Monday, July 16, 2007

Americans being interviewed about our world -- Funny? Frightening? Arrggghhhhh!

An Australian reporter interviews Americans on their general knowledge of the world, and issues of peace and conflict:



How many Eiffel towers in Paris? Where was the Berlin Wall? What is the religion of Buddhist monks? Kofi Annan is a drink -- true or false? Who should be invaded next? The language they speak in Latin America is Latin - true or false?

3 comments:

Damon Lynch said...

Gandhi was a serious man but he had a lively sense of humour! Goodness!

AFRICAN LIZ said...

Hello Damon I came across your Buganda dancers photos on Pbase and would like to use the images in my website. I am currently working on a website that will provide a much more organized forum providing information on Africa (much better than the current blog). Africa is a continent many people are ominously misguided about. It is my hope that the website i am working on will stir curiosity and eagerness amongst the global community to learn more about the African continent.

As for the first commentator, I think your assumptions by clustering the individuals interviewed into uneducated/poor/working class bracket is erroneous. One does not need to attend an educational institution so as to have matters appertaining to global affairs pontificated to him/her.I am currently a graduate student living in New York and you will find a large constituent of educated Americans who have no iota of what the rest of the world is like. For example when you ask the educated elite about Africa I am appalled to learn that to some Africa is country, with no demarcated national territorial boundaries. There seems to be an attitude of 'the sun rises and sets in america' To top it all the current president who has Ivy education Yale and Harvard was green on issues in the global arena. I still think in my opinion he is even more today naive of the world outside America. But let me not belabour the point. The video, though amusing, is simply a testament to the fact that a country with all the resources available to them aka world economic super power is unable to aggressively set up initiatives to educate its citizens eg through local media forums etc

pitonyak said...

My guess is that there are literally thousands of Eiffel towers in Paris. I would also guess that almost all of them were made in China!

Based on my experience in Israel, My guess is that the predominant religion is either atheist or non-practicing Jew.

They should have asked even more interesting questions like "should we remove woman's suffrage" or "should we ban Dihydrogen monoxide because it kills at least 6000 people every year in the US alone".