The US State Department, in response to accusations that Americans are uninformed about world politics, has released a new plan to help the most powerful nation’s people to better understand the rest of the world. The method used will not include memorization or difficult tests. Rather, the United States will rename other countries, governments, and religions to make discussing them more relevant to Americans. “Most Americans sound stupid when trying to discuss world politics,” says Secretary of State John Kerry. “The goal of renaming the world is so that we can discuss real issues with our friends and neighbors without getting confused and calling each other names.”
While most Americans can tell a Brit, a Frenchman, or an Aussie by accent alone, the average American has no idea how to identify the differences between people from China, Japan, Korea, or The Phillipines. Americans cannot tell an Argentine from a Brazilian, and they see Estonians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, and Croatians as basically the same people. “It was easier with colonialism,” admits Kerry. “I mean, we had the Turkish Empire and the British Empire and the USSR. Going back further, there was the Spanish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire.” While fewer empires exist today, Americans can benefit from thinking of the world in the same simplistic way, claims Kerry. Under the new world borders, the following regions would exist:
- United States of America or just America
- Canada
- Mexico
- Russia
- South America (includes Central America)
- Southern Africa
- Northern Africa
- Middle East
- Eastern Europe
- Western Europe
- England
- France
- Germany
- Asia (includes all Pacific islands)
- Australia
The following government types would exist:
- Democracy (as recognized by US Government and/or individual citizen, which makes it subjective)
- Regime (any non-democracy or not understood government)
The following religions/languages (relanguages ®) would exist:
- Christian/English
- Christian/European
- Jewish
- Muslim
- Eastern
- Native
With America's now longstanding position as the most powerful country in the world, most of its citizens simply do not care about the rest of the world. People are fine with using online translation tools and connection methods rather than in-person means by which to insult those from different cultures. As one American put it, "English is better than that Muslim language anyhow."
Renaming other countries so that our citizens can better interpret the world is not much different from retaining the standard system of measures rather than adopting metric. As a nation, Americans understand miles, pounds, and ounces. "Taking an inch would be like taking several tons of firearms from Americans," said Tina Butcher, who runs the weights and measures section of the National Institute of Standards and Technology along with her husband Ken, who together represent measurement royalty in America. And when I say tons, I mean standard American 2000 pound tons, not the non-American 2240 pound long ton or metric tons equaling 1000 kilograms. Kilos are for South American drug lords, not Americans."
Once Americans grasp where the Middle East is located, the fact that most countries there are Muslim in religion and language, and the fact that almost all of their governments are regimes, those Americans will be able to fruitfully discuss politics of the region with other interested parties, especially those from America. Once Wikipedia adds the new American categories to its articles, citizens will be able to better understand the information found on the website. "I can see a day," said Kerry, "when all Americans will not only be members of the most powerful country in the world but also understand why that is the case, at least at a very basic fourth-grade level."
Examples of classifications:
|
country |
Americanized region |
government |
relanguage ® |
|
Honduras, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador, Argentina, etc. |
South America |
regime |
Christian/European |
|
Angola, Ivory Coast, Nairobi, Zambia |
Southern Africa ('sub-saharan ') |
regime |
Native |
|
Thailand, China, India, Japan |
Asia |
regime |
Eastern |
|
Canada |
Canada |
democracy |
Christian/English |
|
Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Libya |
Northern Africa |
regime |
Muslim |