Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Westplaining
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Some observations, I can't say exactly to what extent they influence the discourse.🧵
1) "Eastern Europe experts" are usually focused on Russia's affairs. Sometimes they have even adopted Russian points of view, but even a bigger problem is, that they have rarely studied Ukraine
1) "Eastern Europe experts" are usually focused on Russia's affairs. Sometimes they have even adopted Russian points of view, but even a bigger problem is, that they have rarely studied Ukraine
2)
The myth of "Moscow's legitimate sphere of influence": people socialized in the Cold War era are grateful that the nuclear threat from the USSR is gone, that the Berlin Wall has fallen, but they do not have much empathy for the countries that regained independence in 1991.
The myth of "Moscow's legitimate sphere of influence": people socialized in the Cold War era are grateful that the nuclear threat from the USSR is gone, that the Berlin Wall has fallen, but they do not have much empathy for the countries that regained independence in 1991.
That applies even to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, EU memberstates since almost 20 years. Even so called historians or "experts" ignore their experiences and expertise as "based on their history", and "not objective", or not "up to date".
We need to talk about #Westplaining.
It’s a term coined by the Eastern European left to describe a tendency of certain Western leftists to ascribe everything that happens east of Germany to Western policy.
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It’s a term coined by the Eastern European left to describe a tendency of certain Western leftists to ascribe everything that happens east of Germany to Western policy.
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Those I read on the Eastern European left really hate Westplaining. Why? Because it denies their lived reality. It supposes that anyone living beyond 15° East has no agency, and is passively subject to the whims of Western strategy.
It suggests that Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia etc were manipulated by the West into joining NATO, because they have no interests or will of their own. It suggests that Putin is a mere puppet of Western machinations, who can be yanked about as if he were made of rags.
