Quote:
Originally Posted by ChosenOne
Portuguese here, so I can tell you it's a very, very common (and unfortunate) notion among Brazilians that we're somehow responsible for their current status as pretty much a third world country when they should, and have everything they need to, be a first world country. And all because we mined some gold from our colony while we were building the infrastructure for an entire nation and teaching the indigenous children to write and read, among other things. Because that's what colonizers do, they take but they also give quite a lot, too.
Said people conveniently forget - as a late, eminent ambassador and historian once told them - that Brazil has been free from the Portuguese "yoke" for nearly 250 years and done nothing for themselves in all that time save squander everything we left them with. In other words, third world countries will be third world countries because that's all they know how to be, and then turn around and blame the ones who tried - in vain - to civilize them for their misfortunes.  |
The funny thing is, they're not treating the few natives they have left much better. They keep on destroying the Amazon, for instance. So the irony is astounding.
And tbh it doesn't seem to be just Brazil. It seems to be common all over Latin America for people to vilify the countries that colonised them and blame them for the fact they aren't as rich as Western and Northern Europe, North America and Australia and New Zealand. I don't think it's the majority who thinks like that. Just a few loudmouths online. A Uruguayan once told me that the people in his country who have that kind of mentality tend to belong to the far-left spectrum. Majority of people don't really care.
I could understand African nations and such that only got their independence from Portugal in the 70s having hard feelings for us, but Brazilians?! A country that has been independent for about 200 years by now?
