#i loooooove canadians tho australians and canadians are besties

[surelyucantbe]

coming from aus (an island in the middle of no where that no one cares about) to europe is insane like the vibe of just existing is so different day to day. there's snow on the mountains, everyone is talking about green energy non-stop, but i could also get on a train and in three hours i'd be in a country that has just elected a fascist government. Like. The UK, Spain, Portugal and Denmark are all here and aware of colonialism in a sort of abstract way but when you talk to any of these people about the actual effects of colonialism on the native people of colonised lands they're shocked and horrified - because despite the fact that they benefitted of the wealth of their periods of colonialism even now, they've been given a distance from it that America/Canada/Australia/South Africa/New Zealand and all the others aren't granted (and this isn't to say that the white people on these colonised lands engage with the atrocities committed in the past and today, but the degree of choice about whether or not to engage is extremely different). There's a lot of opportunity here and many countries are advanced welfare states but there are some elements of living that are so callous and seem almost cruel - like the fact that anyone can enter law school or a medical school in Germany and Switzerland and other places but actually becoming a lawyer or a doctor is almost prohibitively difficult. Like. The expectation and acclimatisation to people wasting thousands of dollars and years of their life on something that might not happen.