“The history of old Russia… was that she was ceaselessly beaten for her backwardness. She was beaten by the Mongol Khans, she was beaten by Turkish Beys, she was beaten by Swedish feudal lords, she was beaten by Polish-Lithuanian Pans, she was beaten by Anglo-French capitalists, she was beaten by Japanese barons, she was beaten by all - for her backwardness…”
There’s nothing special about the Russian people, or Russian culture. Nothing is happening now that hasn’t happened hundreds or thousands of times throughout human history, from and by just about every ethnic group and nationality that has ever lived. Threads like this aren’t special either, and IMO contribute a teeny tiny bit to the kind of nationalistic and xenophobic sentiment criticized in the OP. Just another way in which it’s so easy to become what one abhors.
Slava Ukraine, and I hope desperately they win this war, and we should do everything we can short of entering the war to help them. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything especially bad about the Russian people. This is just run of the mill warmongering (and propagandizing, manipulating, etc.). It’s the decades of peace in Europe that has been unusual, not this war.
I can certainly identify with this. Not with Russians, specifically — I’ve met a fair number of them, in both personal and professional contexts (before I came to Europe, I was, like Atamasama, from the Seattle area). I found among them a variety of characters and natures, so I have enough personal experience to break the generalization. Don’t get me wrong, I loathe Russian leadership, and I’m disgusted by the numerous failings of modern Russian culture, but the people who escaped did so for their individual reasons, and I’ve encountered enough counter-examples that I don’t stereotype.
But Serbs, now … Serbs are a different story for me. Every single one I’ve ever met — at work or elsewhere, in Europe or back in the US, man or woman — has, without exception, been some flavor of belligerent asshole. Make a checklist of unpleasant traits: arrogant, dishonest, shallowly materialistic, rude, sexist, and on and on … every Serb with whom I’ve had personal contact has checked several if not most of the boxes. One of them is married to a woman who has been a longtime friend of my wife, and he’s one of those chauvinist dickholes who comes home from work and plops himself on the couch for five hours of sports television while his wife, who also works, handles dinner and the kids through to their bedtime without any help from him. Oh, and he’s also an angry drunk.
Not one of them has fallen into the category of the disillusioned Russian émigré as mentioned above, either. None of the Serbs I’ve ever worked with gave any indication that they left their country seeking a better life in contrast to the deficiencies of their homeland. To a one, they said, sometimes in exactly these words, that they had brought their superior Slavic intellect and work ethic to exploit their Western employer and dominate their inferior colleagues, extracting a shitload of money which they would then take back to Serbia and use to live like royalty. And they did not hesitate to manipulate their co-workers, browbeat lower-ranking staff, and maliciously steal credit and shift blame in their tireless pursuit of success.
I’m sure there are Serbians who aren’t like this, because statistics say there have to be. And there’s probably some confirmation bias happening, in which I’ve met someone from Serbia but didn’t know it, so I can’t include them in the sample. There might even be some on this board. And, to be completely clear, I want a counter-example. I do not like knowing I carry this pre-judgement. I don’t enjoy the awareness that when I meet a Serb, I instantly assume the worst about them. I actively hope that they will prove themselves the exception, and I give them the opportunity to break my bias.
But up to this point? Nope. Without fail, they live down to my expectations.
So, instead, I just enjoy how Europe keeps stringing Serbia along in its long-pending application to join the EU, letting them and their Russia-light macho-nationalist neighbor-threatening attitude twist slowly in the wind. And I chuckle in delight as that delusional dipshit Novak Djokovic torches his career, sending millions of Serbs into futile fits of frothing fury over the imagined persecution of their national athletic hero.
I’m not proud of any of this. But it’s the truth.
If you think this is “just run of the mill warmongering” you can’t have been paying attention. To begin with, it was completely unprovoked, with not even a credible pretense of a justification. And it has been deliberately targeting large numbers of civilians, including women and children, attacking hospitals and childrens’ shelters and apartment buildings. It has been visiting these atrocities upon these innocents motivated in part by relentless Russian propaganda that Ukrainians are sub-human and must be exterminated. This is not “run of the mill warmongering”, it’s large-scale genocide.
Yes, it’s large-scale genocide, completely unprovoked, morally reprehensible, disgusting, murderous, etc. Run of the mill warmongering. Those things are not in conflict. Most of human history is abominable.
My point is not to downplay this war (it’s nearly as bad as it gets, even if “nearly as bad as it gets” is very common), but to pull back from this tendency towards bigotry. The Russian people are not special – not especially good nor especially bad. They’re just people, and this is war, which is a very common state for modern humans.
And we should help Ukraine win this unjust war to the very limit without starting WWIII.
How is this thread not literally hate speech?
(I don’t care: fuck those guys)
I marvel at the Russian cultural tolerance for naked nepotism and corruption.
Since Putin comfortably won every election he ever ran in (he cheated in them because he’s Russian/ those folks can’t help themselves) I really don’t differentiate between Putin and Russia.
And I really hate Putin.
Yes. Putin is to Russia what Kim Jong-un is to North Korea. The country is just a big puppet show for him.
So you keep saying. In how many wars has their been a general global consensus agreeing with the explicit statement by the President of the United States that the perpetrator is a war criminal? Is it routine for the International Criminal Court to investigate widespread war crimes, as they are in fact doing in this situation (with Putin specifically being the focus of the investigation)?
Sure, there have been war crimes allegations before, such as against the Nazis. And they were duly tried and convicted at Nuremberg. This is no less an atrocity than some of what the Nazis did when they invaded Europe. All wars are horrible, but there are degrees of criminality and sheer evil, and degrees of scale of such criminality. This is not a “run of the mill” war.
I’m with you on the Serbians. Those I’ve met don’t give the human race a good name.
Most of the Russians I’ve met have either been in high energy physics or part of the the Jewish diaspora (my own grandmother was from Odessa), and I think both of those are not good to generalize from.
The global response, and media attention, have definitely been far from run of the mill. But the war itself? I see little difference in level of immorality, atrocities, etc, than the dozens (hundreds?) of other wars of the last three quarters of a century in Africa, the Middle East, southeast Asia, and elsewhere.
The biggest difference is that most of those wars didn’t have white people as the victims of aggression - hence the media attention and global response was very, very different.
Horrible, disgusting, atrocious? Yes. Run of the mill? Yes. Most of those wars were similarly reprehensible, similarly disgusting, etc. This war isn’t special, though it’s getting the attention and condemnation that most of these other wars should have gotten over these decades.
My uncle married a woman from Russia that he met online. She moved here from Russia with her teenage son and married my uncle. Their English is quite good. They seem perfectly normal - in that nothing seems “overtly Russian” about them. He’s a typical broody young person that spends a lot of time locked in his room chatting with his friends from back home, and goes to college. She is exactly like my uncle, a super awkward, nerdy nature lover who absolutely adores going on long hikes. My uncle has always been frugal but she is even more frugal and we marvel at her ability to out-frugal him. I’ve never heard her or her son disparage America. They’re definitely not over-doing it with the “I love America!” stuff (probably because they’re not materialistic), but they also generally don’t disparage Russia. We just talk about the difference sometimes. Other than her going back to Russia a couple times for dental procedures (she still has citizenship so she gets it for free), and noting that she prefers the cost of health care in Russia, she seems to prefer living in America.
I haven’t had an opportunity to talk to my aunt about it, but from what I’ve gleaned from a couple texts with my uncle she is no fan of Putin.
I truly feel bad for the people of Russia and how they’re being bamboozled by the government with regards to the war in Ukraine. I very much believe the same tactics being used to fool Russians was used by Russia to fool the people of the US about Trump. I don’t feel bad for the Americans who were fooled, though, as their news wasn’t [technically] state sponsored.
Anyway, I only know two Russians and they are totally fine.
I’ll tick a few “against the ethos of the SDMB” boxes and offer this – West Wing – about 45 seconds:
They look like us. Their towns look like some of ours. Many of them speak English extremely well. Many of us do have direct connections to that part of the world (two of my G-Grands were from Odessa area, another was from Bessarabia).
My mother is visiting. She, like me, is horrified by all of this. We talk about it at length. Maybe the Russian oligarchs can be squeezed until Putin’s money falls out. Maybe there are more sanctions to be wielded. Maybe Europe can and will immediately stop buying Russian oil/gas and deal with the pain somehow (?).
Maybe the Russian people … will … what ? Vote Putin out ? I don’t think many believe he was ever voted in. Rise up against their government ? I think he still has a million person national guard equivalent. I doubt he’d hesitate to slaughter his citizens wholesale.
Inside job ? We can hope.
Russia tested an ICBM, creating yet another gentle reminder that He Could. But Would He ? IDFK. I can’t imagine how many Western analysts are arguing ad nauseum before coming to what kind of consensus that’s briefed to the POTUS about probabilities and Putin’s state of mind.
And what kind of ‘confidence level’ do they tell Biden that they have ?
It gives new and foreboding meaning to the term Russian roulette, and – as we all keep saying – the stakes are unimaginably high.
If/when we ever get this thing under control, we should try to get about 175 countries to all join NATO.
Some problems are so consequential and insoluble that there is only prevention.
And somehow … we don’t seem to learn.
Though I also don’t know how you prevent any of these authoritarian leaders from taking large swaths of humanity hostage.
Yeah. This sucks.
ETA: This probably wasn’t the right thread for this one either – yet another box ticked. Mea culpa.
I could swear you were talking about someone else in this post. Every word fits like a peel on an Orange.
Yeah, I hate to say it but genocide isn’t all that uncommon. In my lifetime (I was born in '77) we’ve had genocides in Indonesia, Uganda, Guatemala, Kamupchea, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Zaire, Congo, the Islamic State, and Myanmar prior to what’s going on in the Ukraine. There has pretty much not been a time in my 45 years on this planet that there hasn’t been a genocide going on somewhere in the world. The only thing is, you don’t hear about it every day.
This might be it. The other reason might be because it’s Russia doing it, and Russia is huge, and has been a threat to the major nations of the world for a long time. It’s like hearing dogs fighting frequently, and you cluck your tongue about it, but once the bear starts roaring you pay attention.
I don’t think any of the previous genocides I mentioned were performed by a country with nuclear weapons, for example. (I could be wrong.)
That is because you did not mention Chechnya or Xinjiang. But there were even more genocides in your lifetime than the ones you mention: Cambodia, Bangladesh, Darfur (ongoing!), East Timor, Irak and Rohingya figure prominently on this list, but it goes on and on…
Rather than trying to read racial motivations into the media coverage, maybe a more obvious reason is the more general notion that Ukrainians are relatable – that is, they are like us in ways other than just being “white”: they are a relatively advanced industrialized society, a successful democracy with many values in common with the West, and despite challenges and unrest fomented by Russia, managed over time to build a beautiful country in harmony with its natural beauty and rich farmlands. As CNN recently put it in a photo essay, “Ukraine’s cities once were beautiful. Now they are rubble”.
That is Kampuchea.
I thought I put Sudan, my mistake.
I mentioned Indonesia.
I mentioned Myanmar.
I mentioned Iraq, what is Irak?
OK, I see. But my first sentence still stands: nuclear powers have commited genocides in the recent past and we let then get away with it. Now one of those, emboldened by our inaction, is commiting another one.
Genocide? Really? Which nuclear power has committed Genocide?
Anyway. We have not been in ‘inaction’. But it is tricky and we don’t want to go into shooting war with a nuclear superpower headed by an ego-maniac. Lots can go wrong and end up costing millions of lives and making certain regions uninhabitable for who knows how long.
The 1944 deportation of Chechens and Ingushetians by Stalin was officially recognized as genocide.
However, they were not at that point in possession of nuclear weapons; I believe their first nuclear weapons test was in 1949.
The more recent attacks against Chechnya have not been recognized as genocide as far as I know. They might be called genocide as a matter of opinion.
As far as China goes, the actions against the Uyghurs have been called genocide by some governments, including the United States, Canada, the UK, and France (among others). Others have called them crimes against humanity. China does have nuclear weapons, so that certainly seems to apply.