"Have the events in Ukraine affected you at all?"
Yes and no.¹
First off, some geography: the Crimean region of Ukraine is about as far from where I live as Orlando is from New York, Denver is from San Francisco, or London is from Rome. So on one level, it's akin to asking someone in Colorado if they worry about earthquakes and tidal waves, or asking someone in New York if fears about alligators, hurricanes, and long lines at Disney World keep them up at night.² So in that sense, no, I wouldn't say that I experience a sense of unease solely related to geographical proximity.
Another factor which edges the answer towards "no" is that Latvia is a member of both the EU and NATO. Ukraine is not.³ This doesn't mean that a EU or NATO member country is immune from unrest or upheaval... but it does mean that the consequences of outside intervention are much, much higher, and - one would think - much less likely.
But on the "yes" side of the balancing scale, Latvia not only shares a border with Russia, but it also has the largest population of ethnic Russians in the EU. The country has only regained its full independence within the last twenty-five years, after multiple decades of occupation by multiple regimes, so there are some understandable question lingering at the back of people's minds:
"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"
Yesterday, when I was out for a run, I noticed that there was a plethora of policemen and women surrounding the freedom monument in the city centre. They were there to make sure that those commemorating "Legion Day" - which honors Latvian soldiers who fought for the Nazis in order to repel the Soviets during WWII - wouldn't clash with groups protesting the event.
Needless to say, it's controversial day, no matter which angle you look at it from. And I'd be lying if I said that it didn't take me slightly aback to see so many police gathered together, particularly in light of what was happening far - but not so far as it seemed at first - away in Ukraine. And until I recalled why they were there and what was happening, I found myself wondering, albeit briefly:
"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"
Have you ever heated up spaghetti sauce in a pot on the stove? You know how it'll simmer for a while, heating up slowly, and then all of a sudden - *blorp*⁴ - an air-fueled bubble of sauce catches you by surprise as it bursts, splattering red sauce everywhere?
Rarely is the blorp a random event. So many tensions still exist in so many places, slowly simmering until they come to a boil. Pressure cookers packed with so many diverse ingredients, all of them contributing - in different ways - to the blorp.
I became aware of something interesting a couple of years ago: my subconscious self was reacting to certain words and sounds in a negative manner. Even if I didn't understand the words or sounds - which I didn't - and even if they were being used in a positive and affirming fashion, they carried a negative connotation in my mind.
I was reacting to Russian.
Why did I have a mild but noticeable internal negative reaction to a beautiful, rich, and vibrant language such as Russian?
Propaganda.
See, in the West, we tend to live under the assumption that the only propaganda which exists is being used by our enemies to defame and belittle us. We're awesome,⁵ and if you don't agree, then you're wrong. North Korea uses propaganda.⁶ Russia uses propaganda. Uganda uses propaganda.⁷ The West - and especially America - uses Truth, Justice, and Moral Imperative. After all, it's not propaganda if it's true, right?
Here's a question, though: Do you think the fact that the character with a fake Russian accent in the movie almost always turns out to be the bad guy has an effect on how you perceive the very sound of the language? Does the equation "Russia = Communism = Evil," which those of us who grew up during the Cold War era were taught, influence our perception of a language and culture?⁸
Do you think that the news coverage you're reading about the issue is free from bias or influence? That your perception of what is happening in the Crimean region of Ukraine is unaffected by decades of ice-cold conflict?
Do you think if there were unfinished hotels or bizarre toilets during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 that we'd have cared?⁹
This isn't to paint the situation in Ukraine as entirely grey, or to frame the participants in the ongoing standoff there as having equal moral or legal grounds. There are shades of black and white, elements of right and wrong in even the most ambiguous of situations. But it is worth reminding us that the issues are rarely clear-cut, and that we - West or East, American or Russian, EU or CIS - are almost never as innocent and holy as we are told to think that we are.
Whenever ideological battles are being fought, and world powers grapple to see who is biggest and strongest, it's the average, everyday, normal people who end up getting hurt the most. Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tartars, the people who work jobs and hold pensions and sweep the streets and own shops and have normal human wants and needs and dreams and fears. People who will suffer no matter which side declares victory in the end. Economic sanctions, recession, conflict and struggle, toil and trouble... there's no easy way forward for anyone involved.
The people who lose the most are always those with the most to lose.
And because of that, I pray that what's been happening in Ukraine does have an effect on me.
¹Please bear in mind that everything being written here is from the viewpoint of an outsider (and an American outsider at that). I don't have a firm grasp on all the intricacies and cultural complexities involved in what's happening in Ukraine right now, and am answering the question above only from my personal perspective
²It's New York, so the answer would still be "Yes." But you get the point
³One of the main catalysts of the protests in Kiev was an about-face by the government on some trade agreements with the EU
⁴About as onomatopoetic as it gets
⁵This usage of awesome goes out to a German friend of mine who - correctly - thinks that Americans use it way too much. I consciously tried to avoid using the word in a talk I gave recently, and he still counted 4 or 5 times when it appeared in my vocabulary. Awesome
⁶Random but true fact #1: Kim Jong-un is the best friend of former NBA player Dennis Rodman
⁷Random but true fact #2: "Uganda" and "propaganda" are the only words in the English language that end with "-ganda." Hence my inclusion of Uganda
⁸This isn't meant to minimize the negative effects of Communism. But Russian culture existed long before Communism, and its roots run far too deep to ever be completely absorbed into whatever political structure is currently in place. Communism was an idea and a system; Russian is a culture, a language, a people. Very different
⁹Technically, yes, we'd have cared; making fun of Canada is a time-honored American pastime. But it would have had a completely different tone and agenda to it; more like a big brother quasi-affectionately making fun of a younger sibling, and less like the high-school hallway, mean-girl gossip which it came across as
Yes and no.¹
First off, some geography: the Crimean region of Ukraine is about as far from where I live as Orlando is from New York, Denver is from San Francisco, or London is from Rome. So on one level, it's akin to asking someone in Colorado if they worry about earthquakes and tidal waves, or asking someone in New York if fears about alligators, hurricanes, and long lines at Disney World keep them up at night.² So in that sense, no, I wouldn't say that I experience a sense of unease solely related to geographical proximity.
Another factor which edges the answer towards "no" is that Latvia is a member of both the EU and NATO. Ukraine is not.³ This doesn't mean that a EU or NATO member country is immune from unrest or upheaval... but it does mean that the consequences of outside intervention are much, much higher, and - one would think - much less likely.
But on the "yes" side of the balancing scale, Latvia not only shares a border with Russia, but it also has the largest population of ethnic Russians in the EU. The country has only regained its full independence within the last twenty-five years, after multiple decades of occupation by multiple regimes, so there are some understandable question lingering at the back of people's minds:
"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"
Yesterday, when I was out for a run, I noticed that there was a plethora of policemen and women surrounding the freedom monument in the city centre. They were there to make sure that those commemorating "Legion Day" - which honors Latvian soldiers who fought for the Nazis in order to repel the Soviets during WWII - wouldn't clash with groups protesting the event.
Needless to say, it's controversial day, no matter which angle you look at it from. And I'd be lying if I said that it didn't take me slightly aback to see so many police gathered together, particularly in light of what was happening far - but not so far as it seemed at first - away in Ukraine. And until I recalled why they were there and what was happening, I found myself wondering, albeit briefly:
"Is it happening again?"
"Are we next?"
Have you ever heated up spaghetti sauce in a pot on the stove? You know how it'll simmer for a while, heating up slowly, and then all of a sudden - *blorp*⁴ - an air-fueled bubble of sauce catches you by surprise as it bursts, splattering red sauce everywhere?
Rarely is the blorp a random event. So many tensions still exist in so many places, slowly simmering until they come to a boil. Pressure cookers packed with so many diverse ingredients, all of them contributing - in different ways - to the blorp.
I became aware of something interesting a couple of years ago: my subconscious self was reacting to certain words and sounds in a negative manner. Even if I didn't understand the words or sounds - which I didn't - and even if they were being used in a positive and affirming fashion, they carried a negative connotation in my mind.
I was reacting to Russian.
Why did I have a mild but noticeable internal negative reaction to a beautiful, rich, and vibrant language such as Russian?
Propaganda.
See, in the West, we tend to live under the assumption that the only propaganda which exists is being used by our enemies to defame and belittle us. We're awesome,⁵ and if you don't agree, then you're wrong. North Korea uses propaganda.⁶ Russia uses propaganda. Uganda uses propaganda.⁷ The West - and especially America - uses Truth, Justice, and Moral Imperative. After all, it's not propaganda if it's true, right?
Here's a question, though: Do you think the fact that the character with a fake Russian accent in the movie almost always turns out to be the bad guy has an effect on how you perceive the very sound of the language? Does the equation "Russia = Communism = Evil," which those of us who grew up during the Cold War era were taught, influence our perception of a language and culture?⁸
Do you think that the news coverage you're reading about the issue is free from bias or influence? That your perception of what is happening in the Crimean region of Ukraine is unaffected by decades of ice-cold conflict?
Do you think if there were unfinished hotels or bizarre toilets during the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 that we'd have cared?⁹
This isn't to paint the situation in Ukraine as entirely grey, or to frame the participants in the ongoing standoff there as having equal moral or legal grounds. There are shades of black and white, elements of right and wrong in even the most ambiguous of situations. But it is worth reminding us that the issues are rarely clear-cut, and that we - West or East, American or Russian, EU or CIS - are almost never as innocent and holy as we are told to think that we are.
Whenever ideological battles are being fought, and world powers grapple to see who is biggest and strongest, it's the average, everyday, normal people who end up getting hurt the most. Russians, Ukrainians, Crimean Tartars, the people who work jobs and hold pensions and sweep the streets and own shops and have normal human wants and needs and dreams and fears. People who will suffer no matter which side declares victory in the end. Economic sanctions, recession, conflict and struggle, toil and trouble... there's no easy way forward for anyone involved.
The people who lose the most are always those with the most to lose.
And because of that, I pray that what's been happening in Ukraine does have an effect on me.
¹Please bear in mind that everything being written here is from the viewpoint of an outsider (and an American outsider at that). I don't have a firm grasp on all the intricacies and cultural complexities involved in what's happening in Ukraine right now, and am answering the question above only from my personal perspective
²It's New York, so the answer would still be "Yes." But you get the point
³One of the main catalysts of the protests in Kiev was an about-face by the government on some trade agreements with the EU
⁴About as onomatopoetic as it gets
⁵This usage of awesome goes out to a German friend of mine who - correctly - thinks that Americans use it way too much. I consciously tried to avoid using the word in a talk I gave recently, and he still counted 4 or 5 times when it appeared in my vocabulary. Awesome
⁶Random but true fact #1: Kim Jong-un is the best friend of former NBA player Dennis Rodman
⁷Random but true fact #2: "Uganda" and "propaganda" are the only words in the English language that end with "-ganda." Hence my inclusion of Uganda
⁸This isn't meant to minimize the negative effects of Communism. But Russian culture existed long before Communism, and its roots run far too deep to ever be completely absorbed into whatever political structure is currently in place. Communism was an idea and a system; Russian is a culture, a language, a people. Very different
⁹Technically, yes, we'd have cared; making fun of Canada is a time-honored American pastime. But it would have had a completely different tone and agenda to it; more like a big brother quasi-affectionately making fun of a younger sibling, and less like the high-school hallway, mean-girl gossip which it came across as
Riga sunset