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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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A recent event that I’m sure fully counts as culture war is the official removal in Odessa of the monument to the city’s founders, mainly Catherine the Great. The justification, which is rather easy to predict, is that Catherine was a perpetrator of Moskal imperialism who repressed Ukrainian patriots (supposedly they already existed back then), committed cultural genocide and erased Ukrainian nationhood (which obviously we’re also supposed to believe existed back then). There isn’t much to comment on this, I think (though I’ll again point out that Odessa would never have existed in the first place without Catherine), but an educated redditor was eager to point out* the curious fact that the removed monument is actually a replica erected in 2007, largely as a response to the events of the so-called Orange Revolution, as the original was removed (and supposedly destroyed) by the Soviets in 1920. So yes, it was originally removed as an imperialist relic, by powers that the Ukrainian authorities claim later perpetrated genocide specifically against Ukrainians because they were Ukrainians i.e. it was an incident between opposing factions of Ukraine deniers. This is where we’re at, which actually doesn’t surprise me that much because I believe we’ve been in a clown world for a long time.

*https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/zyccgk/catherine_the_great_statue_taken_down_in_odesa/

I am mildly interested in how the quest for Ukrainian nation building will develop my lifetime. Right now they manage to co-opt two very opposing sets of political and philosophical schools, largely due to wartime mobilisation censorship and patriotism. On the one hand the Ukrainian identity is being based on 19th/early 20th century style blood and soil rhetoric. The defenders of white Christian (even pagan) Europe against eastern orc hordes. Unspoiled real Slavs against the crypto-Tatar Muscovites. Real European Christians unlike those Eastern Orthodox peasants. On the other hand their only hope for national survival in this day and age is to tightly integrate with the “GAE”. So the Ukrainian army puts up EU flags in newly reconquered territories. Their parliament is busy rushing through gay agenda bills. Their politicians are making deals with Blackrock and learning the ropes of the WEF circuit.

But when the war ends these two stories cannot coexist for long. You cannot arm neo-nazi battalions while going through the EU integration process. You cannot outright ban one of the largest churches as well as the linguistic communities in your country and try to enter the Schengen area. It’s not for nothing that half the EU funded ads targeted to my demographic on social media has some visible minorities (ie blacks) posing as proud Europeans. The nationalist Ukrainian state, if it ever stops being such a poor corrupt shithole and enters the EU, will have to cope with millions of African/South Asian/Middle Eastern immigrants as well as the European Court of Human Rights rulings which will not tolerate the blood and soil rhetoric in practice. It’s ridiculous contradictions all over and makes me profoundly sad that so many young brave people are dying for a political project doomed to fail if it ever succeeds.

Something has to give in at some point. I don’t know what but I am not very hopeful about the results.

I hope they don't end up like Pakistan, where your entire identity and history is tied up in hating the country where it all comes from.

Without Islam, Pakistanis are just Indians, and that reality is indigestible to them. So instead of making peace with our shared history, they are on a quest to be an Islamic nation like no other. Sadly for them, there is no such thing as a culturally Muslim country. At that point, you're just copying Arab traditions, while the Arabs themselves see you as an impure/inferior race. The people are confused, because at an organic level, their traditions are very much Indian.

Indonesia effortlessly balances its Hindu cultural roots with Islam and Malaysia faces more friction, but still does a better job than Pakistan. You simply cannot build a stable country that is expected to hate its own cultural roots. In the subcontinent - Bangladeshis don't have this issue, because they have a real cultural sub-identity : Bengali. Pakistan can't adopt a similarly dominant local sub-identity for 2 reasons. First, Punjabi would be the most common sub-identity, but Sikhs have wholesale monopoly on that identity. Pakistani Islam can't make peace with a Sikh influenced co-identity. Second, Pakistan is multicultural, and separatist movements are rooted in resentment towards Punjabi dominance. Making that explicit will only give power to Balochi & Pashtun terrorists.

I can see some similar parallels here. From Hatred towards the mother-state, lack of a unifying identity that is separate from the mother-state and fostering snakes in their own backyard. (Islamists, Neo-nazis). Both of them are only important to NATO because they balance out hostile (to NATO) powers in the region. And the second you take the current military aid, their complete economic bankruptcy becomes hard to look away from.

Similarly, if you take away the history, then the mother-state is your most natural trading partner and prospective ally. Living with historic resentment actively makes life harder for your country.

I have more sympathy towards Ukraine because unlike Pakistan, their problems aren't of their own creation. But in 2022, Pakistan is the poster child of 'failed state'. I sure hope that Ukraine can avoid the same predicament.

I can see some similar parallels here. From Hatred towards the mother-state, lack of a unifying identity that is separate from the mother-state and fostering snakes in their own backyard.

Pakistan, Ukraine, Ireland... anyone else?

The Republic Ireland as such has done markedly better than those two with independence.

How bad can a country located in Northern Europe and didn’t enter the WW2 do for itself in the 20th century realistically though?

See Ireland, Northern.

Also not as bad as Pakistan or Ukraine, but a lot worse than Ireland in terms of ethnic conflict.

Also, Spain, which stayed out of WW2, but nonetheless managed to have a civil war that was even nastier than Ireland's and a very long period of fascism/post-fascism (rather than just De Valera's long fantasy of a Celtic Catholic leprechaun kingdom.)

Isn’t their GDP per capita roughly equal to Wales? I don’t think they could keep up such alright economic standards with so much ethnic violence if they were located in any other part of the world

Fair point. I suppose that raises the further question, "What's wrong with Wales?", but we don't have all week.

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