Barely any Slavs before Slavic invasions, barely any Indo-Europeans before Indo-European invasion
The problem with your argument is not that it is wrong. The problem is that it is so universally true that it can be arbitrarily weaponised against anyone
Arguments are overrated. "Fighting the invader" argument is universally true -> can be used against anyone -> is being successfully used by victors against losers
Should Greek win, they're gonna cleanse Turkish invaders
Should Turks win, they're gonna cleanse Greek invaders
If you don't see it, it just means that you're clueless about the agenda of the "other side". Turks weaponised Anatolian nativism against the Greeks just as successfully as Greeks theirs. One could even say that Anatolian nativism was just mirroring (and copying) the Greek one
Greeks be like: we're original Hellens, let's cleanse Turkish invaders
Turks be like: we're original Anatolians, let's cleanse Hellenic invaders
Both arguments have an element of truth. Also if you win, it doesn't matter if your argument is sorta stretched
One could even speculate that the decline of Anatolian nativism could result from the deescalation
No more need to cleanse the Greeks -> No more need to insist you're so very Indigenous and Autochthonous
Argument was customised to justify the policy, not the other way around
In this case, the argument was customised for the needs of the war of extermination. If the war of extermination is objectively going on, you're gonna say you're autochthonous and they're invaders. In most cases you'll find enough factually true arguments to support your POV
On the other hand, if the war of extermination is no longer going on, you can calm down and stop proving anything. Extermination policy stopped -> arguments that were to justify it are no longer needed
Arguments follow policies way more often than the other way around
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For context: that's how the most popular Russian ethnonationalist media of the recent decades "Sputnik and Pogrom" pictured their dream - "Russia for Russians". Very decolonizing, indeed
Honestly, I am appalled to see what can pass for expertise in modern Western academia
NB: This is not only about Russia. That's about absolute contempt of too many Western intellectual circles towards the public imagination of non-Western countries, Russia included. This problem lies so deep that I am not sure whether it can be fixed or not
If you have just a bit of empathy towards the Russian ethnonationalists, the idea that they want to make their empire *smaller* would strike you as absolutely improbable. Even when they all agree that certain regions are a liability in each and every respect, the idea of ...
With may be a single exception of North Caucasus (specifically "ДИЧ" - Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia) this is just false. There are *some* Russian ethnonationalists who argue for letting these three regions out. There is about zero who want general decolonisation
"ДИЧ" abbreviation which stands for Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia is indeed popular in the Russian far right discourse. It refers to these three mountainous regions whom some want to see out, and some want to see under a régime du sabre
While there is limited support for "solving the ДИЧ question", one or another way, there is exactly zero support for letting out anyone else. In fact Russian ethnonationalists are very suspicious of either ethnic and "Russian" regionalism, seeing them as a separatist threat
I noticed that the American discourse tends to hugely exaggerate the role of ethnolinguistic factor as the driving force of state/nation-formation. Which is kinda ironic, considering how the US emerged in the first place
And since American internal debates largely shape the global discourse, these Wilsonian lenses become the default way to look at the state/nation formation all around the world
I would say that contemporary American way to look at the state/nation formation is a blend of Wilsonian inertia and externalisation of modern American identity politics. A projection of internal American political games to the outer world
Within the next year Russia will spiral into a deep political crisis. There is a nonzero chance that it may scale up existing separatist tendencies leading to the breakup of the empire. In this thread I will outline a model of how this process could look like🧵
Russia is the last European colonial empire that remains largely intact. It was a relatively small polity whose enormous territorial expansion started for real only in the 16th c. This time frame largely overlaps with the establishment of the first European overseas empires
Those who doubt colonial nature of Russia point out to how different it was from what is now seen as the epitome of British colonialism - the British empire. Indeed, Russian colonialism was very dissimilar from the Anglo one, but often strikingly similar to the Iberoamerican
I prioritise feedback over outreach. There is no way I can get a quality conversation without blocking a few thousand people. Valuable comments, ideas, references would drown in the ocean of emotional dumping. Therefore, I need to isolate myself from the latter to see the former
I am purposefully looking for comments like this: that's an actual dialogue (that I hoped for) and a valuable input. I learnt something I didn't know before. If I don't block emotional dumpers, comments of value will be buried under the mountains of garbage -> I won't see them
I know many are proud of being direct and straightforward online. But the thing with straightforwardness is that it doesn't scale up. It may work perfectly in one on one dialogue. If there are 10 ppl around, you probably won't share every detail of how you think and feel out loud
A new round of donations for the Ukrainian soldiers & civilians 🧵
1. While suffering from the Iranian drone attacks, Ukraine was able to increase efficiency of its air defence with the new software. Now they're fundraising for tablets to coordinate the batteries' fire
Current goal is 100 tablets. Your donation by card, PayPal or wire transfer would be highly helpful