To think that 45 year old British citizen should know what I'm talking about.....

[Bekindtoyourknees]

when I mention the wars in Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia etc?

His excuse: 'I wasn't there, so why should I know about them?'

I thought there was nothing left to shock me at work, seems I was wrong

I think i need a 'War for Dummies' guide. Having read this thread i decided to go and look closer at what is happening in the Ukraine. I confess i am no more enlightened now than i was before looking. I don't understand at all what is going on or why. I need the whole thing presented to me in simple terms. Can anyone help me?

Historically Russia has always either had control or wanted control of a Black Sea port, their other ports are blocked with ice in the winter.

The Crimea is perfect for this and has been fraught over many times.

In the 1950s Khrushchev (Leader of USSR) made Crimea part of Ukraine.

When Ukraine became independent The crimea became part of that but the Russian fleet still uses Ukraine as its base.

Because of wars and invasions Ukraine has a mixture of people, main groups Tatars, Ukrainians and Russians.

The Ukraine government were a) friendly with Putin and b) corrupt.

Recently the government decided to not gain more ties with the EU but more ties with Russia. People protested, people were shot.

A sort of coup took place, the Ukrainian president (last I heard not heard the news today) went in to hiding and may be in Russia, the Ukrainian people released an opposition leader from prison and declared a new president.

Russia says it is defending the Russian speakers, claiming their rights are important and would be ignored by the new leaders. They also say that the deposed president was democratically elected.

The USA says this is an invasion, an act of war, in response the Russians have said, "look at Grenada".

So at present
Russian soldiers (without insignia) in charge of airports and surrounding military bases.
Some Russian speakers support them, other Ukranians seem to not support them.

*I wasn't talking about studying war DoJo.

I know fuck all about history, modern or ancient.

I was talking about just acknowledging and being aware if it happening, and the absolute basics we all heard on the news, both at the time and since!*

Yes, but a person who has managed to miss out on the news about the wars mentioned in the OP would have to study, at least to some extent in order to 'catch up' as it were, especially if they have no idea of why there has been such unrest in some of the countries involved. And to what end?

bold fail!

To not have threads about them on mn if nothing else DoJo.......

Seriously, there's not that much to learn to cover the basics.

I don;t find wars interesting. I find the people caught up in them interesting. How do they cope and survive. All the human elements rather than the politics themselves.

We have a habit of looking and trying to find difference, when its much more important to look and see the things we have in common.

redtoothbrush I am exactly the same. The whole reasons for wars starting/continuing/ending are of no interest to me. I find all that stuff hopelessly complicated and confusing.

What i find endlessly fascinating is how the ordinary people caught up in it all cope (or don't cope) with the unrest and horror. Different facets of the same thing really.

I guess some people will be interested in the big overall picture and others will be interested in the smaller more individual details. This is neither good nor bad - just people being human.

It hink the problem I struggle with is that a lot of the more recent (50yrs?) wars are very confusing and political. I try and educate myself but there is so much to each war and so many of them (sadly) that unless you've got that kind of mind you'll probably struggle

Btw I would call it KosovA as Kosovo is Serbian and the majority of Kosovars use the Albanian

Sashh
That synopsis was brilliant
Fancy doing it for other conflicts too?
Someone did one similar on here once about Palestine etc and it all finally because clear(er)

Sashh Are you a teacher? I don't think anyone reading that could now claim that they don't understand.

I remember the Bosnian war because I was about 15 when it happened. It was impossible to ignore because all the atrocities were in the newspapers (my Dad used to get the Daily Mail and the photos were in there of dead children and concentration camps - I remember being really upset by it.)

Also the news was on TV at 9 and 10pm in those days so it was difficult to miss the news. It was shocking to see seriously injured people who could have been your neighbours right in front of you on the news.

It never fails to shock me how many supposedly bright and intelligent people with A-levels and degrees are ignorant about stuff like this. When I was Uni I had a friend who went to Dublin and didn't know what country she was in, and another friend who didn't know where the Statue of Liberty was.

On the other hand my dad failed his 11 plus, isn't the most academically bright person in the world (he admits this) but is hugely knowledgable about the Second World War and other parts of history because he has an interest in it and watches and reads a lot about it.

I think ignorant people tend to be horribly selfish and wrapped up in themselves.

I've been without a TV for four weeks until a couple of days ago and I don't read newspapers, but I've still been aware of the unrest in the Ukraine. I couldn't give you details, but I know that it's happening. (Brilliant summary sashh, thank you.)

Whenever I watch something like Mastermind or University Challenge with certain people (it's all rock 'n' roll round chez Select ) they are amazed I can usually answer quite a few questions. I'm always amazed they can't. It's general knowledge, not rocket science.

I have just discovered that he doesn't know who the Prime Minister is (but he can picture him) and thinks that the Labour Party is in power.

He is genuinely a nice guy and very happy with his lot. Maybe this is why.

How can anyone not know who the Prime Minister is?! That takes a real dedication to remaining ignorant.

Are you sure he isn't winding you up? Or is he some sort of christian fundamentalist type that actively avoids the media?

They are the few reasonable explanations I can think of for that answer.

It sounds like there's more going on that just normal person who has chosen to be ignorant

He says it's because he's not interested, they all talk a load of crap and politics doesn't affect his life

I bet he doesn't know which animal we get beef from.

Sparkle: good to hear that you care, but still very worrying that you (not personally necessarily, but as an example of what many might feel) are unable to follow the events and realise why it is important to do so. I find it worrying because in my view this indifference is in part what allows this to happen.

Perhaps I am overanxious but whenever I read about Syria, Ukraine, the Second World War, I always think: what if it was my country, my family, my friends.... Because it could easily be or have been. I have met people who escaped the concentration camps and known relatives of those many more who did not. I know people who lived through wars and whose family and friends were shot, maimed, tortured, whose houses were burnt... How would you feel if you were in the middle of that and people of your age in a country not so fr away did not care enough to try and understand what is going on and or did not try to help?

The other thing that I do not understand, incidentally, is charitable giving for animals/property when there are people dying of hunger and lack of medical help. But that is a different thread.

Cobaltblue: please be constructive and explain why you disagree.

I agree Ssh's summary was admirably simple and clear, but someone else also did a not dissimilar snapshot of the Ukrainian situation up the thread and at least one poster said plaintively that it still went over her head. Which I confess to not understanding. If you can follow a recipe, or the plot of a novel, surely you can follow what Ssh said?

I don't accept for a moment the argument that it's OK not to know about what happening in Ukraine because it's far away, or because if you did, you have a moral obligation to educate yourself on all current affairs in all countries of the world. I am continually gobsmacked by encountering apparently ordinarily well-educated people in this country who do not have the vaguest idea what drove the conflict in Northern Ireland, and do not in fact understand the difference between NI and Ireland, or that Ireland is not actually part of the UK. (Some of this emerged after the recent big news story about former paramilitaries being sent letters assuring them they were no longer being sought for prosecution. Someone brought it up somewhere I was, and claimed to not under stand any of it, and to never have heard of the Good Friday Agreement.)

Whatever you might claim about events in Srebrenica or Kiev or Sudan not having an impact on your life, the(far from resolved) situation in NI is taking place within the UK, and involved, in the very recent past, major bombing campaigns in England which killed civilians (Warrington in 1993, the Arndale Centre in 1996, the Brighton bomb that aimed to kill Thatcher earlier) among other things.

This attitude is pretty shocking too . Why should anyone be so judgmental about other people's knowledge of current events ?
Why does this bother you?
Or have I missed that answer in the thread?

Minor point, but no one died in the 1996 Arndale bombing. The police were aware of the bomb and have evacuated the immediate area as they tried to defuse the bomb.

It frustrates me as every people regularly remember the Manchester bombing but this over shadows the Warrington bomb in which two boys died. The area was not evacuated as the warning was vague and the police did not identify it as Warrington.

People frequently think Manchester caused many deaths but this is simply not true. I do find it upsetting as the memory of what happened in Warrington seems to be often lost in the process.

Not only that but the political impact of the bombing was actually more significant than Manchester as it was a major catalyst towards talks.

I think its important because it gives more meaning to the memory of those boys. It might seem petty, but to me its not.

I hate the term 'live in a bubble'. Its patronising and condescending and ridiculous. Not everyone can know everything. People who are knowledgeable about history can be completely oblivious about current affairs/popular culture etc or vice versa, but it doesn't make one set of people superior to the other.

For example, my SIL has a history degree and is very intelligent. However she recently floored me when she said that she never knew that John Lennon was a) a member of the Beatles, or b) dead. I don't think any less of her though as she knows lots of stuff that i don't.