• Cleverdawny@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    It’s like Americans celebrating the people who founded that country, even the slaveowners. They’re not celebrating that part of the life of the founders, and it certainly colors the perception of people like Thomas Jefferson, speaking noble ideals about freedom while owning and sometimes raping his slaves.

    These are people who fought for Ukrainian independence. That’s something to celebrate, even if it’s tainted by who they fought for and with, and at times, what their personal beliefs were surrounding issues like race and religion.

    This is a complicated historical topic to Ukrainians. It’s not them celebrating Nazi collaboration.

    • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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      10 months ago

      I’ve met plenty of Ukrainians, it’s literally too common (notably more than for Russians in general, which is already an achievement) for them to ascribe personal traits to genes and thus characterize whole peoples as good or bad (I’m not doing that now, cause I’m talking about society and education). I mean, really, it irritates you.

      The issue is that their idea of nationalism is not yet separate from typical Nazi one. Just much more moderate. It shows in various more nuanced conversations on ethnic conflicts, state policies on minorities, centralism, civil rights etc.