You must log in or register to comment.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I’d strongly suggest actually reading the article.
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.
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?
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.
This was the rationale behind America’s Japanese internment camps, which in my opinion, weren’t great.
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…
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?
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.
You may not agree with the Economist, but they are not a garbage source.
Removed by mod
