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I agree that it smells racist, but if I try to steelman the author: You can't name a single country that happens to end in -stan that isn't a mostly dysfunction
by skrebbel 9mo ago
I agree that it smells racist, but if I try to steelman the author: You can't name a single country that happens to end in -stan that isn't a mostly dysfunctional dictatorship. The opening paragraph of this article happens to fit remarkably well with every single -stan. I don't think this has anything to do with race, as you suggest.
- treetalker 9mo agoIt also rhetorically emphasizes the connections and (dare I say) subservience to Russia.
- keiferski 9mo agoThe whole -stan trope is pretty funny to me in its double geographical ignorance. It was/is used by people to refer to any country in the Middle East that is a “Muslim country” (itself a pretty uneducated vague label). But in actuality, -stan is a Persianate suffix that predates Islam and most of the countries are in Central Asia, not the Middle East. There’s also the fact that we call Armenia that name because of the Romans. In Armenian it’s called Hayastan.