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> but my guess would be that they were, at one point, not so bad, relatively. In the case of Russia, you would be very, very wrong. You'd have to go back to th

> but my guess would be that they were, at one point, not so bad, relatively. In the case of Russia, you would be very, very wrong. You'd have to go back to the Kievan empire of the 13th century to find the last time the place wasn't an ethical quagmire. I take your point about holding Western governments to a higher standard -- we definitely should -- but don't assume all cultures had a similar starting point. Your average Canadian has never had to deal with the cultural memory of anything quite so devastating as the Mongol invasion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus%27).

nopassrecover 15y ago
"Cultural memory" - is an invasion from around 800 years ago really that devastating on a daily basis to the people of today? I'd also beg to differ on your point that Canadians have no ancestry of invasion - Canadians descend primarily from France and the UK (with a little German as well), and it would be a tad outrageous to pretend these nations haven't endured bloody and violent invasions throughout history.
- bzbarsky 15y ago
  It's not whether it's devastating to people today. It's about the fairy tales your kids get told when they're growing up. And grandparent's point wasn't that Canadian's don't have a cultural heritage of invasions and battles, but rather that the Mongol invasion was somewhat different from most of the things going on in Western Europe (e.g. almost all major cities were sacked; casualties were at levels not to be seen in Western Europe until World War 2) and had widespread and long-ranging effects on society that made it qualitatively different from Western Europe. Second paragraph of the "Influence of the Mongol invasion on Rus' society" section of the cited Wikipedia article is relevant here.
- baguasquirrel 15y ago
  We have Pakistani cab drivers in New York City shuttling Jews around. Don't you have similar situations in Toronto? That should be evidence enough that we cannot make claim to the cultural heritage of our ancestor's nations. People come to the United States and Canada partly to get away from their culture's biases and heritage.
  - lobster_johnson 15y ago
    The US is an outlier, though, New York even more so. More than any city in the US, NYC can claim to be the epicenter and cradle of the kind of mythical nation-history-building to which every nation-culture's opportunistic immigration and subsequent assimilation has contributed to and adopted as their own. The very notion of the American dream is codified on New York's main landmark: "give me your poor huddled masses" etc. The story of America is necessarily the story of many populations coming together to create something new. The Irish may have the old country to look back on, for example, but their original cultural heritage has been superseded by that of America itself. Russia has no such story; along with its disparate satellites (Ukraine, Belarus and so on) it has a long history of single peoples mostly staying still, or emigrating. The idea of a "Russian people" with a common cultural heritage has been a fairly constant concept for hundreds of years, whereas "the American people" is a very new one, historically.
- cabalamat 15y ago
  > is an invasion from around 800 years ago really that devastating on a daily basis to the people of today? It's not something I'd dismiss out of hand. For example, England was invaded by the Normans over 900 years ago, and the results of that invasion still affect everyone's everyday life today. Or consider that some cultural entities can be very long-lasting, such as religions, languages and writing systems.
  - infinite8s 15y ago
    Yes, it's true that invasions from long ago can have long-lasting cultural effects, but there's no way this effect could conceivably characterized as "devastating" on a daily basis.
nivertech 15y ago
I guess Canadian First Nations have a similar cultural memory of invading Europeans ;)
arethuza 15y ago
Not to mention the period from the 30s to the 50s where people were arrested to meet the quotas to fill the camps of the Gulag - unlike Nazi Germany anybody could be arrested - right up to the wife of Kalinin, who was the nominal head of state.
- jules 15y ago
  > unlike Nazi Germany anybody could be arrested You are saying that like that's a bad thing.
  - arethuza 15y ago
    What I meant was that the cultural impact of the policies of mass arrest, torture, murder and imprisonment probably had a much deeper social impact in the Soviet Union (and the areas they conquered) than in Nazi Germany (and their conquered areas) as the Nazis targeted specific racial and political groups and if you didn't belong to these groups then your chances of being arrested were pretty small. However, in the Soviet Union the arrests were being made primarily to feed the requirements for slave workers in the camps - not just for political/racial reasons so anyone could be arrested - often for trivial things (e.g. having a foreign stamp in his collection got one poor soul 10 years in the camps).
    - maayank 15y ago
      That is not correct. Even "Aryans" were tortured/arrested/harassed by government officials for anti-Nazi behavior (criticizing Hitler or the Nazi party [even indirectly], having relationships with POWs, suspicious political behavior, etc.). If you're ever in Berlin make a point of visiting the following museum/exhibition: http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/exhibitions/topography-of-terror/ http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/exhibition... edit: fixed some typos. Additionally, a poignant example: many laws/acts in Nazi Germany were passed by Ja/Nein referendums. Of course, if you voted unfavorably in those referendums you were harassed and publicly humiliated (i.e. marched through town with signs labeling you as the enemy of the people)
    - 15y ago
fedd 15y ago
aren't such prejudices a type of racism? at least this is a supremacy/inferiority theory which is not very en vogue these days, isn't it?

nopassrecover 15y ago

"Cultural memory" - is an invasion from around 800 years ago really that devastating on a daily basis to the people of today? I'd also beg to differ on your point that Canadians have no ancestry of invasion - Canadians descend primarily from France and the UK (with a little German as well), and it would be a tad outrageous to pretend these nations haven't endured bloody and violent invasions throughout history.

bzbarsky 15y ago
It's not whether it's devastating to people today. It's about the fairy tales your kids get told when they're growing up. And grandparent's point wasn't that Canadian's don't have a cultural heritage of invasions and battles, but rather that the Mongol invasion was somewhat different from most of the things going on in Western Europe (e.g. almost all major cities were sacked; casualties were at levels not to be seen in Western Europe until World War 2) and had widespread and long-ranging effects on society that made it qualitatively different from Western Europe. Second paragraph of the "Influence of the Mongol invasion on Rus' society" section of the cited Wikipedia article is relevant here.
baguasquirrel 15y ago
We have Pakistani cab drivers in New York City shuttling Jews around. Don't you have similar situations in Toronto? That should be evidence enough that we cannot make claim to the cultural heritage of our ancestor's nations. People come to the United States and Canada partly to get away from their culture's biases and heritage.
- lobster_johnson 15y ago
  The US is an outlier, though, New York even more so. More than any city in the US, NYC can claim to be the epicenter and cradle of the kind of mythical nation-history-building to which every nation-culture's opportunistic immigration and subsequent assimilation has contributed to and adopted as their own. The very notion of the American dream is codified on New York's main landmark: "give me your poor huddled masses" etc. The story of America is necessarily the story of many populations coming together to create something new. The Irish may have the old country to look back on, for example, but their original cultural heritage has been superseded by that of America itself. Russia has no such story; along with its disparate satellites (Ukraine, Belarus and so on) it has a long history of single peoples mostly staying still, or emigrating. The idea of a "Russian people" with a common cultural heritage has been a fairly constant concept for hundreds of years, whereas "the American people" is a very new one, historically.
cabalamat 15y ago
> is an invasion from around 800 years ago really that devastating on a daily basis to the people of today? It's not something I'd dismiss out of hand. For example, England was invaded by the Normans over 900 years ago, and the results of that invasion still affect everyone's everyday life today. Or consider that some cultural entities can be very long-lasting, such as religions, languages and writing systems.
- infinite8s 15y ago
  Yes, it's true that invasions from long ago can have long-lasting cultural effects, but there's no way this effect could conceivably characterized as "devastating" on a daily basis.

nivertech 15y ago

I guess Canadian First Nations have a similar cultural memory of invading Europeans ;)

arethuza 15y ago

Not to mention the period from the 30s to the 50s where people were arrested to meet the quotas to fill the camps of the Gulag - unlike Nazi Germany anybody could be arrested - right up to the wife of Kalinin, who was the nominal head of state.

jules 15y ago
> unlike Nazi Germany anybody could be arrested You are saying that like that's a bad thing.
- arethuza 15y ago
  What I meant was that the cultural impact of the policies of mass arrest, torture, murder and imprisonment probably had a much deeper social impact in the Soviet Union (and the areas they conquered) than in Nazi Germany (and their conquered areas) as the Nazis targeted specific racial and political groups and if you didn't belong to these groups then your chances of being arrested were pretty small. However, in the Soviet Union the arrests were being made primarily to feed the requirements for slave workers in the camps - not just for political/racial reasons so anyone could be arrested - often for trivial things (e.g. having a foreign stamp in his collection got one poor soul 10 years in the camps).
  - maayank 15y ago
    That is not correct. Even "Aryans" were tortured/arrested/harassed by government officials for anti-Nazi behavior (criticizing Hitler or the Nazi party [even indirectly], having relationships with POWs, suspicious political behavior, etc.). If you're ever in Berlin make a point of visiting the following museum/exhibition: http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/exhibitions/topography-of-terror/ http://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/exhibition... edit: fixed some typos. Additionally, a poignant example: many laws/acts in Nazi Germany were passed by Ja/Nein referendums. Of course, if you voted unfavorably in those referendums you were harassed and publicly humiliated (i.e. marched through town with signs labeling you as the enemy of the people)
  - 15y ago

fedd 15y ago

aren't such prejudices a type of racism? at least this is a supremacy/inferiority theory which is not very en vogue these days, isn't it?