Rasa wrote: "In this situation there are only clear two sides - Either
Supporting Ukraine or Being Pro -Tutin"
I cannot agree with this friend/enemy logic: "If you are not my friend,
then you are my enemy".
It has already been said here that in addition to Ukraine and Russia,
America also plays an important role in this conflict.
Best
Christoph
Rasa Smite schrieb:
Hello
Eleonore wrote: "My anecdote was in response to Rasa, to highlight
that there are multiple perspectives and modalities for cultural
appropriation (and rejection)".
With this war, we have landed in the situation, where its not anymore
that easy to play with "multiple perspectives and modalities" before
the ground is not clear and stable enough, before we are not on the
same page..
I wrote already, in this situation there are only clearly two sides -
either supporting Ukraine or being pro-Putin, there doesn't exist
democratic "multiple perspectives and modalities" in this case as we
don't deal with democratic country...
And your anecdote just shows that there are many misleading ideas
around.. this is what I wrote in my reply to Heath: the problem is
that most of the marxist-communist-thinking people in the West (who
have read bit too much of French and Russian philosophy or literature)
today have to revise their theories, notions and realise finally they
have been following the wrong dreams (nightmares, trust me...).
So it's now your turn, dear people living in UK, and other wealthy
Western countries, to put some effort in changing your thinking, your
perspectives, and before joining the funny May day parades, and
reading 100 years old authors (who have no clue how the communism
works in real life), or listen 92 years old capitalism critics (such
as Chomsky) please re-think twice before you write something that
naive as comparing America's Disney's land "propaganda" with Russia's
aggressive invasion targeting civilians, killing children, raping
women in Ukraine, which is happening there everyday.
So why not, please do so - change your way of thinking, finally!
Please be so empathetic that you at least pretend to do so - for a
sake of Ukraine's disaster... We, people here in Eastern Europe are
used to switch our perspectives constantly, we have done it so many
times that we now even cannot answer a simple question: "and how is
your tradition (e.g. in Latvia) with the education, for example?" I am
sorry, there is no such thing as "our way or our tradition!" we have
been listening for almost 30 years British experts, we have learned
from the most amazing Finnish school experience, and we have adapted
exams from German "abitur", we have been trying hard, and still are
one of the most poor countries in EU,
BUT - I wouldn't call it "colonising", and never ever would even think
of going back to anything similar that was once called "the Soviet
Union" - NB! btw- there never was such a thing as USSR, it was just an
extended Russia'n Empire with unfairly and aggressively occupied
neighbouring countries before and during WW2, who were forced to
believe that Russians have "saved and freed us" and that "they brought
the real culture" (making us feel lesser), but they didn't succeed,
nobody inside of USSR believed in this bullshit... Just sadly I never
realized that the communist propaganda was so effective beyond the
USSR border, that some people in West and otehr parts of the world
truly believed that USSR may be a better alternative to Western
capitalism...
But talking about the "Soviet times", there was even big difference
between Ryszard's and mine childhood, because Ryszard lived in Poland,
but I lived in Soviet Latvia, which was a part of USSR, and this was
such a big difference that for some time I even didn't realize that
Poland, Yugoslavia, Chechoslovakia etc. belonged to the so called
"soviet" block, because for us at USSR (with completely cut any
information or culture coming from the West) - even Poland seemed like
beautiful and shiny country "abroad", where everything was much more
better then in soviet uni.
When I went to the school in 1970s, I had to participate in special
military parade competitions every year couple of times; we were
singing the hymn of Russia and the hymn of USSR, and when we won the
competition in the school level - then we participated in the national
level..., and singing all these songs (in Russian), marching, and
shouting loud how much we love Lenin... while at the same time, we all
- everybody of us: starting from the 1st grade children to the
director of the school knew that all this are the lies, the total
bullshit, but we were not allowed to question anything of that, we
just did it, as we had to. And if you ever asked something or
initiated anything (because all things around which I saw in my
childhood were so wrong, so dirty, so terrible, and grey...), you were
shut up quickly as you gradually realized that nothing ever can be
done, neither achieved, nor succeded... the holes on the roads would
never get repaired, the light in your corridor if once broken, would
never get fixed either, your staircase in communal house of course was
never cleaned, in the shops was only the seller herself, as nothing
was available (e.g. from drinks - only birch juice, sweet with sugar,
in 3l jars, from vegetables - stinky sourkraut...) but if it was (some
piece of meet or sausage - unexpectedly appeared), there were so long
cues.. - and I think it was done intentionally, this is one of the KGB
strategies to "zomby" people by making them to live in ugly,
non-comfortable, hopeless gray environment, and to feed them with lies
- from the age of kindergarten... nothing was real, because the only
thing soviet Russians were good at - was to make an other great lies
to pretend, to make a 'facade' for the beautiful socialist ideas to
whom only anti-capitalists in West or Latin America believed... we
here didn't believe in anything they told us... yes, and soviets were
bad even in toy production - awful light pink plastic doll or braun
(everything else..) were the only colors they hardly succeeded to
make, and I had to play with these very few badly made toys, it was
annoying and humiliating - and you complain about the Disney! OMG -
that would have been our dream...
Later, when I was in arts college in 80s, we had special trainings in
air rifle shooting, and I was very good in it, and I also had to learn
how to disassembly the Kalashnikov, which was quite a fun, as nobody
really did manage to do it properly, so we were laughing, and making
fun.. (really?)
and if someone, anyone, who thinks that it was bad as you were
culturally "colonisied" by Disneyland in the 80s and therefore were
dreaming of living in Soviet Union, I can only say one thing - please
mind, this is a very very dangerous idea as you should now rather
become aware of that you have been brainwashed by Russia's
imperialism, who has been running a very sophisticated propaganda
machine for almost a century long..
and if you still think, here can be "multiple perspectives", I also
would recommend to apply for residency in Russia, could be an
interesting and useful experience... But also coming to Poland or
Baltic countries may 'heal'... it's quite an adrenaline living here in
these difficult times, following the news on Ukrianan Telegram every
day hour by hour, while reading Western intellectuals' messages full
of unnecessary tolerance and critic, or utopian pacifism promotion.
Best,
Rasa
On 18/07/2022 00:26, xname wrote:
Hello Ryszard,
Thanks for your email, and for sharing your view and experience.
I'd clarify here: my childhood desire was towards the unknown, that
which was not described, as no one was telling us what was really
going on in Russia, all we had was the fake American dream (which
included the commodification of female bodies) and literature from
the past. I am also aware that I was very lucky and privileged
growing up in a house full of any sorts of books, also having access
to many libraries.
My anecdote was in response to Rasa, to highlight that there are
multiple perspectives and modalities for cultural appropriation (and
rejection).
I am not disputing what was better or worse, or whose childhood was
happier. The idea was to acknowledge that also in the West some had a
curiosity or a wish that that which was not the status quo could be
better than the real they had to experience.
And I am not at all saying that being under Russian influence is in
any way a good thing, I am simply saying that the game at stake is a
power game, it is unfortunately not about anyone's freedom, or better
interest, but profit.
I am sorry if my email was unclear and you had the impression I was
trying to decide where to move to, it couldn't be further away from
what I was trying to express.
Best wishes
Eleonora X, PhD.
On 2022-07-17 21:47, Ryszard Kluszczyński wrote:
Dear Eleonora,
let me quote you:
"During my childhood, in Milan in the 80s, I had an opposite
experience than yours: my country had been culturally colonised by
the US (cinema TV clothing etc), and they did think they were
better. Most people did not notice at all they were colonised,
because they had been brainwashed. As I happened to dislike American
cinema and Disney's total animation, but I did read a lot of Italian
and French and Russian literature and philosophy, I must say it did
happen to me during my childhood to wish I was in the Soviet Union
instead, hoping that that would be a better alternative from the
dumb hypnotic imperialism that had subsumed my contemporaries."
During my childhood in Poland in the 60s, I was not so happy as you
in the 80s. You could have decided what to read. The Soviet-Russian
censorships deprived me of such possibilities.
You were happy to avoid the experioence what it really means to live
in the colonised country, colonised society. But it doesn't mean you
should not try to imagine and understand what it is really.
Anyway you can try to realise your desire from your childhood. You
can move to Russia to become the resident. But resident not just
visitor.
I understand if you don't decide to do it. A French famous film
actor who did it once (to avoid paying taxes in France) is already
back as I heard.
Good luck whatever you decide to do
Ryszard
......................................................
Prof. Ryszard W. Kluszczynski, PhD.
Chair of Department of New Media and Digital Culture
University of Lodz
171/173 Pomorska Street
90-236 Lodz
Poland
tel +426655133
On 17 Jul 2022, at 18:00, xname <xn...@xname.cc> wrote:
During my childhood, in Milan in the 80s, I had an opposite
experience than yours: my country had been culturally colonised by
the US (cinema TV clothing etc), and they did think they were
better. Most people did not notice at all they were colonised,
because they had been brainwashed. As I happened to dislike
American cinema and Disney's total animation, but I did read a lot
of Italian and French and Russian literature and philosophy, I must
say it did happen to me during my childhood to wish I was in the
Soviet Union instead, hoping that that would be a better
alternative from the dumb hypnotic imperialism that had subsumed my
contemporaries.
--
phantasmata and illusions
@oracle666
http://xname.cc
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