Savage

I was abroad and made plans to meet with few acquaintances.
They came along with a few of their friends
and among them was this guy

Our first meet up:

--"...and in your country, do you have paved roads?" -he said

--"No, we still dance naked around fire over there."

--"I wouldn’t be able to live in that kind of country, among those kind of people."

--"In every country there is always something good and something bad,
there are always some good people and some bad people.
Have you ever been in my country or do you know anyone from my country?"

--"No, but I have heard of all of the atrocities that your people did to that other people from that other country.
Tell me, how do you cope with all of those nasty things that you did?"

--"There are always two sides,
nothing in this world is black and white,
there are always two points of view,
two versions of the truth.

But those are heavy topics, let’s not go in there, let’s keep it light,
It’s better for all of us to go somewhere dancing and have some fun.

And let me give you some friendly advice, in the future,
if you ever come across some of my countrymen, don’t bring up those kind of topics,
I know my people and I think they wouldn’t be so chill about it as I am."

Our second meet up, pretty much the same crew:

--"I watched some documentary about all of the atrocities that your people did to that other people." -he said

--"And in that documentary, did you see also that it was a response to some other atrocities that those other people did to my people a little bit before?"

--"No."

--"I didn’t think so.

You don’t know the whole picture, and as I said to you before, there are always two sides,

and when you talk to members of my people about something we did,
we will always tell you it was response to something that they did,

and when you talk to members of that other people about something that they did,
they will always tell you it was response to something that we did.

And it can go on and on like that, it is one never ending circle,
but this is neither the time nor the place to talk about it."

At that point I thought I have finished that topic.

--But, your people did this and that, and this and that… -he kept going

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

The only thought that crossed my mind was:

Either this guy was very disrespectful,

Or he was so stupid not to know when to let it go,

Or his parents didn’t teach him how to behave,

Or he had mustered his courage because I was in his city among his people.

I said to myself:
“Ok, I can play that game too, I can be disrespectful also.”

So I started talking about his country,
and all of the fucked up things they did,
and very quickly the things became personal.

I was down with that kind of game.