Thread by @TerezaHendl

Many vital texts came out on the problems with #westsplaining, coloniality and the denial of a voice, agency & self-determination in debates on Ukraine, Central & Eastern Europe, highlighting the need for anti-imperialist, anticolonial & antipatriarchal debates & politics - a🧵

Here’s an investigation of westsplaining in US debates by @jan_smolenski and @jan_dutkiewicz: “Speaking about Eastern Europe and Eastern Europeans without listening to local voices or trying to understand the region’s complexity is a colonial projection.” newrepublic.com/article/165603…

Smolenski & Dutkiewicz raise issues with a strikingly unequal power dynamic: “In the westsplaining framework, the concerns of Russia are recognized but those of Eastern Europe are not. [..] Eastern Europe is something that can be explained but isn’t worth engaging with”….

and critique the particular coloniality of Western internationalism “which claims to stand in solidarity with the oppressed,” but when it comes to EE “does the opposite: It asks the subaltern to speak, only to ignore them when they ask for military support or self-determination.”

It thus appears as if “Eastern European countries should recognize their status as second-class citizens in the community of states and accept their geopolitical role as neutral buffers at the edges of the vestiges of the American and Russian empires.” How very troubling…

Here’s another look at Western internationalism, this time from Kyiv by Taras Bilous @ahatanhel who critiques the selective perception of the Western Left concerned with ‘NATO aggression in Ukraine’ but downplaying Russia’ authoritarianism and imperialism opendemocracy.net/en/odr/a-lette…

Bilous then interrogates the hypocrisy of a large part of the Western ‘anti-war’ Left and suggests that instead of looking for a new balance between US and Russia’s imperialisms, the Left has to struggle for a “democratisation of the international security order.”

Also in UA, Volodymyr Artiukh @R2khV appreciates much of the knowledge of Western social movements but also interrogates its limits: indeed, this knowledge was produced under the conditions of US hegemony & “reached its limit at Russia’s bloody-red lines” commons.com.ua/en/us-plaining…

Artiukh writes that much of the US Left’s discourse downplays Russia’s role of an active agent: “Russia is not reacting, adapting, making concessions anymore, it has re-gained agency and it is able to shape the world around it.” Because many US leftists fail to recognize this,

US-centric explanations are outdated and carry a lack of predictive power, owing to their limited perspective. Thus, he appeals to the Western Left: “Learn from these mistakes: now you are also much more provincial and you face temptations to resort to simplistic Manicheanism.”

Then there’s Zosia Brom’s sharp commentary on Western Left’s exceptionalism: “Your lack of knowledge on the issues of Russia & the rest of the world formerly behind the Iron Curtain is, frankly, astonishing, surprising & the lack of curiosity – shameful” freedomnews.org.uk/2022/03/04/fuc…

In her view, the lack of knowledge intersects with a lack of understanding of intergenerational trauma carried by those impacted by Soviet/Russian imperialism. Plus a troubling superiority with which some Westerners impose their perspectives over non-Western existential concerns.

She points out: “…just shows your privilege of growing up in a country where your life story was not littered with, how exciting, tantrums and aggressions of various scales of this great, unpredictable force that assumes it can throw its way anywhere where there is no NATO.”

@PopovaProf & @OxanaShevel investigate Putin’s rhetoric & actions over the last two decades and contrary to popular & dominant Western narratives, they argue that Putin’s war isn’t about NATO and that his goals extend beyond imposing neutrality on Ukraine slate.com/news-and-polit…

In their view, Putin’s larger objective is to reestablish “Russian political & cultural dominance over a nation that Putin sees as one with Russia, and then follow up by undoing the European rules-based order & security architecture established in the aftermath of World War II.”

Given these goals, Ukrainian neutrality is a “woefully insufficient concession” for Putin: “it’s not NATO at its doorsteps that’s so concerning to the Kremlin, but political competition, because it threatens authoritarian stability and introduces prospects of democratization.”

An interview with Oksana Dutchak in Ukraine: “From here on the ground the situation looks differently because we see how Russian government behaves… We can hardly say let’s keep Russia & NATO away from here, because it is only Russia who invaded Ukraine.” transnational-strike.info/2022/03/05/the…

Dutchak critiques foreign debates: “Some leftist people are saying that the way out is to negotiate & agree on the neutrality of Ukraine. It is hard for me to support this point at the moment. This position is a little bit colonial: denying also the sovereignty of a country.” She

continues: “It is up to the people in the country to decide what they want to do and for them being able to decide, there should be no war. As I’ve said, this war made decisions for many Ukrainians. People say there is always a choice. But most Ukrainians don’t see a choice now.”

@Ileana_voix critiques the epistemic marginalization of Ukrainian voices in debates on Ukraine: “If Ukrainians are interviewed, they are usually cast in the roles of tearful, frightened witnesses. They are rarely shown as experts in their own history.” bostonreview.net/articles/ukrai…

She also observes that EE’s “been shaped by global forces as much as any region around the world: neoliberal capitalism, patriarchal authoritarianism & other forms of sexism, racism & global migration (contoured by all the preceding),” and within these forces, EE countries are..

…”perceived as only “relatively” civilized, only “relatively” European. Only in comparison with others - people of color, people of other religions - can Ukrainians be recognized as acceptable to the West, and then it will be in some sort of subservient position.”

She critiques racial hierarchies in Europe that cannot adequately be captured through US-specific frameworks, an issue that many CEE scholars have raised (e.g. Koczé, Tlostanova @sdzorko @AleSojka @annasafuta Tudor @i_kalmar @KrivonosDaria @InclusiveLucie @aleks_lewicki & myself)

Nachescu interrogates the diversity and complexity of Eastern European societies, impoverishment by neoliberal capitalism and stark inequalities within European racial structures, which also maintain various shades & hierarchies of Western / non-Western whiteness and concludes

What we see in all the texts & interviews is a refusal of Western-centric, dated & oppressive discourses, binaries, categories & power dynamic, and new visions for social & global justice & solidarity emerging in CEE & diasporic anti-imperialist, critical race & feminist debates

I want to add a compulsory reading

https://twitter.com/CEE_Feminisms/status/1418165601084878853

Also Aizada Arystanbek’s @levbekk text on the issue with the romanticizing of the USSR - e.g. by young Western leftists pledging allegiance to the Soviet Union on Tik Tok - & investigating the legacy of Soviet colonial violence in Central & North Asia gal-dem.com/why-romanticis…

And importantly, @ManuelaBoatca’s interrogation of colonialism and imperialism in Thinking Europe Otherwise: Lessons from the Caribbean, open access journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…