Dear Rasa,
It seems there are a lot emotions and frustration and the attitude to
see things in binomial opposition is making you interpret anything I say
as if when I was 8 years old I was a dumb kid brainwashed by the Soviet
Union.
The conversation here is not constructive as there is no space to say
anything that isn't aligned with what you wrote earlier, that you are
either willing to throw bombs with Biden "in the name of freedom", or
you are willing to throw bombs with Putin "in the name of Russian
totalitarian regime".
And because I do not want to align to any of this, but rather NOT THROW
BOMBS AT ALL, you are attacking me and my naive 7 or 8 year old self
with a certain ferocity which is exactly the opposite of peace and
dialogue.
But don't worry, I forgive it, I understand that the feelings at play
are intense.
It did surprise me to see that from my first email there was no reaction
to my comment on Dutch journalism and Dutch society, whilst the gun was
shot twice towards the desires of a little girl offended by the
supremacy of a foreign culture which colonised her country dropping
chocolate bars and female tights from the sky. I don't know how familiar
you are with Italian history in general and Togliatti's role in
particular. A very good book I may suggest is Paul Ginsborg's "A History
of Contemporary Italy: 1943-80".
Also, for your information, I wasn't raised in Disneyland, and being the
last child in a large family, my parents had both seen fascism and the
second world war. I heard first hand stories about the war, what it
meant to go to a school without windows or having to change city every
few months to escape the bombs. And being my dad from Milan and my mum
from the very South Lecce, I have heard the same stories narrated from
different geographical perspectives. I have also seen documents, such as
primary school books of the fascist era. What you tell me about Lenin's
Russia has similarities to what I have seen or heard from my father's
Mussolini Italy (however, when I was that age the secretary was
Gorbachev).
Then again, apart from attacking my personal histories, why haven't you
commented on the war in Afganistan?
And also, why have you ignored what I have said about being raised in a
country where the naked female body was splashed all over the city to
sell everything, from tyres to bubble gum? Don't you think that that
form of communication was violent? Or is it also part of Disney's total
animation?
Among the reasons I was trying to fantasise that perhaps there was an
alternative to the real I was experiencing were the modalities of
pervasive capitalist communication and their use of the female body. But
I supposed that, as they were teaching you to operate guns at school,
your social identity as a woman wasn't defined as a "walking bum with
boobs and several holes to be fulfilled" by the "more intelligent and
technically capable" Man.
Anyway, i will leave the conversation here, I don't have any more time
to respond to irrational attacks , I am trying to say that things are
complex and there are many perspectives; personally, I don't think Biden
is much better than Putin (they are both full of crap), you think one is
good and the other one is bad. Fine. Let's agree to disagree.
PEACE TO ALL, LOVE TO ALL
I send you my deepest, heartfelt blessing,
Eleonora
On 2022-07-18 00:14, Rasa Smite wrote:
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 KluszczyĆski 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
--
phantasmata and illusions
@oracle666
http://xname.cc
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