Thread by @kamilkazani

American discourse is "anthropological". Broadly speaking, you are classified according to how you look (White vs Black)

Russian discourse is "culturalist". Sharing the common cultural memes, having a Russian first name and speaking without accent pretty much makes you Russian

https://twitter.com/TraductTurkka/status/1623266436461240323

This is the first approximation of course. Both discourses are in practice idiosyncratic. In America very anthropological "White" and "Black" coexist with a 100% culturalist "Hispanic" category. Add to that a geographically defined "Asian" and you get a total idiosyncratic mess

On the other hand, culturalist Russia also has the racialised discourse which can be weaponised whenever deemed necessary for reasons that have nothing to do either with race or with culture. The most obvious example is - political disagreements. They are constantly racialised

Is Sergey Shoigu Russian? It depends. If we like him, he's a 100% Russian. If we hate him for planning the Special Operation poorly, then he turns into a "Tuvan Napoleon"

Political enmity is racialised. Disagreement is racialised. Generally speaking, *criticism* is racialised

That makes total sense. Culturalist paradigm is powerful and allows for an easy assimilation. But it is also a pandora box. If being "Russian" is defined by sharing the common memes, then any nonzero and arbitrarily defined difference in cultural memes can mean you are not one

Paradoxically enough, culturalism is very, very fragile. Practically speaking, it doesn't allow for any difference in opinions as the most minuscule of them can and will be racialized

You do not agree with 0.00000001% of our agenda? You are clearly not Russian

The far right Sputnik and Pogrom declaring Putin "not an [ethnic] Russian" must be viewed in this context. As Putin does not share 100.00000% of their platform, they focus on this minor divergence and absolutise it. A minor, largely irrelevant disagreement -> You are not Russia

So once again, how all of this works:

1. You notice some tiny difference in opinions between you and an object of criticism
2. You focus on this minor difference and absolutise it
3. Since an object of criticism has such different cultural memes, he is absolutely not Russian

Perhaps even more importantly, general criticism can be racialised just as easily as a political one. Poor performance -> Not Russian. De-Russification of Shoygu's image in the course of this war is very telling

How can he be Russian if is performance is so poor? He can't

Many Putin's critics racialise their political disagreement (very much exaggerating how much their political stance differs from Putin's). Should he lose the war, he will inflict even more criticism upon himself and consequently become less Russian, as criticism is racialised

Being a powerful assimilatory tool, this paradigm is fragile. If you are unhappy about literally whatever this person is doing (or you just see him as a liability) you just write him off as a non-Russian. And you always find plenty of factual evidence to support your argument

Moreover, as any criticism is racialised, the next turn is pretty obvious. Should Russia lose and Putinism fall, both the war and the Putinism in general would be declared the fault of evil minorities. That's very predictable: is Putinism is bad, it can't be Russian in origin

I personally expect that should "liberals" take power, their nationalist crackdown on minorities will be pictured as the War on Putinism

1. Everything bad is racialized
2. Putinism is bad
3. Putinism is racialised
4. Putinism is not Russian
4. Punish the guilty (non-Russians)

On the other hand, as any criticism and political difference is routinely racialised that means that should significant political turmoil arise in Russia, it will lead to a chain reaction of factions/regions writing each other off as non-Russians. Also very predictable

You can easily check this model on example of Stalin. There are four quadrants:

1. Stalin good, Stalin Russian (very common opinion)
2. Stalin bad, Stalin Georgian (also common)
3. Stalin bad, Stalin Russian (*extremely* uncommon)
4. Stalin good, Stalin Georgian (doesn't exist)

An obvious correlation between Stalin being good and Russian (also bad and Georgian) highlights the pattern of racialising the political differences as well as virtually any criticism. Should Putin lose his face and reputation, his public image will be rapidly de-Russified

The impending crackdown on minorities which is pretty much inevitable should the "liberals" inherit power largely results from this racialization of criticism. Putinism bad -> Putinism is not Russian -> Punish the evil non-Russians who brought the Putinism and this war upon us

The end

This short poem can serve as a very brief yet illustrative introduction into the cultural discourse (through satire). It's in Russian but you can google translate it

vivovoco.astronet.ru/VV/PAPERS/LITR…