this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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[–] Lauchs 5 points 3 days ago (68 children)

I take it folks saw the phrase cancel culture and downvoted?

It's actually a fascinating article. Odessa has been at the intersection of Ukraine and Russia for ages. Lots of Russian speakers who resisted Russia etc. But as the invasion goes on, people are being attacked for speaking Russian, statues of Odessa's most famous people torn down etc. And you can kind of see where both sides are coming from.

It's an issue I imagine almost none of us knew or thought about, if not for the phrase "cancel culture" why on Earth are we downvoting it?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (54 children)

Nah, it's because the article is bullshit.

The "kind of see where both sides are coming from" is de facto support for russian genocidal imperialism.

We don't need Pushkin statues, we have our own artists and our own heroes.

Getting rid of russian language and russian "culture" is a legitimate aim when your country has suffered multiple genocides and centuries of colonialism. Russian culture is trash and has no value. It's like saying Islamic state culture is legitimate. Would you be opposed to getting rid of Nazis imagery too?

This is just the economist's version of teenage edgelord posts. I would like to invite the author and their family to Donbas (this is where me and my family or from), we'll see what he thinks about Pushkin after that.

[–] Lauchs -5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Except the Ukrainians in Odessa who speak Russian and feel they are Ukranian, fuck those people.

Odessa is not Donbas, it's a unique impressive area with its own history.

Edit: By I can see both sides, I mean I get the Ukranian fury at Russia etc. But I also understand that the people of Odessa have their own version of what being Ukranian is and means.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Ukrainians (in Odessa or anywhere really) are welcome to use russian (or Gujarati) in private. In the public sphere, the official language is Ukrainian.

I am aware that Odessa is not Donbas. What are you even trying to say?

Your waxing poetical about the russian nature of Odessa just like most russians (not only nationalists, you ever hear this from the alleged opposition).

Fundamentally it is not for you or (or the russians) to decide what the official language is in Ukraine, how we name our streets and how we choose to deal with centuries of russian imperialism.

For you this is purely a theoretical discussion. The reality of the matter is that russian language and culture are a tool of russian genocidal imperialism (just look at the state of say the Komi language, if you even know that such a language exists). To fight russian genocidal imperialism, you need to get rid of russian insignia and russian chauvinist, slave-mentality thinking. And yes, this also means recognizing that Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine and that we have our our great artists and heroes.

[–] Lauchs -1 points 2 days ago

I'd strongly suggest actually reading the article.

[–] FlyingSquid -4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But I also understand that the people of Odessa have their own version of what being Ukranian is and means.

You could have said the same thing about Southern Confederates in the U.S. in the 1860s. They don't get to have their own version anymore.

[–] Lauchs 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Are you actually comparing Odessa to the Confederates? That's a real decision you're making?

Edit: trying to understand this take... Are you perhaps confused and thinking Odessa is part of Russia?

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I'm saying that when your country is invaded, worrying about respecting the people who's culture is the same as the invader's is a great way to get a bunch of fifth columnists. And I'm not sure why you're not aware of that. Similarly, despite the many British people of German heritage, in 1939, their "unique British-German culture" was not relevant and was not respected and should not have been.

[–] Lauchs 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This was the rationale behind America's Japanese internment camps, which in my opinion, weren't great.

[–] FlyingSquid -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean there's a happy medium between not allowing things like allowing them to openly celebrate Russian stuff and putting them in internment camps...

[–] Lauchs 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To be clear, you think Japanese Americans shouldn't have been allowed to speak Japanese anymore?

How long should this have persisted?

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I never even came close to suggesting any such thing.

[–] Lauchs 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's a chunk of what the article is about. That's one of the main things...

What do you think the article is about?

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I thought we were trying to define what counts as genocide, not what this article is about. Which are we doing?

[–] Lauchs 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

None of the above? Are you getting confused between comment threads?

You said:

I’m saying that when your country is invaded, worrying about respecting the people who’s culture is the same as the invader’s is a great way to get a bunch of fifth columnists. And I’m not sure why you’re not aware of that. Similarly, despite the many British people of German heritage, in 1939, their “unique British-German culture” was not relevant and was not respected and should not have been.

Which I pointed out was the same logic behind Japanese internment camps.

Everything else had been about the article, including speaking Russian in Odessa. I think you're arguing genocide on another thread?

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

None of the above?

Okay, so if we're neither talking about what counts as genocide or the article then this part makes no sense:

Everything else had been about the article

Which is it?

[–] Lauchs 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Are you high?

Just read the comment thread, pay attention to usernames.

No idea where you're getting genocide from my comments.

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You have no idea where I'm getting genocide from your comments about Japanese internment camps? Really?

[–] Lauchs 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

America committed genocide in the internment camps?

Christ, I have way better things to do than fight over definitions with someone with too much time on their hands.

... Though, I will say I have no idea why you'd want to take that position. As you're on the side that's trying to extinguish a culture (the Russian Ukranians in Odessa, which again, is what the article is about. Just read the dang thing.)

Have a good New Years eve!

[–] FlyingSquid 0 points 2 days ago

America committed genocide in the internment camps?

Yes. Putting people in concentration camps because of their ethnicity is genocide. That is not my definition. In fact, it's what the people who literally were there called it.

https://www.nbcboston.com/celebrating-aapi-heritage/professor-shares-painful-memories-of-japanese-interment-camps-to-avoid-repeating-history/3051845/

But I suppose they wouldn't know any better or they deserved it or something, right?

[–] Ginja -2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

That's literally calling for genocide? You're telling a peoples (who are the victims of an invasion) that they cannot have their own culture because it's similar to an invaders?

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No. It literally is not calling for genocide any more than it would be calling for genocide to say that the French should stop teaching kids German in school in Alasace-Lorraine before the Nazis invaded.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Dude France is guilty of serial ethnocide when it comes to languages. Dialectal variation was stamped out, too. No French school taught anything but French at that time, or really ever, and eradication of German was prioritised just as Breton was. Prior German rule was way more even-handed, with French being co-official in French-speaking regions, Nazi rule was as you'd expect, post-war the French continued their policy until 1990. They still haven't ratified the ECRML.

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But I am not talking about post-war. That's a different issue. A treaty was signed. Hostilities were over. France wasn't at risk from a fifth column anymore. If the war is over and Ukraine continues this policy, I will change my mind, but this is what is happening during a hot war while they are being invaded by Russians.

Is the Ukraine banning of the Russian Orthodox church a horrible genocidal act too, despite the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church literally blesses Russian nuclear weapons and has ceremonies where they throw holy water on the troops going out to kill Ukrainians?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The Moscow Patriarchate is a direct Kremlin asset. If you ask Constantinople they have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Ukraine in the first place, the Kyiv Patriarchate does.

Pushkin isn't such an asset, the Kremlin can't tell anyone how to read him and problematise his stance towards Ukrainian rebellion against the Tsar, just as it's possible to read Kant, problematise his racism, and still get lots of value out of it (especially since racism is incompatible with Kantian ethics).

The Russian language also isn't such an asset, the Kremlin can't tell people how to use it, and for what it's worth the Ukrainian army is to a large degree operating in Russian. Are you proposing that units switch to a language the soldiers aren't proficient in? Plenty of Russian-speaking soldiers were born before independence they didn't even learn Ukrainian in school, if born after, they might've flunked the subject.

Pushkin statutes? More complicated. For now I'd say put them into storage or build a box around them so that people don't have to look at them and talk about it after the war, right now the required nuance is a distraction so kick it down the road. Maybe the solution is to move them into a library.

Also FWIW Ukraine did ratify the ECRML. Russian is among 17 recognised minority languages. Being a native Russian speaker and being Ukrainian has never been incompatible, heck Zelensky is one of them. The purported ethnic conflict is a Kremlin narrative. Are we supposed to cancel "Servant of the people" (the series) because it's mostly Russian. Playlist with ENGSUB btw I highly recommend it.

[–] Ginja 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yes, without a doubt denying children their cultural language and customs is a form of ethnocide/genocide.

[–] FlyingSquid -3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Not teaching it in school isn't the same as denying it. No country teaches every language spoken at home in schools.

I suppose if the U.S. invaded Mexico and Mexico banned the U.S. cultural enclaves that had arisen there from celebrating July 4th, that would also be genocide?

Seems like genocide is not all that horrific in your view.

[–] jordanlund 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Article II of the genocide convention has 5 definitions, any one of the five is enough for it to be called a genocide:

https://iccforum.com/genocide-convention

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Attempting to eliminate a culture by restricting it's beliefs, teachings, or language would fall under (c). This is precisely what was done in the US and Canada with "Indian Schools" for example, and partially is what is being done to the Uyghurs in China, although they are also being subjected to (a), (b), (d) and (e) as well.

[–] FlyingSquid -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Indian Schools were boarding schools that forced kids to use English. That is not the same.

I gave two scenarios here: Public schools not teaching Russian in Ukraine and a hypothetical scenario where the very real American enclaves in Mexico were prevented from celebrating U.S. independence day if Mexico were invaded and asked if those were genocide. Neither of them fit that list and yet I have been told the former is genocide and, despite three responses, the latter has yet to be even responded to.

So I will ask both again, rephrasing one of them:

  1. There are lots of Chinese-Americans in the U.S. If no U.S. public school taught Mandarin, would that be genocide?

  2. There are American cultural enclaves in Mexico. If the U.S. invaded Mexico and Mexico told those cultural enclaves they couldn't celebrate the 4th of July, would that be genocide?

I would really appreciate an answer. Because if the answer to both questions, especially the first one, is 'yes,' the genocide is, as I said, not all that horrific.

[–] jordanlund 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)
  1. No, because in that scenario there's a choice. Chinese Americans have the choice of attending schools where their language and culture is taught.

  2. Absolutely. Because it's attempting to stamp out a language and culture with no alternative.

[–] FlyingSquid -2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Isn't that similar to celebrating Russian Independence Day on June 12th in Ukraine? Or celebrating Hitler's Birthday in Britain after they joined the war? I just don't see how that's genocidal. It's not allowing people to celebrate the enemy.

[–] jordanlund 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"Enemy" is a relative term. Imprisoning the Japanese in internment camps was a genocidal act. It was an attempt to eliminate a culture because of a perception that they were "the enemy" when they were not.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But I am not talking about Japanese internment camps nor am I justifying them. Again, I am talking about celebrating the independence day of the country invading yours. I just don't see how banning that is genocide.

[–] jordanlund 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're talking about "the enemy" which, as noted, is a relative term.

Actively quashing a culture with the intent to eliminate it is genocide. That's item (c) of the definition.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 1 day ago

I gave a specific scenario. A country refusing to let people celebrate the independence day of the invading force. Which is who I was defining as "the enemy," and I'm not sure how you weren't clear on that. In this case, "the enemy" is Russia, which I think you agree with me about.

And I just do not see how Ukraine banning the celebration of Russian independence day counts as genocide.

[–] Ginja 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Not teaching the local language in schools, to instead force them to use your own is denying it and it is genocide.

Go to China and look at how they are wiping our local ethnicity through exactly that, they are forcing generations to grow up learning Mandarin in schools, legislating that TV must be in Mandarin, etc. and through this they are causing languages like Cantonese to lose their daily usage and thus die off.

It's what a large swathe of Europe did during the 19th and 20th century, where local languages (and their corresponding cultures) were basically killed, e.g. everyone in France basically speaks Parisian France, with only Brittany holding out its culture.

Seems like genocide is not all that horrific in your view.

This is revolting to hear anyone say.

[–] FlyingSquid -4 points 2 days ago

You entirely avoided my question and I think you know why.

There are enclaves of people with American heritage in Mexico. Some have been there for generations. If the U.S. invaded and Mexico said they couldn't celebrate the 4th of July, would that be genocide?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid -3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What the fuck is wrong with me is that I asked a question, three people responded, including yourself, and refused to answer it.

No wait, that's what the fuck is wrong with you three.

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