Tuesday, April 04, 2023

Is Ukraine's War our War?

The Dutch broadcaster VPRO argues that for many Dutch people the war in Ukraine feels like 'our' war. This therefore raises the question of who 'we' are. VPRO suggests that living in the Netherlands means you are Dutch, European, a member of NATO and a member of the 'free West'. All of which could make the Russian invasion of Ukraine feel more like 'our' war. 

However identity is a very personal matter and VPRO wanted to know exactly where Dutch people feel the border between 'us' and 'them' exists. The broadcaster therefore asked its readers to draw where they think the border between us and them is located on an interactive map.

In Us Against Them you can draw an outline on an interactive map to show exactly where you think this us and them border exists. Once you have drawn on the map you can see the results of all the other responses by VPRO's readers. As you can see from the screenshot above a lot of respondents seem to have drawn a rough border around Europe. Many other respondents have drawn a rough border around the Netherlands and (if you zoom out you can see) a reasonably large number of respondents have drawn a border around all the countries of the world. 

If you want to carry out your own map survey similar to VPRO's Us Against Them you can remix my Where is Texas map on Glitch. Just click on the fish icon on this map and select the 'Remix' option. You can then create your own version of the map  (although you do need a Mapbox access token).

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