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29th January 2017 #1
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What's your reaction to...
.. the phrase "Third World"?
Must admit mine is one of extreme annoyance. It comes over to me as a pejorative phrase, a throwback to Empire days when "Europe ruled the world" and "The West Knew Best".
There is no doubt in my mind that we're seeing global power shifting from the West to the East. over the past 500 hundred years or so, the West has reigned supreme on so many counts and that's bred a certain arrogance. So Europeans sought to "civilise" the world and impose their way of life on their new found territories overseas, be they language, culture, religion.
What the West failed to recognise at the time (and, I suspect, has still not come to terms with) was that although other parts of the globe had different customs, that, in itself didn't automatically make them inferior to ours.
I recognise how the phrases "New World" and "Third World" came about but in my mind the latter certainly seems laden with a value judgement, one of inferiority.
For a long time I've been interested in Asian culture and my first foray to the east in 2011 was even more fascinating and interesting than I had expected. What struck me, in particular, was the value placed on family and community. I found poor communities where people had nothing but grouped together to help each other - a real lesson to us "affluents" in the West who only care for "number one"! :-(
We've a lot to learn from the so-called "Third World" and I would love to see that phrase disappear from common usage. (But then I'm a PC luvvie, can't you tell?)
What do others think?
Alan
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