• Ginja@lemmy.worldOP
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    8 days ago

    That’s literally calling for genocide? You’re telling a peoples (who are the victims of an invasion) that they cannot have their own culture because it’s similar to an invaders?

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      8 days ago

      No. It literally is not calling for genocide any more than it would be calling for genocide to say that the French should stop teaching kids German in school in Alasace-Lorraine before the Nazis invaded.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        8 days ago

        Dude France is guilty of serial ethnocide when it comes to languages. Dialectal variation was stamped out, too. No French school taught anything but French at that time, or really ever, and eradication of German was prioritised just as Breton was. Prior German rule was way more even-handed, with French being co-official in French-speaking regions, Nazi rule was as you’d expect, post-war the French continued their policy until 1990. They still haven’t ratified the ECRML.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          7 days ago

          But I am not talking about post-war. That’s a different issue. A treaty was signed. Hostilities were over. France wasn’t at risk from a fifth column anymore. If the war is over and Ukraine continues this policy, I will change my mind, but this is what is happening during a hot war while they are being invaded by Russians.

          Is the Ukraine banning of the Russian Orthodox church a horrible genocidal act too, despite the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church literally blesses Russian nuclear weapons and has ceremonies where they throw holy water on the troops going out to kill Ukrainians?

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            7 days ago

            The Moscow Patriarchate is a direct Kremlin asset. If you ask Constantinople they have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Ukraine in the first place, the Kyiv Patriarchate does.

            Pushkin isn’t such an asset, the Kremlin can’t tell anyone how to read him and problematise his stance towards Ukrainian rebellion against the Tsar, just as it’s possible to read Kant, problematise his racism, and still get lots of value out of it (especially since racism is incompatible with Kantian ethics).

            The Russian language also isn’t such an asset, the Kremlin can’t tell people how to use it, and for what it’s worth the Ukrainian army is to a large degree operating in Russian. Are you proposing that units switch to a language the soldiers aren’t proficient in? Plenty of Russian-speaking soldiers were born before independence they didn’t even learn Ukrainian in school, if born after, they might’ve flunked the subject.

            Pushkin statutes? More complicated. For now I’d say put them into storage or build a box around them so that people don’t have to look at them and talk about it after the war, right now the required nuance is a distraction so kick it down the road. Maybe the solution is to move them into a library.

            Also FWIW Ukraine did ratify the ECRML. Russian is among 17 recognised minority languages. Being a native Russian speaker and being Ukrainian has never been incompatible, heck Zelensky is one of them. The purported ethnic conflict is a Kremlin narrative. Are we supposed to cancel “Servant of the people” (the series) because it’s mostly Russian. Playlist with ENGSUB btw I highly recommend it.

      • Ginja@lemmy.worldOP
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        8 days ago

        Yes, without a doubt denying children their cultural language and customs is a form of ethnocide/genocide.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          8 days ago

          Not teaching it in school isn’t the same as denying it. No country teaches every language spoken at home in schools.

          I suppose if the U.S. invaded Mexico and Mexico banned the U.S. cultural enclaves that had arisen there from celebrating July 4th, that would also be genocide?

          Seems like genocide is not all that horrific in your view.

          • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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            8 days ago

            Article II of the genocide convention has 5 definitions, any one of the five is enough for it to be called a genocide:

            https://iccforum.com/genocide-convention

            (a) Killing members of the group;

            (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

            © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

            (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

            (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

            Attempting to eliminate a culture by restricting it’s beliefs, teachings, or language would fall under ©. This is precisely what was done in the US and Canada with “Indian Schools” for example, and partially is what is being done to the Uyghurs in China, although they are also being subjected to (a), (b), (d) and (e) as well.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              7 days ago

              Indian Schools were boarding schools that forced kids to use English. That is not the same.

              I gave two scenarios here: Public schools not teaching Russian in Ukraine and a hypothetical scenario where the very real American enclaves in Mexico were prevented from celebrating U.S. independence day if Mexico were invaded and asked if those were genocide. Neither of them fit that list and yet I have been told the former is genocide and, despite three responses, the latter has yet to be even responded to.

              So I will ask both again, rephrasing one of them:

              1. There are lots of Chinese-Americans in the U.S. If no U.S. public school taught Mandarin, would that be genocide?

              2. There are American cultural enclaves in Mexico. If the U.S. invaded Mexico and Mexico told those cultural enclaves they couldn’t celebrate the 4th of July, would that be genocide?

              I would really appreciate an answer. Because if the answer to both questions, especially the first one, is ‘yes,’ the genocide is, as I said, not all that horrific.

              • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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                7 days ago
                1. No, because in that scenario there’s a choice. Chinese Americans have the choice of attending schools where their language and culture is taught.

                2. Absolutely. Because it’s attempting to stamp out a language and culture with no alternative.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  7 days ago

                  Isn’t that similar to celebrating Russian Independence Day on June 12th in Ukraine? Or celebrating Hitler’s Birthday in Britain after they joined the war? I just don’t see how that’s genocidal. It’s not allowing people to celebrate the enemy.

                  • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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                    7 days ago

                    “Enemy” is a relative term. Imprisoning the Japanese in internment camps was a genocidal act. It was an attempt to eliminate a culture because of a perception that they were “the enemy” when they were not.

          • Ginja@lemmy.worldOP
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            8 days ago

            Not teaching the local language in schools, to instead force them to use your own is denying it and it is genocide.

            Go to China and look at how they are wiping our local ethnicity through exactly that, they are forcing generations to grow up learning Mandarin in schools, legislating that TV must be in Mandarin, etc. and through this they are causing languages like Cantonese to lose their daily usage and thus die off.

            It’s what a large swathe of Europe did during the 19th and 20th century, where local languages (and their corresponding cultures) were basically killed, e.g. everyone in France basically speaks Parisian France, with only Brittany holding out its culture.

            Seems like genocide is not all that horrific in your view.

            This is revolting to hear anyone say.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              7 days ago

              You entirely avoided my question and I think you know why.

              There are enclaves of people with American heritage in Mexico. Some have been there for generations. If the U.S. invaded and Mexico said they couldn’t celebrate the 4th of July, would that be genocide?