Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but it's sort of been on my mind. I just finished The Saboteur (excellent game and review forthcoming), and as you play it you can really get caught up in the anti-Nazi sentiment that the characters all strongly feel.  3 generations have almost gone by since WWII and obviously time have changed, but I'm curious about how different European countries look at one another. Are Germans still villified a bit? Are the French still considered..... well you know, French?  Or have those feelings sort of died down and been replaced with new more modern causes for resentment? Or is it just one big happy Candy Land over there where all Europeans love each and sing songs and hold hands?

Since America is more or less isolated we don't really have too much against any other country (overseas wars are entirely different matters) In general most Americans don't really know enough to resent other countries other than just a general "you're not American? Fuck you" kind of way. The only exceptions are Mexicans who are generally disliked because they take all our good gardening and restuarant clean-up jobs, but even that gets wrongly skewed since we assume anyone who speaks Spanish is Mexican. And maybe the Canadians though I think half this country thinks the Canada is the 51st state.

The original purpose of the EU was really to stop France and Germany from ever going into another war by forcing them to work together.  Only the English vilify the Germans because they can never beat them at football.  It is also a big mistake to speak of "Germany" when referring to the Nazis.

It's difficult to answer your question without falling into cliches and making generalisations.

It's not always "one big happy family" but on the whole things are smooth.  It's similar to how different US states sometimes think of other states.  They may make fun of something or other, and there may be truth in it or not.

So you want to include the Balkans and the Caucasus?

Yeah explaining this might take a while Robio.

The differences between EU member states is much bigger than the difference between the states in America culturally. Most of them do not even speak the same language, but in law it has been somewhat harmonized. The death penalty for instance is forbidden in all member states, but there are still different laws in each country for soft drugs, prostitution, crime, taxes and so on.

EU is pretty much a work in progress thing, right now it is not working at all.

Just watch the Eurovision Song Contest and you'll learn everything you need to know about Europe.

Wait so EU is not an abbreviation for Europe???

Want some nudes?

Wait until Iga gets a hold of that post.

Dvader said:

... What is wrong with Europe.

Mostly Belgium.

Dvader said:

Its not my fault Europe is all weird. NA stands for North America. AU stands for Australia. What is wrong with Europe.

The fuuck?

Europe is fine, the only resentment if there is any is played out on the battlefield (sports). The biggest disagreement is in how much co-operation and intergration there should be vs a countries own rights and autonomy. Mainly at the moment, in the EU the biggest problem is that there are some countries in the financials shits and then the other countries have to bail them out. Obviously there is some northern ireland vs britain animosity but mostly on the NI side, the brits generally couldn't give a crap.

Germany is at the heart of europe, biggest economy, driving force of the financial comeback etc.

bugsonglass said:

Ey?

How is it that the Brits don't give a crap about Ulster?  They wouldn't have settled there if that were true and they would have left Ireland well enough alone as one country.

The Brits on the mainland don't give a crap. It's Protestants vs Catholics within Northern Ireland.

It's not Brits vs Irish, it's Northern Irish vs Northern Irish. Region based nonsense.

If politically the UK could just give it back to Ireland they would, like how Hong Kong went back to China. It's the stubborn people in Northern Ireland who want to stay British or the Catholics who hate living in part of the UK, yet not enough to move to Ireland.