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by lordnacho
3674 days ago
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I think there's a couple of memes being mixed here: - There's North/South, meaning Rich/Poor. Australia and New Zealand are in the North, though of course most rich countries are in the Northern hemisphere. - There's West/Rest (or East, if you like), and this one is a bit harder to define. You can go way back and say it's to do with having intellectual roots in Greek/Latin parts of Europe. That's certainly what many people who studied Classics would say. You could also argue that the liberal democratic tradition is what defines it. That would make Germany, Italy and a number of other countries temporarily non-western. Or you could go with religion and say it's to do with Christianity. That would make Russia a western country. So, where's Nigeria? Well, it's not rich. Politically it's inherited a colonial system from the British, though corruption perceptions are not close to what people normally expect of western democratic countries (IMO part of western political tradition is to act scornful of corruption). On religion, it's a mix of Christian and Islamic. I wouldn't say Nigeria fits into the common ideas of what the west is. |
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