Thread by @StasOlenchenko

Last week a small Russian media outlet posted a guide on how to get rid of imperialistic thinking.

It mentioned basic stuff like "avoid addressing all people in Russian" and "respect indigenous people’s culture"

Let me walk you into the heart of darkness aka the replies.
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First, some context.

Komi Daily is from the Komi Republic, a Northern region of Russia with an indigenous population of Komi people who speak one of the Uralic languages.

Russians have colonized the exploited the region extensively since the 19th century.

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Now, let’s get to some replies that Komi Daily's guide received here on Twitter.

I translated some of them and added some crucial context.

At the bottom of the screenshot, you can see the only positive comment I saw. It gets much worse.

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What I find especially repelling is that Russians understand intuitively that Russia is an empire that exploits other people, but they will never recognize it publicly.

Their instinctive response is to completely shut down whoever is speaking about Russian imperialism.

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Again, most people were trying to ridicule and insult the author to disprove her point.

Plus some casual whataboutism at play (what about France??).

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This one is a grim window inside everyday racism, victimhood, and violence that are so deeply seated in Russian culture.

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Finally, some more casual "go fuck yourself" comments.

I want to stress that Komi Daily's material was a fluffy lifestyle material not even remotely weaponized against Russians. It was a friendly invitation to some basic level of self-reflection.

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There's more, but these couple of screenshots give you the overall picture of the reactions to that piece.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Russians are yet to start any kind of conversation about the enormous level of racism and imperialism in their culture and history.

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I want to remind you that Ukraine right now is the only country fighting against the Russian Empire.

Ukraine's victory is the only scenario that can give hope to the hundreds of people colonized by Russia.

If you want to help us win, donate here:

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