There are no perfect analogous situations from real life were we could really compare their situation to ours, but think how ignorant the average person is about history. They want to paint the people of Ferrix as living a hard life, where there is little time to learn of their own history, let alone anything else, because they are always trying to make ends meet.
Trying to compare it with our recent past:
How many people in any of the coalition countries could tell you who the warring parties in Desert Storm were? Of those, how many could tell you who the leader of Iraq was or what religion the ruling party was? If they are far enough out on the rim, the Clone Wars might have been as inconsequential to Ferrix, as Desert Storm was to most coalition county citizens.
Maybe countries like Bolivia or Uganda (but more stable) would be a better example. So far out of the way that they don't really get touched during the bigger conflicts, and the majority of the people may not care about much, outside of their own local region (I think this is true for most places, really).