Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[martinuzz]

Surniame is a former Dutch Colony, yeah. They still have Dutch as an official language, and a population made mostly of the descendant of indians contract workers, african slaves and javanese as a result.

Yeah, a pretty black page in my country's history. Surinam was a major hub for the slave trade (if you ever wondered where the South got all their negros), reflected in the many etnicities of it's current population.

[Frumple]

Your reply is very characteristic of the USA though, thinking that USA = America. Nope. USA is not even 1/4th of America.

USA is, however, a significantly large portion of the primarily english-speaking part of the americas, and also what gets so much of the proportional english news coverage et al that most of south/central america may as well not exist for all that people are aware of it. Is why I specified english-speaking, yeah. We may not make up all the landmass or population, but you better believe we're taking several dozen lion's shares of the world's general awareness.

... also a total population around a half million is really ruddy small. Folks without the history connection probably ain't going to recognize it, heh.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I think it's very clear to all parties involved that "South America" is either wholly non-existent or substantially smaller than is purported by the United Nations. Mexico and the other Central American nations clearly exist, maybe even Colombia and some northern areas of Brazil, but the rest of the continent is blatantly fictional. No involvement in world events, no substantial international travel or contribution to cosmopolitan culture, and not even a single substantial move in the great game between the powers of the world.

Even sub-Saharan Africa gets on better than that. Personally, I suspect the Spanish Monarchy as the source of this conspiracy, perhaps originally as a convenient lie about the size of their colonies much like Columbus' "West Indies" before them. Perhaps it got so out of hand that, even though it was an open secret amongst world leaders after some time investigating, that there was a compelling reason to collaborate on maintaining "South America".

The reasons aren't important, the real question is: What are they hiding from us?

[Frumple]

They're hiding the real north america, of course. We've actually been the south one this whole time.

[Reelya]

What the South is "hiding" is Unasur and Celac. There's a growing regional power bloc down there. You don't hear about it because it doesn't suit the US's regional aims for you guys to be informed about politics in the South. South America has a unified parliament now, a unilateral military alliance amongst all 12 countries of the continent, and is talking about moving to a single currency. This development was largely spurred by widespread distrust of the Bush administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations
UNASUR: GDP $US4 trillion dollars, population 414 million. Members: every fucking country in South America (not counting some small UK colonies).

Basically the US was previously backing two rival trade groups in South America, keeping them at each others throats. After a while they got together and went "you know what? fuck those asshats!" and now they've basically formed a federated union of all of South America, modeled on the EU and NATO. An entire continent forming a federal parliament is pretty big news. Ask yourself why hardly anyone in America has heard about this.

If that doesn't make you go wtf, check this one out, the expanded membership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Latin_American_and_Caribbean_States
CELAC: GDP $US9 trillion, population 591 million.

With CELAC, you're looking at a regional economic bloc with almost twice the population of the USA, and a total GDP rivaling China, right on America's doorstep. Combine that with moves to political federalism in South America, and you can see there's a lot of economic power down there, and they're starting to get politically organized.

[martinuzz]

Yup yup. Exactly why I think the Murrican politics thread is the right place to post South America related news too.

[Frumple]

It is, it'd just help a lot if you mention the region you're talking about, particularly when you're talking about something tiny

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If the Canadians are separate enough for a thread, then the extradimensional invaders of Owthamerikaah certainly are.

[Sheb]

He mentioned the country. I knew where Suriname was.

[martinuzz]

It is, it'd just help a lot if you mention the region you're talking about, particularly when you're talking about something tiny

Didn't the Age of Google make geographical knowledge, or any form of clarification obsolete?

jk. I'll try and remember adding a 'this is a South American country' reference next time 

[Frumple]

Sorta', but it can help to know whether you're looking in SA or europe Places share names pretty regularly, unfortunately. Don't think they did in this case, but it's definitely a thing that happens.

But yeah, s'all I'm asking, heh. Will also try to do more than namedrop fresno or somethin' (to pick a US city in cali with a population similar to suriname :V) if I happen to start talking about events going down in 'em, hehe.

[JasmineJas]

Toast maple syrup with my pet polar bear, make an appointment at my free doctor, and then go have a Sleeman's.

[Mephansteras]

What the South is "hiding" is Unasur and Celac. There's a growing regional power bloc down there. You don't hear about it because it doesn't suit the US's regional aims for you guys to be informed about politics in the South. South America has a unified parliament now, a unilateral military alliance amongst all 12 countries of the continent, and is talking about moving to a single currency. This development was largely spurred by widespread distrust of the Bush administration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nations
UNASUR: GDP $US4 trillion dollars, population 414 million. Members: every fucking country in South America (not counting some small UK colonies).

Basically the US was previously backing two rival trade groups in South America, keeping them at each others throats. After a while they got together and went "you know what? fuck those asshats!" and now they've basically formed a federated union of all of South America, modeled on the EU and NATO. An entire continent forming a federal parliament is pretty big news. Ask yourself why hardly anyone in America has heard about this.

If that doesn't make you go wtf, check this one out, the expanded membership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_Latin_American_and_Caribbean_States
CELAC: GDP $US9 trillion, population 591 million.

With CELAC, you're looking at a regional economic bloc with almost twice the population of the USA, and a total GDP rivaling China, right on America's doorstep. Combine that with moves to political federalism in South America, and you can see there's a lot of economic power down there, and they're starting to get politically organized.

Well...that's interesting. 

[Frumple]

Ehehehe, you hadn't noticed, Meph? S'been going on for a fair little bit, just yeah, basically zero english speaking attention given to it. Closest I've seen that involves regular acknowledgement of stuff that's going on down there is reference to BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, usually talked about as developing/second tier economies, for those that haven't heard of it), which rarely mentions all the stuff besides brazil that's happening, or the stuff they're involved with down south.

S'always been a mite odd how little news manages to make its way up north about 'em, especially positive news, really. Another generation or so, maybe less, and we're probably going to have some very surprised americans and europeans, ha.

[Strife26]

Well, I think that the US needs to step back to the ol Roosevelt Collorary and ensure a peaceful transfer of power to the most America America aligned faction (possibly made out of whole cloth).