Hi all,
all i can say is that i am a bit torn: my dad’s portuguese and my mom german.
so should i feel guilty for that my portuguese country men sold slaves and forces them into labor; or rather more for my german side where people sharing the same nationality as my might have been involved in nasty things?
my answer is: I dont, I dont have to, I should not and nobody in the right might should try to make me or others.
if you look at history, all of our contries are guilty of some things in the past. Whether it is assembling the greatest empires in the world (britain, italy, russia, etc) or treating their fellow people with the most outright disgust (too many to mention).
Coz the point is we have got a lot of problems to tackle: worldwide unemployment, AIDS research, progress of democracy, prmotion of individual rights, etc. And all of this needs to be solved every day to secure our future. We will not tackle these issues successfully if we keep debating who is evil and guilty of every thing and some things.
We, the young today, have a responsibility to look at history and learn from our (as man, not as members of a nationality) mistakes, and through this way come closer to achieving some of the goals outlined above. But nobody can expect us to be guilty or accountable of crimes that were committed by people supposedly in our name.
Therfore, lets always be opne and let reason prevail. We have got a lot to do!
Bye for now,
Hans