Nazi Kindergarten

[Krano]

http://www.rt.com/news/nazi-patriotic-lesson-kindergarten-latvia-012/

DkH2q-9Cdkk

[TheGodlessUtopian]

"It's how we teach history"? Yeah, sounds like the shit that is used by right-wingers in the U.S neo-conferderates.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Thread moved

[jookyle]

Oh no, just no.

[Comrade Samuel]

Yeah, next thing you know ethnic cleansing will be just "teaching history"

Hearing about how Soviet symbolism is being banned in former parts of the U.S.S.R meanwhile Latvia has Nazis preaching about "the glorious heroes of the waffen SS" in their schools is just disgraceful.

[Pretty Flaco]

how are there even pro-nazi views in eastern europe?

[Bostana]

Seriously?

[Aloysius]

"I own this kindergarten, and I will decide how we'll teach our children..."

lolwut.

[Ismail]

how are there even pro-nazi views in eastern europe?Baltic collaborators were sought after by Nazi Germany unlike the Ukraine and Russia where the Nazis treated everyone like dirt. Right-wingers in these states view said period as one of perhaps imperfect "liberation" from Russian communist domination. I know Poles who adopt a view that the Nazi occupation of their country was marginally better than the Soviet occupation, since "at least the Nazis built roads" or whatever. Russophobia combined with the view that Communism was a force that existed to destroy entire nations and their glorious heroic histories brings forth such mentalities.

[The Young Pioneer]

Mm, I've been "country-shopping" for where to settle down, have kids, and get them educated. Guess I'll scratch Latvia and Estonia off the list.


Is there really that serious of a rise in such sentiments?

There seems to be a rise in the amount of nationalism in the world these days. Is my perception true, or has there always been this fuck-load of nationalism everywhere?

Whatever's goin' on, I'm ready. :hammersickle:

[Luc]

how are there even pro-nazi views in eastern europe?

some rightist tendencies (particuarily the ones that focus on religion) include slavs in the white aryan race.

and what Ismail said about Poland and about anti-communism

[Igor]

Little reminder: RT is basically Russian political establishment's own version of Fox News and they really hate the guts of Baltic states. They're really not a reliable news agency and whenever they have a piece of news about a Baltic country doing something bad, do a fact check or five.

Also yeah extreme right is pretty fucked up in the European East and it is a real problem that needs to be combated very badly.


Mm, I've been "country-shopping" for where to settle down, have kids, and get them educated. Guess I'll scratch Latvia and Estonia off the list.

Please don't, at least not because of this, Latvia and Estonia both rock. Every country has their share of batshit and politics in every country are basically reactionary.

[El Oso Rojo]

Little reminder: RT is basically Russian political establishment's own version of Fox News and they really hate the guts of Baltic states. They're really not a reliable news agency and whenever they have a piece of news about a Baltic country doing something bad, do a fact check or five.

Also yeah extreme right is pretty fucked up in the European East and it is a real problem that needs to be combated very badly.



Please don't, at least not because of this, Latvia and Estonia both rock. Every country has their share of batshit and politics in every country are basically reactionary.

Lativian= Europe's gusanos.

[Igor]

Lativian= Europe's gusanos.

...what?

[The Young Pioneer]

Please don't, at least not because of this, Latvia and Estonia both rock. Every country has their share of batshit and politics in every country are basically reactionary.

Ah, I just won't raise my kids there. Can't speak for Latvia but I know Estonia's awesome. I used to live in your Suomi, mate, Eesti's a simple day ferry away. :D

[Ismail]

...what?"Gusano" = a term used for Cuban émigrés in Miami who are notorious for their anti-communism.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Honestly. if this happened to my children, I'm not sure how I could restrain myself from kicking everyone involved asses, respectively.

This is child abuse and absolutely unacceptable. Not to mention, who the fuck allows kindergartners to play with WWII grenades?

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Little reminder: RT is basically Russian political establishment's own version of Fox News and they really hate the guts of Baltic states.

For whatever reason, the UK's BBC and Israel's Jerusalem Post hate Estonia too:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3585272.stm
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=228765

[piet11111]

Is anyone else a bit surprised about this inclusion in the article ?


The Waffen SS was a multi-ethnic and multinational military force of the Third Reich.Multi ethnic ? to my understanding the SS was limited to "germanic" people only while the wehrmacht even included africans.

Eitherway that the article says that they are multhi ethnic and multi national seems to be included to cover up the incredibly reactionary and racist nature of the SS

[Yugo45]

Is anyone else a bit surprised about this inclusion in the article ?

Multi ethnic ? to my understanding the SS was limited to "germanic" people only while the wehrmacht even included africans.

Eitherway that the article says that they are multhi ethnic and multi national seems to be included to cover up the incredibly reactionary and racist nature of the SS

Well, while SS at the beginning was only "Aryan", that soon changed. They started allowing other Europeans (not only Germanic, but also Norse, Slavic, Baltic..) By the end of the war there were even Indian SS legions. Desperate times...

But you're right, wehrmacht was a lot more "multi-ethnic"

[Ismail]

Well, while SS at the beginning was only "Aryan", that soon changed. They started allowing other Europeans (not only Germanic, but also Norse, Slavic, Baltic..) By the end of the war there were even Indian SS legions. Desperate times...If the Nazis needed something done, then their ideology took backseat to war priorities. Nazi Germany needed certain metals for its war effort and obtained quite a bit in the mines of Trepca (in Kosovo), so they basically treated Albanians as Aryans (with Albanian collaborators claiming that Illyrians were Aryans and thus their Albanian descendants were as well, etc.) and played them off against the Serbs. Also pretty much the only thing Hitler knew about Albanians was that as a young man he read in a novel how they were heroic mountain-inhabiting guys with guns.

Thus the SS Skanderbeg Division was born.

[Igor]

"Gusano" = a term used for Cuban émigrés in Miami who are notorious for their anti-communism.

Well yeah looking at Latvian history it really isn't a huge fucking surprise they're not too fond of the Soviets. Nothing in the Latvian national character or something like that however would suppose they're any less likely to be part of the revolution than anyone else. You just probably don't want to appeal to them with the symbols that pretty much mean occupation and forced deportation to them. Shocking, really.


For whatever reason, the UK's BBC and Israel's Jerusalem Post hate Estonia too:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3585272.stm
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=228765

No, they probably don't, because Estonia does have a huge fucking problem with strong far right presence and there's lots of Nazi sympathy going on. RT in the other hand is pretty much the voice of the Russian state which has notoriously bad relations with pretty much all of the Baltic states and their news coverage of the area is pretty bad. Kind of like South Korean news medias are not the first one I'd check out of if I wanted to know what's going on in DPRK.

[Arlekino]

Well I am from Baltic States I feel little uncomfortable about as world we are all Nazis. I would not mind to talk on history channels but I would mind when starting accusing such nasty crimes what our ancestors done. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian government are right wing but why such abuse on people.

[The Young Pioneer]

Well I am from Baltic States I feel little uncomfortable about as world we are all Nazis. I would not mind to talk on history channels but I would mind when starting accusing such nasty crimes what our ancestors done. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuanian government are right wing but why such abuse on people.

Ah, I didn't mean to insult anyone in the Baltic. I know it's probably a small faction of folks supporting this rise of Nazis, as it would be in any country. Sorry if I offended.

[piet11111]

Liza no need to apologize its clear that the baltic bourgeois are desperately trying to whitewash the nazi occupation and their own collaboration with them.

Similar to how the Spanish bourgeois are doing their utmost to prevent criminal investigations into francoist crimes and even going so far to persecute the judge Baltasar Garzón who ordered mass graves to be opened for DNA identification of the victims.

If Rasyte fails to see the difference between the Baltic people and the war criminals in the national Bourgeoisie then thats his problem not yours and certainly not something you should apologize for.

[Igor]

If Rasyte fails to see the difference between the Baltic people and the war criminals in the national Bourgeoisie then thats his problem not yours and certainly not something you should apologize for.

Tbh the gusanos comment wasn't really targeted at the Latvian ruling class but quite clearly at Latvian people.

[TheAltruist]

In my kindergarten I remember playing with sticks and ants, and I dont think they let The American Nazi party come and give us grenades to screw around with. But that was a long time ago...

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

No, they probably don't, because Estonia does have a huge fucking problem with strong far right presence and there's lots of Nazi sympathy going on. RT in the other hand is pretty much the voice of the Russian state which has notoriously bad relations with pretty much all of the Baltic states and their news coverage of the area is pretty bad. Kind of like South Korean news medias are not the first one I'd check out of if I wanted to know what's going on in DPRK.

You're right. This video doesn't look legit at all. I bet Putin and his henchmen staged it to make Latvians look bad. The only thing fucked up about Eastern Europe is Russia.

[Luís Henrique]

Lativian= Europe's gusanos.

Admins?

People have been banned on less obvious cases of bigoted speech.

Luís Henrique

[Ismail]

Admins?

People have been banned on less obvious cases of bigoted speech.

Luís HenriquePCC members use it to refer to Miami exiles. Supporters of Cuba are known to use the word too. It either means "worm" or "maggot." I don't see how it's functionally different from saying Trotskyite or Stalinoid or whatever.

[Igor]

PCC members use it to refer to Miami exiles. Supporters of Cuba are known to use the word too. It either means "worm" or "maggot." I don't see how it's functionally different from saying Trotskyite or Stalinoid or whatever.

You don't see the problem with describing the Latvian people as maggots? Come again?

[Ismail]

You don't see the problem with describing the Latvian people as maggots? Come again?Obviously it's not a good thing and he should recognize this fact, since there are plenty of Latvians who don't regard the Soviet period as one of hell and "occupation."

[Arlekino]

You don't see the problem with describing the Latvian people as maggots? Come again?
Sure your opinion all Latvian are Nazis. I traveled many and many times to Latvia I am was lived not far from Latvia. Latvian most of not agree with right wing policies.

[El Oso Rojo]

You don't see the problem with describing the Latvian people as maggots? Come again?

I am talking about the Nazis one.

[Igor]

I am talking about the Nazis one.

Well yeah, but you said just Latvians. Equating all Latvians either with gusanos or Latvian Nazis is kind of bigoted, please don't do that.

[Qavvik]

To be fair, RT is not one of the most trustworthy of news sources. RT bends over backwards to please a few Russian oligarchs, and it's likely part of this segment results from Latvia and Estonia's refusal to grant special status to the Russian language, something Russia itself never would do for its part. Bourgeois nationalist conflict aside, I'm sure the majority of Estonians and Latvians do not feel the same way about the Nazis, and are likely great people (at least from what I've personally seen).

[Ismail]

and it's likely part of this segment results from Latvia and Estonia's refusal to grant special status to the Russian language, something Russia itself never would do for its part.I seem to recall in the early 90's a lot of Russians in Latvia being discriminated against even though half of the country was populated by Russians. I don't know about Estonia, though.

Also Russia does, as far as I know, continue a scaled-down version of the Soviet policy of national language education in its republics. Since Latvia and Estonia aren't republics the words "Russia itself never would do" seems a bit presumptive.

[homegrown terror]

Baltic collaborators were sought after by Nazi Germany unlike the Ukraine and Russia where the Nazis treated everyone like dirt. Right-wingers in these states view said period as one of perhaps imperfect "liberation" from Russian communist domination. I know Poles who adopt a view that the Nazi occupation of their country was marginally better than the Soviet occupation, since "at least the Nazis built roads" or whatever. Russophobia combined with the view that Communism was a force that existed to destroy entire nations and their glorious heroic histories brings forth such mentalities.

it's similar to how in romania, they revere vlad III tepes as a national hero, because despite the atrocities he committed, he kept the turks from conquering them. people tend to forget that a perceived "lesser of two evils" is still an evil.

NOTE: i'm not saying that the USSR is the "greater evil," i'm just presenting the point of view as was my understanding from the people in the clip.

[Robocommie]

it's similar to how in romania, they revere vlad III tepes as a national hero, because despite the atrocities he committed, he kept the turks from conquering them. people tend to forget that a perceived "lesser of two evils" is still an evil.

NOTE: i'm not saying that the USSR is the "greater evil," i'm just presenting the point of view as was my understanding from the people in the clip.

I'm not saying I have a strong stance on it either way, but a lot of compelling arguments have been made that many of the atrocities Vlad III Tepes was accused of (many, not all) were fictions drummed up by his rivals in Hungary and popularized in the German regions of the Holy Roman Empire.

Point being, a lot of history is skewed one way or another to suit somebody's interests and so it should never be taken at face value - such as with the Soviet Union.

[Qavvik]

I seem to recall in the early 90's a lot of Russians in Latvia being discriminated against even though half of the country was populated by Russians. I don't know about Estonia, though.

Also Russia does, as far as I know, continue a scaled-down version of the Soviet policy of national language education in its republics. Since Latvia and Estonia aren't republics the words "Russia itself never would do" seems a bit presumptive.
Russia allows national languages, in their respective republics, but not outside of them (the Soviet Union was a slightly different story, but still largely the same). The Russian language is, however, taught everywhere, even though primary schooling would not be legally conducted in Chechen in Moscow, Russian is legally taught at the same level in Grozny with no legal impediment.

Russian imperialists.

[homegrown terror]

I'm not saying I have a strong stance on it either way, but a lot of compelling arguments have been made that many of the atrocities Vlad III Tepes was accused of (many, not all) were fictions drummed up by his rivals in Hungary and popularized in the German regions of the Holy Roman Empire.

Point being, a lot of history is skewed one way or another to suit somebody's interests and so it should never be taken at face value - such as with the Soviet Union.

not to mention that he himself might have exaggerated facts as well to bolster his reputation.

[Ismail]

Russia allows national languages, in their respective republics, but not outside of them (the Soviet Union was a slightly different story, but still largely the same). The Russian language is, however, taught everywhere, even though primary schooling would not be legally conducted in Chechen in Moscow, Russian is legally taught at the same level in Grozny with no legal impediment.

Russian imperialists.Probably because Chechnya is a part of Russia, not Russia a part of Chechnya. To quote Phillip Bonosky in his book Devils in Amber: The Baltics (p. 200), "An Estonian could travel thousands of miles from his little pocket of a country in northern Europe and, using his second language, Russian, as a lingua franca, he could feel at home anywhere—speaking to strangers unreachable hitherto—in the words of the one language they held in common. For a small people like the Estonians, whose language nobody else knew or had to know, it was absolutely essential that they acquire a second language, or remain boxed off not only geographically but socially as well."

There are genuine examples of national discrimination in-re Chechens and so on, but "they don't allow you to teach classes in Chechen/Tuvan/Karelian/etc. in Moscow!" isn't one of them unless those ethnic groups made up a significant part of the city.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

Probably because Chechnya is a part of Russia, not Russia a part of Chechnya. To quote Phillip Bonosky in his book Devils in Amber: The Baltics (p. 200), "An Estonian could travel thousands of miles from his little pocket of a country in northern Europe and, using his second language, Russian, as a lingua franca, he could feel at home anywhere—speaking to strangers unreachable hitherto—in the words of the one language they held in common. For a small people like the Estonians, whose language nobody else knew or had to know, it was absolutely essential that they acquire a second language, or remain boxed off not only geographically but socially as well."

There are genuine examples of national discrimination in-re Chechens and so on, but "they don't allow you to teach classes in Chechen/Tuvan/Karelian/etc. in Moscow!" isn't one of them unless those ethnic groups made up a significant part of the city.

You're absolutely right.

Russian served as the lingua franca of the Soviet Union because it was the most widely-spoken tongue since imperial times, though it was not even deemed the official language of the Soviet Union until 1990. Education in the republics and autonomous republics was conducted in both languages, where students had the option of being educated in Russian and the local language, or Russian only. There was a lot of bilingualism in the Baltics, with non-Russian and bilingual street signs, books, newspapers, and so on. Many people from all over the Soviet Union moved to Latvia and Estonia, though, and many did not learn Latvian or Estonian, since they could rely on Russian alone.

So, the rest of the basic backstory here is that in 1988-1990, the Baltic members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's leadership in these republics suddenly reinvented themselves as radical nationalists, and started telling the Estonians and Latvians that the Soviet Union, Russia, and the Russian people were oppressors -- never mind that these were the same exact people who had for forty-five years been lecturing about internationalism and the Russians' role in the vanguard of the liberation of the Baltics from the yoke of bourgeois rule. Now that these so-called "communists" had openly abandoned the ideology, the Soviet Republics these people had presided over were declared to have been no more than aspects of an "occupation" government all along, since the incorporation of these republics into the USSR in 1940 was declared to have been illegitimate.

What consequently happened to the ethnic Russians and other "non-native" minorities in the Baltic states, who had grown to number about one-third of the population in Estonia and one-half in Latvia, was very dramatic. They were not even given Estonian or Latvian citizenship once the Soviet Union broke up, because the citizenship laws adopted by independent Estonia and Latvia only extended the automatic right of citizenship to those who had been citizens of Estonia and Latvia before June 1940 and the "direct descendants" of those people. For everybody else, a complicated naturalization procedure was adopted, so that hundreds of thousands of people belonging to the national minorities remain stateless even today, although the official term in Latvia is "non-citizens" instead of "stateless." Until the late 1990s, even children born in independent Estonia and Latvia were not automatically given citizenship if born to stateless "non-citizen" parents.

So, while several reforms to make citizenship easier to attain have been enacted since the 1990s, the ethnic Russians and others who don't fit into the ethnocratic conception of statehood effectively promoted by the regimes in Estonia and Latvia are essentially left as outsiders, saddled with discrimination in society and scapegoated as an "alien" element that is "disloyal" to the new Baltic governments.

Seeing why Estonia's and Latvia's ruling bourgeoisie turned the Russians into pariahs is not difficult. The materialist analysis is this: Eastern Europe is largely divided into two geopolitical camps of capitalism, the developed US-led camp of the Western bourgeoisie on one side, and the less developed Russian bourgeoisie on the other. Since the Baltic bourgeoisie has chosen to integrate into the former rather than the latter, disenfranchising the ethnic Russians and similar minorities ensures that this choice is not open to challenge. Naturally, there are further factors reinforcing the decision to disenfranchise the minorities. For instance, the ethnic Russians who have the vote go left-of-center and prefer closer relations with the Russian Federation, rather than with western Europe and the United States. By contrast, the ethnic Balts can be brought into the country's neoliberal camp and the European Union with nationalist rhetoric.

I should say that neighboring Lithuania never adopted any of the anti-Russian disenfranchisement policies of its neighbors -- and not surprisingly, because its Russian minority is tiny and inconsequential as an opposition for the policies of its ruling class.

So, Vladimir Putin's Russia is not a nice place today, but I would say it is by no means any more nationalist than the Baltic republics. All the same, despite the occasional story of ultranationalist crap like Nazi commemoration in Latvia or Estonia, the Western press generally spoonfeeds Western readers the propaganda of the Baltic nationalist governments, since virtually the entire Western establishment remains as Russophobic on account of its geopolitical interests today, as it has more-or-less always been ever since the rise of the Russian Empire as a rival center of power in the 19th century. (Comparing how many times Putin is introduced as a "former KGB officer" to how many times Estonian prime minister is introduced as a "former Communist Party of the Soviet Union apparatchik" is an easy test that anyone can try.)

Here, for example, is a how an International Herald / New York Times article begins a discussion of the a seventy-five year-old woman who must acquire good knowledge of the Latvian language and knowlege of the constitution in order to acquire a certificate of citizenship, and the reporting cliches that belong to an unpublished media handbook that deserves a title like Western Reporting on Russia and the Russians 101:
The last Russian tank rolled out of Latvia more than a decade ago. But Inesa Kuznetsova, 75, a resident here for more than 50 years, has little doubt where she calls home.

"My address isn't a city. My address isn't a town. My address isn't a street," says the dressmaker, who arrived from Leningrad during World War II. "My address is the Soviet Union."

Kuznetsova's address is, in fact, Bolderaja, a largely Russian-speaking neighborhood on the outskirts of Riga, where a former Russian naval barracks sits empty and signs in the supermarket are in both Russian and Latvian. Here, she inhabits a parallel universe that has little to do with Latvia. She watches a Kremlin-funded television station, eats Russian food, and has no intention of learning the Latvian language - "Why the hell would I want to do that?" - though she says her grandchildren are being forced to do so.

No references to the effects of vodka and dancing bear spectacles that you might be expecting show up after a lede like this, but the introduction is followed by many more paragraphs written in the same vein. And then, only in paragraph twenty does the reader finally learn that even ethnic Russian teens born in Latvia are "non-citizens":
Tatiana Kaspere, 43, a Russian-speaking vendor, says she is fed up living in a country where she feels she will never belong.

Such are the contradictions of Latvia's citizenship laws, she says, that her son, who was born before Latvian independence in 1991, is a noncitizen, while her three-year-old daughter is Latvian. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/world/europe/15iht-latvia.3550354.html?pagewanted=all



The West's so-called "reporting" on matters concerning Russia and Eastern Europe -- like this so-called "article" -- is a lot worse than anything published on RT.

What surprises me more, though, is that people on a thread about neo-Nazism in the Baltic states jump in to blast Russia -- and its media when it reports the story. Estonia and Latvia are small countries where Russian is still almost universally understood there, and the Russian-speaking ethnic minorities (not just the Russians, but Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and others) are asking to have the right to use it for institutions like the court system -- what's wrong with that? The nationalist counterargument is that the Estonian and Latvian languages would die out, since Russian is already "too popular" among the national minorities. But it's silly to think that would actually happen as a result, since most of the media and government offices would rely on Estonian or Latvian, and the languages would remain taught in the schools and colleges. There are quite simple ways of recognizing Russian as a co-official or regional tongue while leaving the local language as the primary official tongue. Examples include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The real question is the basic issue of rights for minorities in the Baltic states. How can the denial of language rights to Russian and non-Russian minorities of Estonia and Latvia be comparable situation to Russian being official in Moscow, while non-Russian languages are co-official in the non-Russian provinces? I think there's no germane comparison here, actually.

[Luís Henrique]

Russia allows national languages, in their respective republics, but not outside of them (the Soviet Union was a slightly different story, but still largely the same).

I think this is obviously misphrased - or is it actually forbidden to talk in Chechen outside of Chechnya?


The Russian language is, however, taught everywhere, even though primary schooling would not be legally conducted in Chechen in Moscow, Russian is legally taught at the same level in Grozny with no legal impediment.

Russian imperialists.

If I was a Chechen citizen, I would demand Russian being taught in Chechen schools. And I would definitely take my kids out from a school that didn't.

It has nothing to do with imperialism.

Luís Henrique

[Qavvik]

Probably because Chechnya is a part of Russia, not Russia a part of Chechnya. To quote Phillip Bonosky in his book Devils in Amber: The Baltics (p. 200), "An Estonian could travel thousands of miles from his little pocket of a country in northern Europe and, using his second language, Russian, as a lingua franca, he could feel at home anywhere—speaking to strangers unreachable hitherto—in the words of the one language they held in common. For a small people like the Estonians, whose language nobody else knew or had to know, it was absolutely essential that they acquire a second language, or remain boxed off not only geographically but socially as well."

There are genuine examples of national discrimination in-re Chechens and so on, but "they don't allow you to teach classes in Chechen/Tuvan/Karelian/etc. in Moscow!" isn't one of them unless those ethnic groups made up a significant part of the city.

I a federation such as Russia, the Chechens are ideally no more part of Russia than the Russians are part of Chechnya. The idea of a federatioin is that both should be represented where possible. The question that must follow is why Russian is given special precedence in a federation of different nationalities? The answer is simple; the Russian authorities wish to Russify the smaller nations as poverty forces them out of their neglected factories and farms that have long been forgotten in Moscow and into the cities. Everywhere Chechens and Karelians exist outside of their constituent Republics their languages are denied equal status with Russian.

The Estonian example is shit. I'm speaking of significant communities outside of their constituent Republics, you're speaking of wandering travelers. I used the city of Moscow as an example, you jumped on that and questioned the size of the Chechen community in Moscow rather than handling the question at hand. I could've have said anywhere from Smolensk to Vladivostok and used in minor community present in any numbers anywhere outside of their own, usual community.


I think this is obviously misphrased - or is it actually forbidden to talk in Chechen outside of Chechnya?



If I was a Chechen citizen, I would demand Russian being taught in Chechen schools. And I would definitely take my kids out from a school that didn't.

It has nothing to do with imperialism.

Luís Henrique
You know what I meant. Selective quoting of my posts just smacks of the tactics of Bourgeois politics. Chechen cannot be used as the primary language of instruction in any school in any Chechen community outside of Grozny. Even the Canadians allow for French language schools outside of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ontario.

Again, I never implied that Russian was not being taught, you just played with my words to make it appear as if I had. Russian is of course taught everywhere in the country, but no community anywhere in Russia proper that is not Russian is allowed to use their language as the primary language of instruction in schools, whereas a Russian in Karelia is.

[Goblin]

Cant believe their brainwashing 3 year olds with this bullshit. The parents should sue the guy running the kindergarten.

[Comrade Marxist Bro]

I a federation such as Russia, the Chechens are ideally no more part of Russia than the Russians are part of Chechnya. The idea of a federatioin is that both should be represented where possible.

The question that must follow is why Russian is given special precedence in a federation of different nationalities? The answer is simple; the Russian authorities wish to Russify the smaller nations as poverty forces them out of their neglected factories and farms that have long been forgotten in Moscow and into the cities. Everywhere Chechens and Karelians exist outside of their constituent Republics their languages are denied equal status with Russian.

The Estonian example is shit. I'm speaking of significant communities outside of their constituent Republics, you're speaking of wandering travelers. I used the city of Moscow as an example, you jumped on that and questioned the size of the Chechen community in Moscow rather than handling the question at hand. I could've have said anywhere from Smolensk to Vladivostok and used in minor community present in any numbers anywhere outside of their own, usual community.

You know what I meant. Selective quoting of my posts just smacks of the tactics of Bourgeois politics. Chechen cannot be used as the primary language of instruction in any school in any Chechen community outside of Grozny. Even the Canadians allow for French language schools outside of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ontario.

Actually, Russia is not part of the federation; it is the federation itself, comprised of various component territories. Some of these are nominal republics -- Chechnya, Tatarstan, and others. There is no Russian Republic within the Russian Federation, but virtually the entire country has spoken Russian as a first or second language for a very long time. In contrast, there has never been a non-Russian linguistic community that has comprised a significant proportion of the population, despite the demographic diversity of the country in its entirety.

It's pretty obvious that, without exception, every country has one or several principal languages, usually designated as "official." Since Russian is the most widely spoken and thus useful, there is reason to making instruction in Russian required in the schools.

As a practical matter, it makes as little sense to teach Chechen to students in Moscow as there is to teach Hmong to students in Kansas, since very few Muscovites would need to use it in their entire lives. Since Russia is simply so diverse, to give the "equal representation everywhere" you're talking about to everybody would mean teaching at least several dozen languages "everywhere" -- and if the principle is extended to all of the smaller linguistic communities, children in Moscow would need to be taught several hundred languages.

And as far as I know, there isn't any prohibition on teaching the Chechen language in Moscow. I don't think Moscow has Chechen schools, but according to the Chechen Academy of Sciences, nobody has banned the observance of the Chechens' Chechen Language Day in Mosow:


Following Ramzan Kadyrov's decree on the celebration of the Chechen Language Day, the occasion is marked by honoring the Chechen language throughout the republic, from preschools, schools, colleges and high schools, to important institutions and organizations. These activities take place not only in our republic, but also beyond its boundaries, in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Moscow, and even abroad. . . http://anchr.ru/


Again, I never implied that Russian was not being taught, you just played with my words to make it appear as if I had. Russian is of course taught everywhere in the country, but no community anywhere in Russia proper that is not Russian is allowed to use their language as the primary language of instruction in schools, whereas a Russian in Karelia is.

The rest of your post is completely incorrect, sorry.

There are 239 languages and dialects in Russia in total. 89 are studied in Russia as school subjects within the curriculum. 39 are employed as the actual language of instruction for different subjects. My source for these numbers is Olga Artemenko, the head of the Center of National Education Issues of the Federal Institute of the Development of Education, interviewed by the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta in 2011. http://www.rg.ru/2011/07/05/artemenko.html

[Ismail]

The question that must follow is why Russian is given special precedence in a federation of different nationalities?Because Russian is the language of the Russian Federation. Because there's no reason for Tatars to learn Udmurt or Buryats to learn Ingush. There are national republics for a reason: in those republics are the homelands of the ethnic groups of which the republics represent. A majority of them have a negligible ethnic presence outside of said republics but what unites all of them is their existence within the Federation and their common second language, Russian.

It is particularly jarring to hear a self-described Left-Communist say these things. The idea that the Russian language should be kept out of Chechnya sounds like bourgeois nationalism.


The answer is simple; the Russian authorities wish to Russify the smaller nations as poverty forces them out of their neglected factories and farms that have long been forgotten in Moscow and into the cities.Learning Russian is not Russification if their actual native languages are: A. their first; B. actually are used predominantly in their national republics. Into the 1980's the vast majority of Central Asians, for instance, identified themselves as Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, etc. and regarded their native language as their first, something rather obvious considering that there wasn't some gigantic movement of Russianized Turkmen or whatever demanding to join the Russian Federation after 1991.


The Estonian example is shit. I'm speaking of significant communities outside of their constituent Republics, you're speaking of wandering travelers.Name a significant Chechen community outside of Chechnya that is agitating for the right to set up Chechen-language schools. I use Estonia as an example because it was once a part of the USSR and learning Russian was quite important to actually being a citizen of the USSR rather than just an inhabitant of the Estonian SSR.


I could've have said anywhere from Smolensk to Vladivostok and used in minor community present in any numbers anywhere outside of their own, usual community.A "minor community" doesn't sound like much. It isn't like if a Chechen couple is seen teaching their baby their own language that the police will shoot them down or something.