I was talking to a 21 year old Russian recently and he mentioned that older Russians, like his mom born in 1978, were basically raised to see everyone except China as an enemy. His mom lived through the collapse of the USSR and genuinely thinks everything is worse now. No real free speech, you can’t own anything, the system screwed everyone over
Of course he told me that not everyone is like that, and he isn’t like that himself. He basically said it’s more of a boomer Soviet generation thing, that they’re the ones who are distrustful and xenophobic toward foreigners, and that younger generations don’t really have a say in how the country is run anyway
I’m just curious to know if this is true, what’s really going on in Russia, and what Russians are actually like when it comes to their opinions on foreigners
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The “boomer Soviet generation” are right though. Things are worse now than they were in the USSR. Also, after what they went through in the 90s, they are justified to be distrustful of foreigners, at least Western ones, because it was Westerners who came to Russia in the 90s to implement shock therapy and Western corporations who looted and plundered the country. The younger generation of Russians who have only known capitalism (or the last decade of disastrous Perestroika under Gorbachev) and who grew up being taught anti-communist and anti-Soviet propaganda without ever having really experienced socialism themselves as adults, have an unjustified disdain for the “boomer” generation. A part of it is imo resentment, because while they won’t openly acknowledge that liberalism is worse, they subconsciously resent and envy the older generation for having lived under socialism lives where they didn’t have the kinds of worries and alienation and stress that Russians have now under capitalism.
They also have the intrinsic eagerness to please westerners so they can sit at cool white people table, but that’s sadly common everywhere outside the inner circle of the imperial core.
Yes. The desire to be “part of the club” is very strong, especially for those who spend a lot of time on Western online platforms and consuming Western media, which is why those 45 and below are afflicted so strongly with this and not the “boomers”.
Not distrustful enough.
you might want to edit or remove your response because OP just clarified this is about racism and the russian person in question called them a racial slur
nononono he didn’t! This is a misunderstanding. We were in a Russian language class and they were teaching us Russian slur words… and that’s where they taught me that
They were teaching you slurs in a class? O_o
Its pretty normal. Words have meaning and are powerful. Trying Understanding their roots and how they came to be is pretty normal even outside of academia
Maybe it is and it’s just me not paying attention. I was a horrible student and my English is half an accident.
I have many Belarusian family members and ex-friends who’s “distrust” materializes as blatant and aggressive racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, islamophobia, and chauvinism.
You do not know what you are wishing for.
True. Distrust that stems from anything but a thorough analysis of history through a materialist lens is meaningless.
I’m completely distrustful of Westerners because maintaining imperialism and only distributing it’s spoils more equitably amongst them serves their material interests.
No, no, I do. Way too many fellow orcs openly believe that westerners don’t mean us any harm. And I don’t mean that they distinguish between people and governments(not that there is that big a difference in a couple of cases), but they deadass think western governments don’t mean any harm, which is outright dangerous to believe these days.
yes. russia isnt a special anti racist anti xenophobic different than all of europe and to say so would be very offensive to the revolutionaries that died to change it.
Yeah… i mean he also taught me a slur called “churka” (чурка). He told me it literally meant a sawed off tree stump that just sits there doing nothing, and that it’s used mostly against darker skinned immigrants
Something you might find curious is that by “darker skinned immigrants” he probably meant…caucasians. As in ethnicities from the Caucasus. Also some people from Middle(Central) Asia. That one is mostly for them.
A Russian racist is more likely to use the n-word for people of African descent. The American n-word, not the Russian n-word. The latter is a neutral descriptor.
The fuck am I doing explaining slurs…
It was an entertaining (derogatory) experience reading the highlights of leaked Yandex source code where background workers were being called hard r n words
In my opinion, people in Russia today often have different opinions, and there isn’t such a strong, mostly unified opinion anymore. But I think there aren’t many people who are xenophobic toward foreigners, maybe sometimes a small amount of distrust. There are many foreigners in Moscow all the time, and I haven’t really noticed any particular xenophpbia or significant distrust.
To be honest, with the amount of Western Russophobia seen on display in Western news and social media, which while Lemmy is an aggregator but still serves as a social media space, I really wouldn’t blame anyone outside the global West having a deep distrust of Westerners, and I understand the hatred, as well. While I don’t think it really serves most of the global population to stubbornly cling to these things so much as the criminal ultrawealthy, it does serve some purpose of self - preservation.
On a side note, chatty Cathy stopped chatting with me, after I asked questions in this space about the other accounts, despite receiving no answers. Could be a coincidence, could not be, but the timing is certainly interesting, since they’re still going strong, otherwise. Just makes my earlier comment stand out in bas relief, to me: Not everyone who smiles is friend, nor everyone who snarls is for.
to quote one famous slav of soviet origin but unknown ethnicity: “WESTERN SPY CAMERA”
