Wednesday, August 10, 2011

What countries is the czech republic friends with?

This is rather more complicated question than it seems. Regarding the official politics the Czech Rep. has a friendly approach to all nations especially the EU which it is part of. In this regard it mostly follows the official international politics of the European Union. Now what the people think is other question and there is a significant difference in generations as well. The relationships with Germany are a long term issue and due to significant history events (especially WWII) the majority of older (especially retired) people in the Czech Rep doesn't like the Germans. Doesn't matter if former East or West. Challenging relationships do the Czechs have with Austria as well. There are two main reasons to it. In the history Czechs were a part of the Austria-Hungary Empire and let's put it simply ... weren't excited about it at all. Today there is an issue with the Czech Nuclear Power Plant Temelin. The Austrians are strongly against it and the Czechs don't seem to care much about Austrians' opinion. Czechs are very close to Slovaks. As the matter of fact there are still more and more Slovak workers coming to Czech to work and live. Thank God for them, because the Czech number of population is falling and these workers are very welcome. Quite good relations have the Czech have with Poland as well. For some reason Czech and Polish people do not quite come along once they meet in the USA. Younger generations are generally more open than the older folks in Czech and have many relationships with other Nations. (Especially in Europe) The Czech-German tensions seem to belong to the history. I've been living in Stuttgart for few years and found some of best friends ever and this is not just my experience. The Czechs sometimes just don't know how to handle culturally different immigration, which is rising lately. The only minority with a really different living style that has been living in Czech over the communism are the Gypsies. The communists have tried to stop them from migrating by putting them into cities and suburban areas and forced them to exchange their free life style for free housing .... Until today they don't seem to be used to it. Many Gypsy children are even now being put into special cles for mentally challenged, because they are not as prepared for school as the most white children are. But it's rather a question of living standards and family approach than the intelligence capacities of course. It is a shame. .... Relationships with Russia are quite interesting as well due to the 1968 (so called Prague Spring) military intervention and "grabbing" Czechoslovakia for the Eastern Block ... That's how people feel, officially it's O.K. It kind of little froze after the US Patriot System Radar issue, but generally it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Relationships between CZ and the USA are since the 1989 Velvet Revolution very good. The Czechs don't like much the Idea of being a part of anything. (first the Austria-Ungary, later the Communism with significant Russian involvement, now the EU) But the Czechs do not seem to be able to take care of their internal issues efficiently. There is a significant corruption among the government which seems to be inherited from the "old days". You might as well find interesting that Czechoslovakia was among the first countries to recognize the state of Israel.

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