Ex-communist Europe
Eastern approaches
Christmas videographic
Emoticon diplomacy ;-)
Dec 23rd 2010, 11:45 by E.L and P.W
LIKES and dislikes in Europe form a baffling thicket of justified grudges, hoary prejudices and tragic misunderstandings. Expressing the subtleties of all this is hard, even in the most elaborate historical and geographical paradigms. So rather than making things complicated and super-serious, we thought we'd try using the simplest of all lexicons: the emoticons that add life to the telegraphic language of text messages. Following the success of our map of how Europe should be (also available in animated form), our end-of-year videographic presents the old problems of the European continent in a novel form. Enjoy—and please remember on this occasion that this newspaper's tongue is firmly in its collective Christmas cheek
About Eastern approaches
Eastern approaches deals with the economic, political, security and cultural aspects of the eastern half of the European continent. It incorporates the long-running "Europe.view" weekly column. The blog is named after the wartime memoirs of the British soldier Sir Fitzroy Maclean.
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Readers' comments
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Great video!
The are so many links in the continent to explore and to provide explanations.
Excellent idea and hopefully more such works will follow.
Merry Christmas!
my regards
Cegorach
Very nice!
Although I think that part about the Austrians and the Czechs getting along well is a bit stretched, given the recent history of petty squabbles over nuclear power plants and certain post-WW2 developments. Paradoxically, our relations with Germany may be a bit better now, when even the Bavarian government stopped ignoring our existence.
But this is nitpicking really; by world standards the relations between the Czech Rep. and all its neighbours are excellent. Let it stay that way :-)
This video made my day! Fantastic!
I played it once more and again I laughed at the point where Russia (portrayed as the Devil) is hypnotizing Germany. Priceless! :-)
I love these maps! Fun, yet so true. Keep 'em comin'!
Russia is also hypnotizing France and Italy.
Very nice. Good old english antirussian stereotype works as usual.
Dis videyo is actually quite edukashunal.
The lesson of british arrogance.
LOL the Economicst doesn't miss the opportunity to show us how British establishment thinks. Note how Russia is the devil and Ukraine is a pirate :p Surprised they left Belarus be.
For some reason this video will just not play for me.
@susan_sto_helit
“how British establishment thinks. Note how Russia is the devil and Ukraine is a pirate.”
Right, normally they should make some hefty business with the devil like Germany/France/Italy do and turn a blind eye to the devil’s pirate.
Instead of making billions, they post biased videos in their biased magazines. Man, that’s so immature.
Priceless reminder of the irrelevance of the Netherlands in this century and the last.
Complicated politics explained with a few simple words of history. Excellent!
I don't think Hungary and Romania are on such good terms as described in the video.
McArrow:
"Good old english antirussian stereotype works as usual."
So good that it's not just English anymore: other Europeans have finally learnt something from good old England.
Stereotype? When so many people tell you you're drunk, go take a nap even if you haven't had anything to drink for... whole two days!
It won't play on my computer.
Very funny video, but not entirely true. Hungary and Romania are not in good terms as shown, and the majority of the Moldavian people don't feel patronized by the increasing Romanian influence in place of the Russian dominance. They actually enjoy it.
won't play on mine either
This Economist video crap only works in Internet Explorer. I just checked: IE - works, Firefox and Chrome ( on the very same comp ) does not work.
Economist, do you realize that IE currently has 46% market share and keeps falling? ( source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers , the 46% is an average of estimates by three independent agencies with one giving it as low as 40% )
You're effectively cutting off 54% of viewers!