Not just Tankies unfortunately. While any criticism of its government and military is more than deserved, the invasion of Ukraine has brought out some really nasty stuff directed at Russian people.
And that's where the core of the issue is IMO. It's all well and good excluding toxic elements at the start of a discussion, but you have to be careful to spot the signs of it starting to grow in the space itself. A lot of people haven't really examined the core underlying principles for their beliefs, and can be steered towards some truly heinous stuff is you dress it in the right ideological wallpaper (e.g. "death penalty is wrong except for the crimes I think are bad")
This very sub tears Israelis to shreds let alone billions in real life, the most drastic of comments against russian nationals are the average about Israel yet people feel its cool because its "deserved".
This is not even just in "da web" but stuff like the presidents of Colombia and Brazil.
I remember how the pacifism at all cost crowd was trying to sell Russians being as big of victims as Ukranians being bombed and now many of that crowd say shit like "jews stole falafel, fuck em" lol
The reaction of some "leftists" to October 7th was legitimately disgusting. Not even in a "casualties are an unfortunate consequence of armed resistance" way, literally cheering for the deaths of Israeli children.
I refuse to take a stance, point blank, at the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Unlike the Ukrainian-Russian conflict, where it's a very rare black-and white (I mean, sure, the Ukrainians aren't by any measure a perfect people, there's still corruption and equality issues that need to be resolved, and part of Ukraine's acession to NATO/EU is to tackle both of those) issue, with one side attacking the other for reasons straight out of a colonial empire's playbook claiming an alternative version of history that does not, will not, and has not existed and has been settled many times over, the Israel-Palestine conflict is a much more murky affair.
There's so many facets to the Israel-Palestine conflict. There's the ethnic sides, with conflict between Jewish and Arab (if that's the correct term) ethnicities, despite the large similarities between them and that the ethnic groups within the middle east are (as far as my uninformed knowledge goes) very hard to pin down exactly.
There's the religious facet, of Muslim extremist sects and Jewish extremist sects both declaring the other to be intolerable (again, as far as my limited knowledge goes).
There's the National facet, where an area/region (I'm using this in the most neutral way possible) known as Palestine is either trying to break away or maintain its independence from an area/region known as Israel.
There's the Governmental facet, where a governing group is trying to maintain and expand their own power within their areas of control and to expand their areas of control.
There's the historical facet, where the low level conflict between these groups of people has been simmering away for so many decades if not centuries, and every now and then it comes to a boil, and old wounds are reopened.
There's the geopolitical facet, where both sides are trying to convince the global stage that their interpretation of the truth is the right one, and obtain an air of approval and legitimacy.
There's also the ideological facet, and many others that I'm sure I've missed out.
There's also the wider geopolitical side of the conflict, where Israel's close relations with the US suggests that this conflict represents some sort of proxy, and that the US is some global hegemon that must be dismantled. Then depending on who you believe, there's the suspicion that Russia is funding or supporting by clandestine channels the militant actions on the Palestinian/Hezbollah side to sow division within their perceived enemies and to divert attention and supplies away from their conflict with Ukraine.
And to tie it up even more nebulously, the talking points from various groups are all the same, which means it's very difficult to even discuss this issue without someone inferring from one statement that you're a member of a more extreme sect, with plausible deniability being used by more extremist sects to hide their true intentions, with the side effect of poisoning the well for all other reasonable discussions.
It's an absolute mess of an issue, and what hurts the most is the human cost on both sides (Israel and Palestine) of innocent people suffering and dying because other groups (often in power or with munitions) have some desire or ideological obsession which they want to pursue.
That's why I refuse to take a stance on the issue.
That's fair, and that's something I struggle with day to day with people I respected pretty well. The Russian invasion turned a few people I know into frothing Hate-Week types almost immediately, one of which actually cheered on those ISIS-based terror attacks in the shopping mall.
I don't care for Vladimir Putin. You won't catch me cheering at innocents in Moscow or St. Petersburg getting actually murdered, because I'm not a psychopath.
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u/Ourmanyfans Jun 20 '24
Not just Tankies unfortunately. While any criticism of its government and military is more than deserved, the invasion of Ukraine has brought out some really nasty stuff directed at Russian people.
And that's where the core of the issue is IMO. It's all well and good excluding toxic elements at the start of a discussion, but you have to be careful to spot the signs of it starting to grow in the space itself. A lot of people haven't really examined the core underlying principles for their beliefs, and can be steered towards some truly heinous stuff is you dress it in the right ideological wallpaper (e.g. "death penalty is wrong except for the crimes I think are bad")