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I see no reason to call any of what I quoted an exaggeration. These are very well documented episodes, which barely scratch the surface when it comes to German

• somenameforme 3y ago
  "On 19 June 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that made education in all languages but Russian optional, overruling previous laws by ethnic autonomies, and reducing instruction in minority languages to only two hours a week.[48][49][50] This bill has been likened by some commentators, such as in Foreign Affairs, to the policy of Russification.[48]" This is not really what I would call ethnic strife. I do agree that language is a big part of ethnic identity, but such a law obviously does not prevent people from using or learning their ethnic language, and people being unable to communicate in a common tongue is likely to lead to real ethnic strife within a region. To me, the ideal of a multi-ethnic nation would be one where people have a shared common identity first, yet also don't entirely relinquish their own unique distinctions. Like I think in America one of the reasons there's such an increasingly absurd division in society is that we've lost any sort of shared collective identity. Out of curiosity, would you actually even prefer the opposite of what is described in the page you linked to? If there happens to be an ethnic minority that is a majority in some region, should that region be able to determine that education, and so on, should be in the language of the local ethnic group?
  • mopsi 3y ago
    > such a law obviously does not prevent people from using or learning their ethnic language It is only one measure of many that is driving the rapid decline of indigenous peoples in Russia. Russia has a long history of methodical persecution of indigenous peoples with a wide arsenal that spans from closure of schools and suppression of media to made up charges about "extremism" and being a "foreign agent" to punitive psychiatry in the best Soviet traditions. Many languages and cultures have already become extinct like Native American tribes that were forced into conditions that caused a permanent loss of language, culture and identity. With official departure from the European Convention on Human Rights, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and other international treaties, Russia doesn't even bother to act like they care about human rights. The council that monitored how signatories enforced the framework convention used the same word in their reports about the situation of minorities as you did: marginalization, increasingly so. And it's gotten much worse since Putin decided to invade Ukraine in 2022. Russia is now decimating indigenous populations by disproportionally conscripting them to die in Ukraine. Buryats and Nenets are overrepresented by a factor of 50 in casualties compared to ethnic Russians from Moscow. Two genocides for the price of one - trying to overwhelm Ukrainian defenders by throwing indigenous peoples from Russia at them.
    • somenameforme 3y ago
      My friend, what you're doing here is called gish galloping. [1] Pick something you find truly compelling and stick with it. A lot of the things you're saying are poorly supported, misleading, or probably plainly false. And FWIW I'm not saying you're doing this intentionally. "We" have been in an information warfare mode for the past 2 years, and the truth is only just recently starting to come out of this mess. We probably won't really know what's happened over the past 2 years for many years yet to come. So for example, I decided to look up the European Convention on Human Rights things, because it sounded pretty interesting. And what you've been told is not quite what happened. It seems that after the invasion of Ukraine, the relevant bureaucracy chose to suspend Russia's representation in such, so Russia announced a petition to withdraw from the organization, which the Council responded with, 'you can't quit, you're fired!' type stuff. [2] It's just the ongoing of weaponization of international organizations in the West, which ultimately serves little purpose other than to undermine their relevance and authority. Observe the the grossly incongruent responses to actions of Israel vs those of Russia. Organizations whose actions become driven by politics become seen as political actors, which entirely defeats their purpose. --- [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Council_of_Europe#Former_members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Council_o...
      • mopsi 3y ago
        > what you're doing here is called gish galloping. It wasn't me who changed the topic from blaming Poland for Hitler's invasion, to denial of the well-known persecution of indigenous peoples in Russia, to calling international human rights organizations weapons against the glorious Russian motherland. Denial of mistreatment of indigenous peoples is particularly nasty, because it has been a cornerstone of dissident Russian human rights and environmentalist movements for a very long time. Indigenous peoples inhabit many Russian regions rich in natural resources and they have seen persecution not only in the form of suppression of their language and culture, but also in the form of physical destruction of their native land through mismanaged and inefficient resource extraction that leaves behind toxic wastelands. "We don't want to live in moonscapes," as one activist put it: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/1/23/in-russia-indigenous-land-defenders-face-intimidation-and-exile https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/1/23/in-russia-indig... Would you prefer to return to how Hitler only wanted Danzig and other Nazi myths? For some unknown reason they are very widespread in Russia and have strong foothold among boomers like Putin.