerland and Germany during WW2 was one of the key reasons why Switzerland remained free during WW2. That doesn‘t make Switzerlands actions right or justified.
I am aware but you must know that we were very reliant on Germany for food and protection, we definetely didn’t try to stop or go against their policies, but that was only to ensure protection against the soviets. Otherwise , there would be no Finland
Finland isn't a part of scandinavia since our language is completely different(and arguably barely even a functional one at times) but at this point I've heard people make this mistake so many times I don't really even care anymore
well our 2 countries was once part of the same kingdom (swede), and since sweden is scandianavian and nordic and finland just nordic i guess you get honorary scandiavian status aswell let's just throw in iceland and hell even estonia aswell since they want to be nordic anyway
Scandinavia is a geopolitical term not a linguistic one
The only linguistic term here is “North germanic” ehich does not include finland
@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 I've always lived under the assumption that it was a term relating to the languages more than geography or such.
@@palatasikuntheyoutubecomme2046 Well, geographically it's the Scandinavian peninsula, which just covers Norway and Sweden. Denmark is often included for geopolitical reasons, as you say. Culturally and linguistically, Iceland arguably also belongs in there, while Finland has strong historical and political connections, largely due to being part of Sweden for about 600 years. Bottom line is that I think it's flawed to say "Scandinavia is X, not Y", when in reality it kind of depends on your viewpoint.
@@Richard-W0 The term relates to both language and geography, as well as politics.
You can think of it like this: If you as a country want to be in the "Scandinavia club" you need to fulfill three points.
1. You need to be a monarchy (preferably a constitutional one since we aren't authoritarian barbarians anymore).
2. You must either own or have owned, or been part of a country that owns or has owned, the county that is the namesake for "Scandinavia" ie.: Scania.
3. You must speak a north germanic language.
Iceland isn't part of Scandinavia because of point 1 (and honestly the whole being an island very far away from the region in general doesn't help). Finland fails on both point 1 and point 3.
Honestly I think San Marino has been relatively harmless.
Even if they had a fascist government in the 1930s.
To add more to that, they did shelter thousands of jews during the Second World War
@@spaceythehuman5530 thousands? I'm not sure since there are barely thousands San Marinese people.
They do have helped, like many Italians in the countryside. But thousands is too big a number methinks.. then again, I'm not so sure about it.
What are your sources?
They hate gays tho
Very interesting way of tackling this difficult to answer question. Well done
Bro I thought the thumbnail said “incest history”
I think everyone should understand the dark historical events in their countries past. It’s obviously important to recognize that bad things did happen. However, I’ve noticed that in the US, recognizing the many past injustices has increasingly been replaced by people simply despising the country in its entirety, especially in my generation. I think refusing to accept any of the good a country has done is just as ignorant and just as dangerous to society as refusing to accept any of the bad.
OTOH restricting what is permitted to be taught, in case someone might feel shame, is chasing a shadow.
To paraphrase the philosopher Jeff Spicoli "If we don't come up with some cool rules, pronto, we'll be bogus too".
The US was formed with some pretty high minded ideals. It's up to our leaders to guide us to live up to them. When ANY of us fall short of them, it's up to all of us to get back on the path.
@@brianmiller1077 don’t know if u missed the memo but the US isn’t very clean when it comes to war crimes
The most shameful chapter in history of Finland is finnish civil war, witch happened right after Finland declared it's independance. In that war, many died in battles, but more where executed "on the spot" or by door to door deathsquads and even more died in prison camps, mostly by starving to death. Both side comitted executions, but winning side committed 4-5 times more and caused all the deaths in prison camps.
East Karelian Concentration Camps
It should be also noted that on top of that shame was a build a culture of discourse and mutual understanding. Finnish opposing parties have always been excelent at finding middle ground, and the civil war layed the foundations for that.
3:04 Allright, since when does being conquered by a hostile neighbour that forced a governement change and did't let you get rid of it for 50 years despite countless tries, mean "a shameful past"?
THIS and even if it wasn't causes by another country, I don't think it counts as shameful history since the people were the victims. Also I would argue that it's unfair to automatically connect communism with fascism or dictatorship, it's literally part of red scare propaganda. Also a lot of the dictatorships in latin america were anti communist (USA trying to stop communism).
Exactly! His approach to communist countries and Latin America is just suprisingly bad hahahaha
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. All of these have had issues with other countries in the past, but that does not excuse their own brutality, just as the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was extremely harsh on Germany after WW1 did not excuse their actions in WW2.
Cuba, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, these were terrible countries, at least at some point. To deny this, is idiotic at best.
@@casual_speedrunner1482 I'm not talking about cuba dude, I'm talking about eastern europe, Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. were all forcefully converted. If the revolution happened in your country and it changed then that's a shameful past. If someone went over and forced you, it's not. Just being communist is also not automatically shameful.
@@ywoisug8845 It was still their government, led by their people, even if they were subservient to the USSR. Even if you were to not count that for WHATEVER reason, that period of time isn’t the only time that these countries did bad things.
I absolutely dont feel like sin of my country is being under communist regime set by soviet russians, my whole family despised this system from start to the end, it was nightmare to live in this country, but its not poles our fault, more like people who particpated in it
2:08
Holland is a province of the Netherlands,that also divided in 2;North Holland and South Holland.
Please use the correct word "Netherlands" if you are referring to the country "Netherlands"(which you are).
also since 2020 the government of the Netherlands has officially dropped the use of Holland as a (nick)name for the Netherlands
His mother is a Dutch immigrant and he said he grew up hearing Holland
@@carlin6493 how can you drop a nickname? Especially if you're a country.
People will still probably call them Holland. If it's "official nicknames" then that's fine
In Norway we say Nederland:)
Me (a German): I think my country might not do good here...
Me (a Brit) thinks the same about my nation
@@thegreatestchigone5813 🤝 well, thats bad
@@thegreatestchigone5813 French, joining you here
sorry, ya'll are pretty evil in terms of historical context.
Refering to the Sami as Europes or Scandinavias 'indigineous' people is so weird. Like what do you even mean with indigenous then?
I think JJ was just quoting a line that people often use to describe the Sami. I agree, as far as I can tell the case of the Sami is not about a settler society subjugating an indigenous one but rather a larger indigenous society subjugating a smaller one.
EDIT: JJ basically confirms this in another comment
When you judge ancient society and ancient leaders you have to judge by the standards of their time not with modern standards
Actually the Carabien countries participate highly in sex trafficking. I get that a lot of countries do this... but it doesn't make it right. The worst part about this is that unlike most other nation's, family, government and even friends of Caribbean sex traffickers turn a blind eye to the actions. While other countries simply aren't capable of keeping up with it, the Caribbean countries know and just do nothing.
I know this mostly because I have had two friends who fled to America after escaping from a sex trafficking ring from Jamaica.
I have also talked with people online who are not only recovering from the trauma of working for sex traffickers, but they have told me most of the time there victims come from Caribbean families and are approved by government officials.
I know this is all still on going, but you honestly can't just act like something isn't happening, especially when there is so much evidence of it.
🙊
Girl what? 🤨
Are you talking about Anglo-Caribbean countries or places like the Dominican Republic?
What kind of generalization is this? Lmfao
"Carabien"
You couldn't even spell it right lol. Anyways, its not like sex trafficking is legal here or encouraged by any of our governments. Actually, we make great effort to stop it. Your argument is null.
I think an interesting trend is that essentially the weakest countries will have the least shameful histories (and thus probably the least prideful histories too). The less control the people in the country had over the governments' political decisions, and the smaller the impact of those decisions, the less likely an atrocity is to be committed. So the Caribbean nations, eastern Europe, micronations, etc likely to have less shame just because they've had less autonomy and power historically.
Eastern nations ? Didn't they beat the crap out of each other , damn even poland and Lithuania almost killed russia ,. So no they are like the rest of europe , like us
I really wouldn't include Eastern Europe in that list.
@@sherlocksmuuug6692 balkans goes brrrr
If you're calling Eastern Europe less prideful than you're wrong man, just look at the Balkans for ONE example, many Empires, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek, I know that Bulgaria and Greece were truly dominant Empires of Europe at their peaks, Bulgaria the first Slavic cultural hub and a great power you might say, so the Eastern Europe bit is false
@@sherlocksmuuug6692
Depends, even in eastern europe the rule holds true- Estonia and Latvia have relatively shameless histories because they were under constant subjugation (except maybe that one time when they sided with Hitler against the USSR?)
Poland and Lithuania obviously have worse histories, but it is also because of power. Both nations actively suppressed minority languages (Ruthenian, later Polonized into Ukrainian) in their territories, and waged wars against their neighbors (as all countries did).
I think the rule is still true, just less so for eastern europe. But the principle (power) is the same.
I don't think the Norwegians have that much to be ashamed about in terms of WW2. Their nazi occupation regime was near-universally despised and the Norwegian people put up a strong resistance.
In some ways the most shameful part was the treatment of kids of german soldiers and their mothers within the country. I do believe the government has apologized for that l, but I'm not sure.
(Edit: treatment after the war to be clear)
There was also German resistance in Nazi Germany so why should Germans feel ashamed about their country itself? I don't think that anyone should feel ashamed about their country rather we should celebrate those who stood up for what's right when governments do evil instead of feeling this weird need to identify ourselves as a country with the government. My country is not the government, its officials, and institutions my country is me, my family, my neighbors, my community of common people and the communities around it who promote all its well-being. If I was a German in WW2 my country would be the German resistance not the Nazis and I hope Germans today celebrate them as what is actually their country. If I was a Russian today my country would not be Putin, not his administration, and not his military in Ukraine my country would be those Russians setting military offices on fire and doing what they can to oppose, sabotage and stop the current war.
i love watching people explain colonialism and slavery that have no clue on either or how the world was back then.
I think the “badness” criteria would be
1. How many people were affected
2. How many people are still affected
3. How apologetic is the government
4. What were the measures to make it right
5. What percentage of the people affected are still upset
Which I think would cover everything, or most of it.
So Basically, no country then good to know
As a Norwegian, I don’t feel like there is much war guilt. The Quisling regime is widely viewed as an occupation, and not a continuation of the government. You make lots of great points otherwise though
Completely agree. It also makes little sense to lump in Denmark with the actual colonial powers of France, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Holland and Spain as if Denmark's actions are even close to be comparable in scope.
Yes, the Quisling regime is certainly not something for Norway to be "shameful" of. It was widely disliked and opposed. Better candidates are:
- The treatment (cultural genocide) of the Sami people, as mentioned in the video.
- The participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (We like to pretend we're not "guilty", because Norwegians themselves were subjects of Denmark, but being an integrated part of Denmark at the time, makes us equaly "responsible" as the people of modern day Denmark.)
@@nordichistorian6719 I think our second greatest shame is the treatment of children of German soldiers and the mothers after the second world war, which is not a very shining moment of our history.
I think Norwegians don't really feel much connection to the slave trade, so it's not really considered a "shame". People do talk about it, but it's much more "historical curiosity" than any historical shame. I really don't feel any shame for the Norwegian part of the slave trade, it's just so far removed from the modern day Norway.
@@jrgenm.dsollie4849 Good point. The treatment of those associated with the Germans after war war, could be on the list.
My point is not that we should be ashamed of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (I'm not advocating being "shameful" of anything one's ancestors did, really.)
My point was that there is no reason for us to be less so, than other countries that also have such a past (we conveniently forget that the area and ancestors of what today is Norway, was an integral part of the Danish crown at the time).
@@nordichistorian6719 I don't think Norway shares equal blame with Denmark in terms of colonialism and slavery. Sure, there were likely Norwegians that benefitted from Denmark's colonies and slave trade, but to say we bare the same guilt as the actual colonial power that subjugated those places is a stretch.
I honestly really love the unique sponsors. You've picked ones that truly add value to your viewers! Thanks for taking the sponsorship, legitimately enjoying it, and it's a useful experience to briefly view news and see the bias shown explicitly
I wouldn't say it's fair to count countries that used to be part of the soviet block as bad because of it, when most of them were only part of it because they got invaded and very much wanted to leave
I am from Finland. The situation of Finland in WW2 was difficult because Finland had 2 really bad options - to ally with Russia and lose our independency (and later become part of Soviet Union) or ally with Germany. Hitler had previously offered to give Finland to Russia so Finnish people were really offended of that. But Finland definitely didn't want to become part of Russia again so we just allied with nazis to fight against Russia. It is worth knowing that Finland was not a very good friend with the nazis even thought we fought in the same side. The war between Finland and Russia is a fascinating part of WW2 history if anyone wants to study more about it. A very small country fighting against a massive monolith.
Hitler was the one to make the deal with Stalin to give Finland under USSR in the first place. Finland also went to war against Germany to drive them off Lapland after the war ended with the Soviets.
It should also be considered that Finland tried to ally with Britain and France at first but they did not respond.
But finland did also have concentration camps in karelia and during the civil war so... theres also that
Yes The civil war is The big one, but I'd argue that was mostly due to the larger civil war in Russia itself
My great grandfather was a British volunteer who fought in the winter war for Finland and gave his life for Finnish independence. A great man who should have survived.
I remember meeting a bigoted Finn in Brussels who completely undermined and laughed at him when I mentioned that, the biggest story of my family's history which was sad.
Great video, but I have to say that immediately dismissing all countries that made up the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia is quite unfair. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Moldova have a decently clean history as far as I am aware of and so does Slovenia. My own country of Croatia comes guilty as charged though and definitely not only because of the communist dictatorship it was under.
Didn't lithuania have a past of siding with nazis? Like weren't there murders of jews in Lithuania and the baltic states by pro nazi lithuanians?
The baltics contributed in countless ww2 war crimes.
Including deporting jews to germany
And Poland. Poland was attacked after war with Germany and Russia was like gimme that
@@kakashihatake8422 Though for a long while before the partition, the Polish-lithuanian commonwealth was a large and power state, that even occupied Moscow for a bit in a war with the Russians at one point.
Love the steel pan sound of the transition to the Caribbean map :) Love from 🇹🇹
The problem with looking up apologies is that some countries are so terrible they never even apologize
It's also interesting to consider ongoing cultural events that may be condemned by future governments as cultural ideals shift. There is a particular current event in eastern Europe that comes to mind, but I also think of places like Jamaica, which was listed as a contender for being among those with the most "righteous" history. Jamaica has been labeled by various publications as being "the most homophobic place on earth", where it is fully legal for civilians to murder anyone who exhibits homosexual behaviour (edit: as someone pointed out, there doesn't seem to be anything supporting that last fact. I don't remember where I got it from).
"where it is fully legal for civilians to murder anyone who exhibits homosexual behaviour."
As a Jamaican, I'm gonna have to ask you to stop capping. You can't just murder someone for being gay here. There's an actually justice system and human rights here.
I do not remember where I got the 'murdering gay people is legal' thing, so yeah I might be way off, my bad. I'll edit the comment.
It is definitely a place where being gay is highly dangerous, though. Violence is towards gay people is pretty high and engaging in homosexual sex is punishable by up to ten years in prison. So yeah, it's hardly anarchy with people killing each other left and right with no consequences, but it's certainly among some of the least safe places in the world for anyone who isn't straight.@@major_kukri2430
One place I have found to be quite surprising with wholesome history is Senegal. They mostly have always been on the receiving end and the only time it formed kingdoms/empires it was through diplomacy.
2:05 You clearly forgot Germany. It had the 3rd biggest colonial empire at the time and was infamous in the world because of genocides and atrocities. Just look at the Herero and namaqua genocide or the Maji-Maji uprising.
I think he should’ve included Italy too due to their wars with Ethiopia as well as partaking in fascism during Mussolini’s reign
How did he come up with Denmark in picking colonial powers Maybe he confused them for the dutch (the Netherlands) I only know Denmark for having some islands in the north Atlantic such as Greenland and Iceland, nothing in Africa.
It wasn't really Poland's fault that it was a dictatorship after ww2. It was installed by USSR as a satellite state while the legal (and democratically elected after the war) government was still in excile.
A better example of Polish dictatorship would be the post-1926 oligarchic Colonels' Regime
Great video as always JJ!
One point i would add. The Irish Civil war and the troubles have caused huge division, but collectively most Irish people would feel these were all symptoms of the fall out from British colonialism.
I would say what Irish society would feel most ashamed about would be the systematic abuse by the Catholic Church in all its forms and how this was supported by successive Irish governments and society at large. Things like sexual abuse scandals, Magdalene Laundries, Tuam Babies etc would be a very dark piece of Ireland's history not directly associated with British colonialism.
I agree although I would consider the atrocities of the IRA to be worse.
@@andrewkingston4995 but they weren't supported by the government, so don't count in this specific context
There's no doubt the church has done wrong in Ireland both as a whole and through individual members of it, however to compare them to the centuries of wonton violence, repression and discrimination the British enacted upon the isle is foolhardy at best. Of them all, the period of British rule was the darkest chapter of Irish history.
@@stateofflorida5082 well this was all done by the British empire so it doesn't count. That's like blaming Poland for Auschwitz and Treblinka. They only happened after a foreign power invaded them.
@@TheHorseOutside not really, the IRA was historically supported by major parties such as Sinn féin and Fine Gael
If I had to choose I would say Iceland, since there were no indigenous peoples there before the vikings discovered it around the 800s, and it has been spared from basically every European war due to its isolation
But they eat PUFFINS!
I was just thinking this. Iceland happens to be my favorite country, but objectively, their isolation and small population means they haven't done much to hurt anyone else.
Well, there were the Cod wars, if you want to count those. Also, they don't have a standing army. They can't afford one. Their country is protected by isolation and a lightly armed coast guard. That alone keeps them out of a lot of trouble, so long as you don't decide to fish in international waters, closer to their shores than they want you to be.
@@app103 Don't worry, we don't do much against people fishing in our waters, but you might have to go home without your fishing net. We do have big scissors.
What about the deportation of Jews that he mentioned in the video?
What would happen if you were to reverse the question and ask "Which country has done the most good?", it would be as equally impossible to answer.
It would be a toss-up between England and the United States.
@@JohnDaker_singerLMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
You genocide millions and think you have the right to say you’re the best? Nah, the answer is Cuba. In terms of non-socialist nations, maybe Ireland.
@@JohnDaker_singer HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me, a German:
I know which country has NOT the nicest history...
Churchill and mao Zedong were far worse than your painter in terms of number of kilngs so chill out !
@@Kmr571-l8yyou forgot the current dictator of North Korea
when he started talking about Scandinavia, the first thing I thought was 'duh the vikings' LMAO
Which predated the nations that now live there.
@@equalityforever302 exactly lol
6:29
As an Indian I must say I am way more ashamed on the treatment of women the lower caste and also the anti Sikh riots that happened in the 80s
Tbh a country as big as India would obviously have some atrocities
@@Twocat5side yeah
Source
What can be said for the 4 nations of Micronesia? I think the majority of Polynesian nations come out pretty damn spotless.
it could be argued about the Polynesian empire. I think is a bit far fetched tbh because maybe some islands were unhabited so idk. Maybe just the uncontacted tribes in the amazon are the ones higher in the list
I'm sure life wasn't always a blast if you were a woman in those countries.
Margaret Mead would disagree with you. She found a unique degree of sexual freedom for women in Samoa.
@@JJMcCullough If historical sex relations count then there's not a square centimeter of dirt on the planet that's getting off scot-free. If that's where the line is drawn then why make a video at all?
@@quirijnv6793 Sounds like you missed the point of the video
I absolutely DESPISE the entire “you should feel guilty because youre living on their land” argument. Literally every single country or people ever have always at one point lived on someone else’s land. Why is nobody angry at the europeans? They’re living on land that was inhabited by Neanderthals, that’s bad, right?
It's not so much the actual land as how indigenous people have been sidelined by colonisers through the centuries. Where I live, indigenous folk even now have had no means of gathering inter-generational wealth or to amass property etc.- It's even financially unviable for them to complete a degree at university and then going forward, if they start a family it will be forever a relatively low income household. If they had been given the same opportunities and equity as people like me, there is no doubt they could have done just as well as any European has, but generational trauma, poverty, alcohol abuse- all the things that come with high stress and low incomes- take their toll. We all see it happen, and I do think we should all be doing more to level the playing field since most good things in our lives have come at the expense of those ousted by those who came before.
But there was widespread racial mixing with the Neanderthals. In some of those countries, the line between Neanderthal and "modern" human is very blurry, as DNA tests will confirm. I am part-Neanderthal, and I don't feel any anguish about Neanderthals as a culture disappearing. It's just like when a Christian and a Jew get married; most of the time, the family chooses to celebrate Christmas. But that doesn't mean the Jewish spouse is being persecuted.