Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
This comment is just bigotry. Russia the country, the Russian people, the Russian history are no better or worse than, say, France or Germany or Britain. Any major European colonial power has a genocidal past. Any major European colonial power has a history of tension between tyranny and liberty.
There is nothing that is irredeemable about Russia, at least not any more than France, Britain, Germany, etc. The conflation of Russia with Putin's regime is precisely the Putinist Big Lie. In Putin's mind, the survival of his regime is THE SAME AS the survival of Russia. Don't buy the Big Lie. A free, democratic Russia is possible. And that is precisely Putin's worst nightmare.
When UK refuses to return the riches they stole, we just say it like that.
When Belgia refuse to acknowledge genocide in Congo, we just say it.
When we talk about France losing colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria, we say it.
When Israel starves an entire population in openly advertised genocide, we say it.
When we talk about Japanese massacres in China, we just say it.
When we talk about Chinese genocide of Uighurs, we just say it.
When Canada systematically oppresses indigenous population, we just say it.
But when Russia commits genocide and openly promises hellfire on the heads of those who would resist, don’t we dare say it!
This is pure mental gymnastics.
The fact that you straight ignored the core of my argument doesn’t add it any credibility either.
I didn't give Russia a free pass. I said it deserves the exact same scrutiny as other big European colonial powers. And it is by those standards that their aggression is Ukraine, but also in Georgia, in Moldova, etc is despicable and condemnable.
But if I understanding correctly, the core of your argument is that the whole concept of "Russia" is inextricably connected to barbaric genocidal wars of expansion, that Putinism is essentially Russian and inextricable/inseparable from it. And I have a problem with that, because that's a condemnation of Russian-ness as such. Am I misreading your core argument?
No, my argument is that Russia’s and Russians’ actions are consistent across multiple statehoods and governments, making any attempt at redeeming them by shifting blame to a specific government an example of mental gymnastics.
Only actual attempts at taking responsibility for what Russia has been doing should count. And frankly, those Russians that do take responsibility—many of whom already got disappeared—will get erased from history and from possible future definition of „Russia” if Russia is not taken seriously to be your enemy here and now.
Yea, that's bullshit. You're imagining a collective will that acts across time. Sid Meier's Civilization turned into real world politics.
Look buddy, this thing you're doing, I've seen it before. I'm from Greece, the Balkans. The way you talk about Russians is the way we talk about the Turks, it's the way the Serbs talk about the Croats, it's the way each petty Balkan nationalist essentializes the Otherness of every other petty Balkan nationalist. The eternal enemy over there. I've seen it before, I know what it smells like, I know what it does. Not interested.
Would you say the same thing about the Mongols? Just because their people might be nice as a single person, their culture and self definition are linked to a sense of superiority and the will to expand and subdue. The same goes for Russia. There will be no free democratic Russia without sweeping and painful changes.
The country will have to be broken up in smaller parts, there would habe to be a cleaning similar to the denazification of Germany after WW2. Probably a prolonged time where outside forces hold control and influence the direction the country is taking.
Left to itself it will just breed the next Putin
Big difference between European history and current Ruzz reality.
Their culture has never learned any Human Rights lesson, which is exactly the problem. For centuries their Gvment have been one or another form of Tsarism (autocracy) basically. There might have been a couple of years of reprieve, before Putin went fullmetal.
So though I believe a "Russian & Belarusian Spring" is definitely possible, the country needs to go full Fascist deprogramming first. #syntax