Person Asks Online “What Country Has The Craziest Rebranding Ever And Why?”, Gets 27 Responses
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." This is absolutely true, but this doesn't happen with countries. Some have oil or diamonds in their depths, some don't have access to the sea, and some have aggressive neighbors for a long time...
But what countries and people have in common is that just as any person can become a self-made one, rising from the very bottom to the top, or completely lose everything they had, a country can also make a real 180° turn - for both better and worse. And this viral thread in the AskReddit community is dedicated to such examples.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
Botswana. They went from the poorest and most uneducated country in Africa, to one of the richest and most modern. This was all largely due to the visionary first president that they had, Sir. Seretse Khama. They’ve had no civil wars, coups, nothing.
They also had strong free market policies, low regulation on businesses allowing them to thrive, no ant-white movement but rather welcomed the Whites who stayed behind to help build up the country (as they were the educated class under colonialism and had the skills to do the job), and more. It was smart economic policies as to why they are the most stable country in Africa.
Lithuania. They went from the misery of USSR to the best growing country in Europe. Nominal GDP grew 276% from 1990 and they are erasing all the Soviet architecture (or restoring it) in favor of modern infrastructures. Stunning
Japan. from isolationist nation, to naval superpower, to entertainment and electronic hub all in 150 years
Don't forget the horrors that they put their fellow Chinese, Malaysian, and Korean people through. The terrorizing of the Japanese government DEFIENTELY needs to be talked about when talking about the rebranding of Japan. They went from kidnapping, torturing, raping. degrading, and killing the women of the ethnicities I mentioned above to a anime powered country with TERRIBLE work conditions for minimum wage workers and cow ice cream machines.
More than thirty years ago, the famous American futurist Francis Fukuyama released his catchphrase book The End of History and the Last Man. It was 1992, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, China was confidently moving towards capitalism - and Fukuyama suggested that the spread of liberal democracy in the world was the pinnacle of the sociocultural evolution of humanity.
In other words, the 'end of history' in its traditional sense - with wars, spheres of influence, palace coups and ideological confrontations. It would be appropriate to insert some sarcastic meme here, but Fukuyama, to his credit, later emphasized once again that he was wrong. And recently he even said that he was too hasty in drawing conclusions.
Yes, the history of any country and state is a continuous chain of changes, for better or for worse. There are examples when, literally out of the blue, world hegemons rose up in a couple of decades, and prosperous, comfortable countries turned into something like Robert Rodriguez' 'Sin City'...
I might be wrong in this, but Iran? I saw some photos from Iran before the Islamic revolution, and it was shocking how modern and secular things seemed. Like this photo from blog. Women were wearing short skirts?? AND studying?
Until the U.S. engineered the 1953 coup that ousted Mohammad Mosaddeq, the last democratically elected Iranian leader. The U.S. then installed the Shah, who alienated Iranians, which led directly to the current suppressive Iranian clergy. You reap what you sow.
Biased, but Estonia. Former USSR. Lead the way of anything IT related for decades. We’ve had pretty much our whole life digital for decades. Nowadays some other countries are catching up, but E-stonia is cool.
I've seen photographs of Estonia and it looks quite beautiful.
Iceland. People 20-30 years older than me who worked in nursing homes would sometimes welcome people who’d literally lived their entire lives on a farm with grass roofs and no electricity. Went from a poor, isolated, extremely homogenous and unremarkable country to one of the best countries in the world by many if not most metrics in the span of a century.
My girlfriends grandmother grew up in a tiny village in the west fjords totally isolated from the world, no water, no electricity, they had to walk over the mountains to the next fjord if they wanted to go meet boys.
“In many ways, the development of countries is determined by economic factors - and their skillful use,” says Olga Kopylova, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at Odessa National Maritime University, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. “When demand appears, rapid development begins, and here it depends only on those in power how wisely the use of the wealth that has fallen on them will be.”
“For example, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the city of Manaus, deep in the Amazon forests, was one of the richest in the world - all because of the so-called 'rubber fever' mostly associated with the sharp increase in the number of cars in the world. However, the higher-ups there turned out to be not very far-sighted - and instead of investing in the infrastructure and the city's well-being, they chose to build luxurious villas, palaces and a even lavish opera house."
“It all ended as quickly as it began - new, more logistically convenient places for rubber production were found, and a significant part of the business in Manaus went bankrupt, and the era of prosperity lasted only a couple of decades,” Olga summarizes.
Ireland went from a very poor country to one of the richest (on paper) countries in the world
I swear, maybe 2 decades ago Finland was the most depressed country on the planet. There was even a news show about it. The people were unhappy and not accustomed to making eye contact and had a high rate of depression.
Today, somehow, they are the happiest most well-adjusted people on Earth.
Germany, no explanation needed
Hitler's rise to power was enabled by the massively punitive terms of the Armistice of The Great War (WW1). The wealthy and their greed caused the Great Depression, which was far worse in Germany than in the U.S. The resulting calamity brought down the Weimar Republic and resulted in the emergence of the Nazis.
It is quite possible that the leaders of the countries of the Middle East, fabulously rich thanks to their oil and gas deposits, know the lessons of history and understand that this situation will not continue forever. And now they are trying to change the structure of their income by investing money around the world. Well, not all efforts end successfully - for example, the widely publicized Saudi Pro League in soccer, although it attracts superstars like Cristiano Ronaldo, does not look like a full-fledged business and sport project. But the approach as a whole is quite understandable and pretty much reasonable.
Singapore. Wasn't too long ago that they were so poorly thought of that Malaysia dumped them. These guys did the revenge bod thing to their economy and voila! World's most powerful passport.
Cleanest place I've ever visited! And they have ZERO tolerance for drugs.
Maybe not the craziest ever but Switzerland going from "who wants to hire mercenaries?" to "we don't participate in any war" is quite amusing.
Keep telling yourself that. They’re still holding on to Nazi resources that were stolen and are not exactly covering themselves in glory when it comes to Ukraine. Not to mention sheltering money for every despot and dictator across the world.
Britain: our monarchy once owned most of the globe. now they’re a tourist attraction.
As for longer historical periods, yes, the Vikings, who once brought fear to all of Europe, after a thousand years have turned into sedate and respectable Norwegians (by the way, the so-called “Oil Fund” of Norway is another one, much more justified from a business point of view, approach to investing money earned from oil trading), and the Swiss mercenaries, once the desired goal of any medieval commander, are a thing of the past, giving way to one of the most peaceful and well-off states of the modern world...
El Salvador went from having one of the highest murder rates in the world to the lowest in the western hemisphere in two years. Their president basically declared war on gangs and pushed himself through as a dictator in order to get it done.
Australia: Has gone from an egalitarian paradise where working class people had the best quality of life in the world to a two-tier s**t show based on whether you own property. Has had such a huge redistribution of wealth to the top that for the first time young people are looking to migrate to countries such as Japan and Italy for affordable housing.
Mongolia went from ruling a large portion of the world to not mattering too much.
Perhaps, in any country one can find examples of similar, effective or not-so-effective “state rebranding”, which has changed not only its perception in the world, but also, to a significant extent, the mentality of its citizens. And if you also have your own ideas about similar cases from world history - please feel free to share your opinion in the comments below.
Surprised Turkey with Kemalist reforms has not been brought up.
In the 1920s/1930s went from the late medieval Ottoman Empire to a secular state with full language & alphabet reform, abolishing the caliphate, giving women right to vote, adopting last names, adopting modern Western clothing, increased literacy & education.
Czechoslovakia went from existing to getting occupied by germany and splitting to getting together again only to be occupied by soviets to get freedom to splitting again while also changing name everytime that happened, also they did all that in 75 years
Yes. There was that whole liberating Czechoslovakia from the Nazis in 1945, then coming back in 1968 to liberate Czechoslovakia from liberation, thing.
China also had a crazy rebrand. From imperial dynasties of different warlords, to collapse, then communist revolution, then opening up a bit to the world... and now they're essentially hypercapitalist with a communist dictatorship. Talk about versatility!
South Korea. Sansung, LG, Hyundai, Kia, etc. have all been around for decades, but a generation ago, their products were seen as cheap, mediocre knock-offs of their Japanese counterparts (remember the flammable Excels?) Now, certainly for electronics and hi-tech items, they have outdone them (except maybe when it comes to video game systems for which Japan has always maintained the edge). And no one makes fun of Korean cars anymore.
South Africa. From officially unequal, racially segregated, fascist, white supremacist state to pluralistic, inclusive democracy. The transition, which was remarkably peaceful, was 30-35 years ago and while the country is far from perfect with plenty if problems, it still functions and has to some degree stayed true to Mandela's vision. Who else knows they were the first country to officially protect sexual orientation in their constitution?
Vietnam. The communists "won", and yet 15 years later Vietnam was one of the most capitalist countries in the world. Now all your textiles and furniture is made there.
Perhaps "communist" was just a label they adopted to get help from Russia and China to kick out the colonialist French and then the U.S. When you've been invaded by colonizers you'll do whatever you have to do to get your country back. And, of course, if you intend to establish a dictatorship any old label will do.
Rwanda - from genocide 30 years ago to one of the cleanest, safest cities I’ve ever been to.
India went from the largest producer of goods with the richest province and royal family in the world in 1700 to a broke nation that was a buyer of goods by 1857. That was a reversal of over 3000 years of history lol.
Not a country, but Mexico City - from a “dangerous area” to the biggest hotspot of food, culture, design, fashion, etc
For a country, probably Croatia, although Serbia is coming up too
I still find Saudi Arabia attempts wild
Attempts at what? Saudi Arabia was one of the first places settled after homo sapiens left Africa. Numerous caliphates, dynasties, etc. Islam was founded here. The Saudi Arabia we know today came about in 1932. It is an absolute monarchy with everything going through the king.
The Vikings were the ISIS of their time. The Iberian peninsula was involved in a centuries old war with the moors to the south yet when vikings raids started happening someone wrote in some manuscript "the enemy that comes from the north is even worse than our enemy to the south", something like that. Making the Vikings look "cool", touristic and marketable always sounded to me like a great marketing trick.
"Welcome to the land of the Vikings!"
Ohh hell no!
I'm joking on that last part, been to Norway and Denmark, love both countries.
New Zealand. International money laundering hub, internally run by a coalition of classic European blokes and South American gangs, supported by a legal system adapted to enabling coverups in advance. Rebranded as milk and apples. On which they’d have you believe an island with no mineral resources can run a first world economy and lots and lots of [substances].
I'm pretty sure OP has got New Zealand mixed up with a another - much smaller - Pacific country. There is simply too much factually wrong here. Starting with NZ comprising two main islands, not one. Both with extensive mineral resources, and producing primary produce for the better part of 200 years. On the plus side, the picture is of the capital, Wellington. The lack of smoke indicating that the picture was taken during a rare break between civil wars and military coups.
Austria managed to make people believe that Hitler was from Germany and that Beethoven was from Austria.
Yep, best "free agent" trade in non-sports history for Austria.
Load More Replies...
Not seeing the United States of America on this list. But they were seen as so rich and grand for a very long time. Now they are facing the very real threat of the end of their government as they know it, and would be hard-pressed to claim they are not a third-world country with the quantity and degree of poverty among the less-lucky 50%.
Venezuela sure took a dive thanks to super corrupt politicians and government.
So true! Venezuela was one of (or maybe just) the riches country in South America before...well...we know what happened. In 15 years the country became totally unrecognisable. So sad!
Load More Replies... Austria managed to make people believe that Hitler was from Germany and that Beethoven was from Austria.
Yep, best "free agent" trade in non-sports history for Austria.
Load More Replies... Not seeing the United States of America on this list. But they were seen as so rich and grand for a very long time. Now they are facing the very real threat of the end of their government as they know it, and would be hard-pressed to claim they are not a third-world country with the quantity and degree of poverty among the less-lucky 50%.
Venezuela sure took a dive thanks to super corrupt politicians and government.
So true! Venezuela was one of (or maybe just) the riches country in South America before...well...we know what happened. In 15 years the country became totally unrecognisable. So sad!
Load More Replies...