The Russians I know are proud of being Russian. They have an interesting history with many (non war related) achievements. The war with Ukraine doesn’t define the Russian people. Also, (working class) Russian people are very welcoming to guests and selfless from my experience.
I’m neither proud nor ashamed of being a Russian, personally, given it’s a simple fact. Although, I also have a hard time understanding feeling pride (or shame) for something I wasn’t a part of (as in, a member of a team of researchers who discovered XYZ, not some arbitrary stuff like nationalities)
Most people are trying to be somewhat proud of their country of origin. And basically every country in the world does have some cool stuff in their history to be proud of. Be it Russia, Germany, the USA - every country’s history has dark sides as well as achievements (non political) to be proud of. At the end of the day, it is a longing for community and identification with one’s community. If you are Russian, as a part of Russia, then it is also your people, your homies, who built sputnik or sent Jury Gagarin into space.
At the same time, overidentification with a national identity is odd in itself. You may be proud that your country invented something 100 years ago or pioneered into space, has cool traditional clothing or dances, but this has little to do with you specifically, or with the state of the country today.
People who say they are ashamed to be Russian (or any other nationality) usually say this in reference to either the negatives in their country’s history (e.g. slavery in the US, WWII in Germany, Stalinism in Soviet Russia), or in reference to their current government. But a government is not the same as the people, history and culture.
But most importantly, these things don’t exclude each other. You can both be proud to be a Russian as in not hating your genes, your heritage, your identity and ancestry, cherrypicking achievements and parts of culture, as well as condemn the current government and state of the country, while simultaneously seeing your nationality as an abstract part of your identity. Your passport or your MyHeritage results do not make you who you are. What you believe in, what you care about and how you act do.
I also know another side to Russia culture, though. The Russians I know call working people the plebs, homeless people garbage, and feel the need to express that anyone in the LGBT scale should be murdered.
These are not just a few random people, mind you, these are Russians from different walks of life I had the misfortune of meeting. I’ve met many Russians, and all of them have this deep seated hatred against anyone and anything that isn’t pure Russian.
Yes, I know that not all Russians are like this, but my point is that way too many Russians are, and are quite happily supporting all the shit that Putin is doing right now.
Racism and nationalism thrive in capitalism. I don’t know if those are more prevalent in Russia than France or Canada. Almost all Western people I know think Western culture is superior and that all countries in the world should Westernise. That’s a very racist and imperialist view. It assumes that developing countries cannot develop and become progressive without Western influence. While the opposite is true, Western governments and corporations destabilise developing countries to exploit their resources and labour, which makes social progress really difficult. Also many of the conservative beliefs in developing countries where forced upon them by Western colonisers. Western people still tend to think people in developing countries are way less progressive than they actually are.
The Russians I have met were sometimes nationalistic, but none believed that they should conquer the world to rid it of ‘barbarism’ brought on by their own actions.
The fuck you talking about? Older Chinese people are the MOST racist people I know. This has nothing to do with Capitalism. It is the lack of culture. If you have a homogeneous culture, this breeds racism and nationalism/tribalism. It has nothing to do with Capitalism.
Capitalism is exploitation. To prevent workers from fighting the ruling class for better conditions, the ruling class has to divert workers frustration towards other working class people from other countries or other ethnicities.
The Russians I know are proud of being Russian. They have an interesting history with many (non war related) achievements. The war with Ukraine doesn’t define the Russian people. Also, (working class) Russian people are very welcoming to guests and selfless from my experience.
I’m neither proud nor ashamed of being a Russian, personally, given it’s a simple fact. Although, I also have a hard time understanding feeling pride (or shame) for something I wasn’t a part of (as in, a member of a team of researchers who discovered XYZ, not some arbitrary stuff like nationalities)
Most people are trying to be somewhat proud of their country of origin. And basically every country in the world does have some cool stuff in their history to be proud of. Be it Russia, Germany, the USA - every country’s history has dark sides as well as achievements (non political) to be proud of. At the end of the day, it is a longing for community and identification with one’s community. If you are Russian, as a part of Russia, then it is also your people, your homies, who built sputnik or sent Jury Gagarin into space.
At the same time, overidentification with a national identity is odd in itself. You may be proud that your country invented something 100 years ago or pioneered into space, has cool traditional clothing or dances, but this has little to do with you specifically, or with the state of the country today.
People who say they are ashamed to be Russian (or any other nationality) usually say this in reference to either the negatives in their country’s history (e.g. slavery in the US, WWII in Germany, Stalinism in Soviet Russia), or in reference to their current government. But a government is not the same as the people, history and culture.
But most importantly, these things don’t exclude each other. You can both be proud to be a Russian as in not hating your genes, your heritage, your identity and ancestry, cherrypicking achievements and parts of culture, as well as condemn the current government and state of the country, while simultaneously seeing your nationality as an abstract part of your identity. Your passport or your MyHeritage results do not make you who you are. What you believe in, what you care about and how you act do.
Yes, true.
I also know another side to Russia culture, though. The Russians I know call working people the plebs, homeless people garbage, and feel the need to express that anyone in the LGBT scale should be murdered.
These are not just a few random people, mind you, these are Russians from different walks of life I had the misfortune of meeting. I’ve met many Russians, and all of them have this deep seated hatred against anyone and anything that isn’t pure Russian.
Yes, I know that not all Russians are like this, but my point is that way too many Russians are, and are quite happily supporting all the shit that Putin is doing right now.
Racism and nationalism thrive in capitalism. I don’t know if those are more prevalent in Russia than France or Canada. Almost all Western people I know think Western culture is superior and that all countries in the world should Westernise. That’s a very racist and imperialist view. It assumes that developing countries cannot develop and become progressive without Western influence. While the opposite is true, Western governments and corporations destabilise developing countries to exploit their resources and labour, which makes social progress really difficult. Also many of the conservative beliefs in developing countries where forced upon them by Western colonisers. Western people still tend to think people in developing countries are way less progressive than they actually are.
The Russians I have met were sometimes nationalistic, but none believed that they should conquer the world to rid it of ‘barbarism’ brought on by their own actions.
The fuck you talking about? Older Chinese people are the MOST racist people I know. This has nothing to do with Capitalism. It is the lack of culture. If you have a homogeneous culture, this breeds racism and nationalism/tribalism. It has nothing to do with Capitalism.
Capitalism is exploitation. To prevent workers from fighting the ruling class for better conditions, the ruling class has to divert workers frustration towards other working class people from other countries or other ethnicities.
Yo, no doubt that capitalism is exploitative. But it’s a STRETCH to say that it breeds racism.
This is so funny to read while being Russian, so much bullshit.