Not really sure about Lukashenko’s strategy at this point.
In the morning, he was telling booing factory workers that they would have to “kill him” if they wanted new elections. Which is admittedly a very Chad move, if tempting of fate. A few hours later, he was promising elections after a nationwide referendum on a new Constitution (without specifying timelines).
I suspect he is losing the plot at this point. State media has defected. Siloviks haven’t, at least not openly.
Signs that the protests have been co-opted by a clique of Atlanticist ideologues who intent to force a radical zmagarist platform involving a complete break with Russia continue to build up by the day.
(1) The document that I summarized here proposing exit from the Union State, ejecting Russian military from Belarus, de-Rusification, banning Russian TV channels, and applying to the EU and NATO has also been in discovered directly at ReformBy.com, the official list of reform proposals agreed to by the united opposition and directly linked to from Tikhanovskaya’s website (to which the other two major opposition figureheads, the imprisoned oligarch Babiriko and the exiled technocrat Tsepkalo, also subscribe to). Perhaps tellingly, it is only available in the Belarusian language, but not in Russian. I am screenshotting it and attaching it here for reference in case it gets removed (see right), link to archived version here. If Russia’s MFA are smart they would be seeking a clarification on the meaning of this prompto.
(2) Speaking of Tsepkalo – the opposition candidate who fled Belarus ahead of a suspected arrest to Russia, before departing for Ukraine. On August 14, perhaps influenced by his new comrades, suggested that Belarus would construct along the lines of Ukraine’s “Peacekeeper“, which which lists “enemies of the Ukrainian people” that are not to be allowed into Ukraine and/or subject to Ukrainian prosecution – its “stars” include everyone from Russian nationalist pundits, to Russian airmen involved in bombing ISIS in Syria.
But three days later, in a slapstick development, it emerged that Tsepkalo was himself on that Peacekeeper list for some old comments in which he called the Ukrainian conflict a civil war (Ukraine’s position is that it is Russian aggression), and a band of Ukrainian nationalists cornered him and forces him to apologize.
He has since fled on from the land of democracy ascendant to Poland.
(3) The biggest development has been the release of the names of the members of the “Coordinating Council” by Olga Kovalkova, a “trusted face” of the Tikhanovskaya campaign. This “Coordinating Council”, which was conceived of as the “best way to represent the Belorussian people,” is to oversee the transitional period between now and and new Presidential elections.
It so happens that most of these names seem to be from the “well known in narrow circles” of the pro-Western “creative” intelligentsia:
Svetlana Alexievich – Nobel Laureate in Literature
Lyudmila Antonovskaya – Chairman of the Association “Innovative Instrumentation”
Pavel Belous – the founder and owner of Symbal.by
Ales Bialiatski – human rights activist, chairman of the human rights center “Viasna”
Andrey Vitushko – pediatric resuscitator, candidate of medical sciences.
Lilia Vlasova is an international mediator and lawyer
Vitaly Volyanyuk is the director of Probusiness
Alana Gebremariam is an activist of the Youth Bloc
Yuri Gubarevich – politician, chairman of the movement “For Freedom”
Pavel Daneiko – Manager of IPM Group of Companies,
Alexander Dobrovolsky is a politician, a member of the UCP Political Council
Ales Duko – administration of the park “Great Stone”
Vladimir Dunaev – Professor, Expert of the Public Bologna Committee
Andrei Egorov – political scientist, director of the Center for European Transformation
Maxim Znak is a lawyer
Svetlana Kalinkina is a journalist
Olga Kovalkova is Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s trustee
Nikolai Kozlov is a trustee of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya
Maria Kolesnikova, coordinator of Victor Babarico’s staff
Dmitry Kruk is an economist
Igor Kabushkov is a representative of the student community
Andrei Kureychik – screenwriter, playwright, director, publicist
Evgeny Livyant – teacher, head of the tutoring center “100 points”
Sergei Makeikov is a BMZ delegate
Tatiana Marinich is the founder of the BELBIZ group of companies
Vladimir Pugach – J-MORS, musician, lawyer
Vitaly Rymashevsky is the BCD co-chairman
Anna Severinets – teacher, writer, literary critic
Andrei Strizhak is a BY-COVID campaign activist
Yuri Khvaschevatsky is a film director
Alexander Center – Head of A-100 Group of Companies
Vladimir Tsesler is an artist
Sergei Chaly is an independent analyst and economist
Julia Chernyavskaya – culturologist, professor
Alexey Shchurko is a GURTAM businessman
This is basically like if in Russia the vatnik workers at Uralvagonzavod were to overthrow Putin, and a clique of pro-Western Muscovite elites (the collective “Shats-Kats-Albats”, as they’re known here) were to sidle into the resulting political vacuum claiming to represent their interests. It would be a complete farce.
The first name on the list, Svetlana Alexievich, who won a Nobel Prize for her substandard prose – or perhaps, rather, her prolific anti-Russian polemics after a Soviet career writing odes to Felix Dzerzhinsky – is the perfect figurehead.
Here are her opinions on Russians (and ordinary Belorussians):
We have to preserve this fragile peace established after the last war. We are talking about the Russian man, who in the past 200 years has spent 150 years of them at war. And never lived well. For him, human life is worthless, and his conception of greatness is not in the sense that people should live well, but that the state should be great and armed to the teeth with rockets. This gargantuan post-Soviet landscape, especially in Russia and Belarus, where the people were first lied to for 70 years, then looted for the next 20, has bred very aggressive people, who are very dangerous for the entire world. …
Of course Russian TV corrupts you. What the Russian media says today – they simply have to be prosecuted for it. For what they say about Europe, about Donbass, about Ukrainians… But this isn’t all. The problem is that people actually want to hear this. We can talk today about a collective Putin, because there is a Putin sitting in all Russians. The Red Empire has vanished, but its people have remained.
No wonder, then, that with such people in the couloirs, who consider themselves to be surrounded by a horde of aggressive subhumans next door and ruling over a horde of easily manipulated drooling idiots within, would want to immediately wage an aggressive culture war, apply to join NATO, and enshrine journalistic and speech freedom for themselves (read: Atlanticists) while calling for the the prosecution of corrupting pro-Russian journalists and activists.
It is increasingly clear that in the event of Lukashenko getting overthrown, the assumption that pro-Russian platforms and candidates will be given a level playing fields with zmagarists in the runup to the new Presidential elections may be becoming an increasingly untenable one.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
Promoting zmagarism was the whole point. The talk about “dictator” was just the usual hypocritical BS. After all, mafia bosses ruling Kosovo and Montenegro are the darlings of the “democratic” West.
I see polite people showing up.
Doesn’t Belarus host an early warning radar? Russia would be extremely stupid to give that up.
Those morons will never take the power. They represent nothing and nobody + they are all outside of the country and experience shows exiled politicians have no possibility of return ( Guaido etc…) . They are on center stage only because Lukach have gotten rid of every strong pro Russian figure ( like , if i understand correctly, the Babariko guy). Lukach wants Russia to be scared of the possibility of him being toppled. We shouldnt fall into this trap. We should use this pro west opposition and its ontological aggressiveness as a scarecrow , an angry barking dog, to scare Lukach and make him move closer to our positions and as a good legal pretext ( foreign interference )for intervention if things turn ugly .
We could also spend some money to form our own opposition, they would be much more numerous than all those freaks.
Centre for European Transformation? Sounds pretty sinister.
There are maybe thousands of people paid in Central Europe to bring democracy in Belarussia. Russia fucked up when Luka invited UK marines to train in Belarussia (among other things). That they Belarussia should be kicked off the union. Or Luka replaced.
I was taking part in the color revolution. One day, the strong leader has all of the siloviki on his side. The next day, siloviki read that they might end up on the no-fly list… And you wanted to visit Italy, so.
I would not underestimate west by any means. Also, there are people inside Luka administration, who want to pivot to the West. These people might help the color revolution. Either by information or ordering to the cruel treatment of protestors…
Of course, they are all nonentities. But this is not about them having any power. They are meant to be figureheads of globohomo, and nonentities are best for that role.
While is true that Belarussians are tired of Batka rule, it is also true that many people are scared about maidanuts taking power and sending Belarus into the same tailspinning path of former Ukraine. Will be feasible a Belarussian regime headed by this puppet-woman now barking from Lithuania? It seems that zmagarists are unable to reach the critical mass necessary to depose Batka. They can weaken him but, so far, they seem unable to go further. In will be a fight of wills.
PD: What happened with the state media?
Can they?
As always you can’t know these things as they are happening but I feel relatively good about Russian side’s chances in Belarus. Between Luka being a Chad and overall opposition not getting much traction I think there are a lot of options here for Russia.
The Sorosastrian NGOs seem to have kicked into high gear for this. It’s obvious astroturf, but it might work.
https://twitter.com/fulelo/status/1295263104838840321
The hope is that presumably they and their countries can be successfully reformed.
To the best of my knowledge, murder is the only thing that can reform a mafia boss. Usually committed by another mafia boss.
They don’t have the capacity to reform. The only role of the Fake & Gay country is to increase the amount of Fake & Gay countries. How the hell can Montenegro with an average IQ of 86, shit tier geography and pathetic size ever accomplish anything? The Kosovoids at least have some resources.
Conquer. Purge. Helotize. Otherwise, they will just multiply and everyone will be a pathetic larper, in which case I hope the /pol/ trolls are right and the Chinese just put everyone into Hanization camps. Stupidity is punished by extermination, and Fake & Gay countries being allowed is peak stupidity, now soon to kick the West in their asses.
They don’t have the capacity to be a state-forming people
Suppose this group of people would get power. What would they have to do to succeed? In the end, I think the single biggest issue is economic. There would need to be incredibly large western subsidies that are invested in a way that the majority population can feel makes a difference. But if that happens it is possible that Zmagarism does take hold. After all, the newfound prosperity can then be explained as a consequence of being free of Russian oppression.
Max Korzh has also flipped against now Lukashenko, after he was some kind of embarrassed regime loyalist last week saying to followers not to protest, because they would be injured by security services.
It is the most successful cultural export of Belarus in the last decade, which was built as a result of universality of YouTube, and some stylish videos, and despite his atonal inability to sing or rap, and lack of any musical sense.
From the dominance on YouTube and Instagram, he had been developing a youth army that would unite all nationalities, and leading his cult around in a children’s crusade from Minsk – although such fake pseudogopnik teenagers who can afford expensive Reebok coats.
Unlike “Putinist rappers” like Timati – Korzh had been promoting something more like pseudosoviet marketing ideals of Lukashenko. Such to not pose in expensive cars – and pretend to be ordinary working class people, and – to be fair to him, belief in maintaining good relations to all postsoviet countries and nationalities.
His popularity in Ukraine –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edWn4UGqrqU
Ultimately, everyone should look at every situation from the perspective of preserving of their own self and ethnic and/or national interests as detailed in Panagiotis Kondylis’s Power and Decision. Clearly, Belarus is part of the Russian ethnos and should not be detached from Russia but then again Russia has not been entirely consistent in its dealing with other ‘fake and gay’ nations.
It was one of the first nations to recognise Skopja as the ‘Republic of Macedonia’ in the mid-1990s damaging relations with a larger and more strategically important nation, Greece. This move did not work out for Russia as so-called North Macedonia is now clearly in the Western camp. More recently, it has cosied up to Turkey under the delusion that somehow it might cause some chaos in NATO. Even someone with rudimentary understanding of Russian history and geography, and Turkish mendacity, knows that Russia and Turkey cannot ever be strategic partners. Lastly, it has sought to undermine the Ecumenical Patriarch. If it was clever, it would seek to work with the patriarch to boost its cultural soft-power projection using a relatively neutral platform. Positively, it has remained somewhat supportive of the Greeks of Cyprus with the highlight being its support at the UN in 20004.
On balance, Russia has been detrimental to Hellenic interests in the last 20 years and on that basis one would hope Belarus is detached. However, despite misguided Russian actions over the last 20 years, it would be better if Russia managed to retain Belarus simply because it helps to strengthen multi-polarity at the expense unipolarity. As we read in Thucydides, for small states such is Milos, unipolarity is a disaster as it removes the possibility of extracting any concessions from the prevailing hegemons.
If I had a nickel for every Ukrainian who told me in 2004 that something like the “Rose Revolution” could “n e v e r happen in Ukraine”…..
Then it happened. Twice.
I’m a little bit behind here. What is the relationship of Belarus to Russia? I see it is not part of the Russian Federation, although it was unwillingly (so I always heard) within the USSR.
If the people want to separate more from Russia, or become closer to Russia, in theory they could. Of course there are the political influences and big money esp. on the EU/NATO side. But quite a few comments here sound like it’s rightfully a part of the Russian Federation (i.e. Russia) so much that I had to look it up to confirm that it is, indeed, not — and that my recall of their gleeful independence at the fall of the USSR was not mistaken.
Hence a much different case from Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which spoke Russian and didn’t want to speak Ukrainian. Not a straight comparison from this color war to that one.
“Clearly, Belarus is part of the Russian ethnos and should not be detached from Russia …”
It was detached from Russia 30 years ago or so, and from what I recall reading around that time, that was massively popular inside Belarus.
1) It was the Serbs/Croats of Tito’s era who created the fake and gay state of Macedonia. Russia in the 90s had much larger issues to consider, the recognition of Skopje as the capital of FYROM was a formality. You should not read so much into it.
2) Russia is not under any illusions that turkey will become an ally. Russians know their history well and they know how many wars the Russian Empire and ottoman empire fought in the course of 300 years. What Russia is doing with official ankara is helping them play off against the west. Just like Lukashenko thinks he can sit on two chairs simultaneously, the same is true of the other dickhead aka erdogan. In other words Moscow is giving the rope with which the turks will hang themselves. And in the process they are making a killing selling arms and gas to the turks.
3) The EP in Constantinople is a tool of the cia. If you can not see that then you need to dig into this issue more. I am familiar with the Greek American community and a number of them recognized what a mess the EP has made for E. Orthodox Christians. Not to mention that tight relationship that the turkish regime has with the EP, enough said.
4) One can argue that Greece has been detrimental to Slavic interests of the last 100 years. But then where will that get us. If Greece wants to be useful to Christendom it can help start a war with turkey which will then put the nato into quite a pickle, which side to back given that both are members.
Belarus, just like the majority of the Ukraine are historical Russian lands. The idea of a separate Ukrainian ethnos and even more so Belarusian ethnos is not true. These are 19th and 20th century constructs that were imposed by outside imperial powers, and reinforced by a handful of domestic romantic nationalists. The bolshevik policy of the late 20s and early 30s of Ukrainianization and Belarusianization only further added to the illusion that these are separate ethnic groups. At best the two are sub-ethnos of the Russian ethnicity.
Don’t be surprised if this one gets top billing somewhere:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-trump-administration-claims-its-tough-on-russia-heres-a-chance-to-show-it/2020/08/17/23bc7adc-e0b5-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html
China found that a few decades of labor, isolation and reeducation generally worked on those who survived. Most of them had crippling injuries from labor but everything worthwhile has a price.
“although it was unwillingly (so I always heard) within the USSR.”
They would probably have preferred to remain part of Russia proper, rather than have a separate “republic”.
“Hence a much different case from Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which spoke Russian and didn’t want to speak Ukrainian.”
Virtually all Belarus is Russian-speaking.
1) Many nations did not recognise the fake nation of Skopje as Republic of Macedonia. Russia could have easily have withheld their recognition and remained with FYROM but they decided to go against the wishes of a more important state which continues to hold relatively strong pro-Russian line compared to the rest of the EU (with the exception of our own Colour Revolution in SYRIZA) and one whose people have a special fondness for Russia.
2) The Turks will not hang themselves and Russia sours relations with neighbouring friendly nations. This is just gay tactical policy.
3) Whether EC is a tool of the CIA or not, Russia has a valuable cultural soft power instrument as its disposal but it seeks not to use it. Another missed opportunity by the supposed 5 dimensional chess masters.
4) The idea of Pan-Slavism is deeply delusional. Russia cannot even consolidate the various Russian ethnies.
Your claims of Russian treachery toward Greeks reeks of shortsightedness and a lack of geopolitical context.
Russian officials do not communicate with political opposition in friendly countries. That’s like impolite, you know.
It is remarkable the degree to which the Kremlin has been cuckolded. Russia has no strategy, no allies on the ground, no tools to influence the events, is basically a passive observer of the game the West is playing. In Belarus!
A shift towards favouring the Turks, regardless whether it is tactical, is detrimental to Hellenic interests. Selling S-400s, which if the Greek military enacted the much discussed defensive Strike First doctrine, would neutralise any efforts to bomb cities in Anatolia in the event of a hot war. That is treachery.
As Felix states, Russia has hardly friends, and is losing more of them all the time as it treats its friends like crap for short term gay tactical moves like getting friendly with the Mongols.
Change my betting slip. Promising new elections is a “Virgin Strongman” move. 2/3 chance he goes now. Who mediates the succession is the question.
It was detached from the Soviet Union 30 years ago, a regime most Russians themselves had grown tired of.
And 30 years ago Uncle Shlomo was promising everyone from Minsk to Kamchatka a shiny new country with fountains of foreign investment cash.
Instead they got Yeltsin-style “privatization,” of course, and a ruling class that lived in London and New York rather than in their homelands.
Belarus missed out on that thanks to good old revanchism for a few decades but the Fake Gay Empire never sleeps and always hungers. It needs Russian ties to keep the Rainbow Revolution stalled at the Ukrainian border (for now).
Perhaps Russia wants to prevent a war between Turkey and Greece, which could be harmful to Russian interests in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Also, Greece and Russia have increased tensions due to the Orthodox schism.
Turkey has a strategic geographic position, so Russia might want more cooperation.
There are other, more complex considerations than simplistic “chad vs virgin” dichotomies.
The Russian center of population and economic gravity has been steadily moving east since the 15th century. Obviously, the process will only accelerate in the 21st century.
It might be better in the long term to just let the problematic west burn, and strip it for economic and human capital to move east. The process is already underway in the Ukraine.
Remember that Russia is a “New World” country like the USA, not a random East European country.
Hey its not nice to call Islamized Greeks and Armenians Mongols! Their blood is hundred times nearer of yours and their culture and cuisine too! Even their Manti dumplings dont look like Central Asian Mantis or Mongolian Buuz! And what kind of psycho eats them with yoghurt?!? Okay at least they have cibörek, but still their cuisine is totally foreign to Central Asian Turks.
Oh yeah they speak Turkic language, but Altaic theory has been heavily disproved in last decades, therefore Mongolic and Turkic belong to different language families, although they share some vocabularity, but Anatolian Turkic has been heavily influenced by Greek, Arabic and Persian. Still even if they would be linguistical relatives it is not a proof for genetical or cultural proximity, after all Bengalis, Sinhalas and almost all people of Pakistan speak languages that are definitely relatives of English and French languages.
Its sad that Mustafa Kemal invented a new people and gave them the name of Turk, instead of more suitable Anatolian or Osman/Osmanite or something like that. Turks of Turkey are least Turkish or Turkic among all Turkic peoples. For they descend from very heavily persianized Oghuz Turks of Azerbaijan and Iran, so they had already little of Turkic blood left when they came to Anatolia and started to mix with the local populations. Even after the ethnogenesis of 11th to 15th centuries they have gotten constantly more European blood from Muhajir refugees of former Ottoman territories, like Albanians, Circassians, Slavic Muslims, like Pomaks and Bosniaks, Crimean Tatars, different Caucasian Muslim ethnicities, Muslim Greeks and so on and so on. Even Mustafa Kemal was probably of Slavic and Greek blood. So the case of Turkey is somewhat similar to Romania, for by that name ancient Romans called their country. For me personally they are always Vlakhs and nothing more. Funnily years ago I was irritated by Gypsies calling themselves Roma, but now I see delicious irony and justice in that, for as Vlakhs stole the glorious name of the Rome, so too Gypsies stole their stolen goods, serves them right! Now they are constantly butthurt when people think that Romani people are from Romania hahaha! Is this workings of Karma ergo Pratityasamutpada/dependent origination?
EP is a Schismatic from Orthodox Christian point of view, he has broken canons by unilaterally acknowledging schismatic hierarchs from other Patriarchs ecclesiastical territory, so what Russian Church is doing is just upholding the holy Canons of the Church! But maybe you are so westernized that you think that Canons are just a political tool(hello Catholic Church)! Also your Bart has multiple times prayed for the Turkish army, even when they invaded Syria, and do you know that they are a true Jihadi army or at least behave in that way, you can google the stuff what they are doing to the Kurds there. So you really have a gall to insult Russia of helping Turkey sometimes, when same time your Heresiarch is blessing their armed forces? What a hypocrite!
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/istanbul-greek-orthodox-patriarch-lends-support-to-turkeys-operation-olive-branch-in-syrias-afrin-126375
Ancient Hellenes believed that a free man is someone who controls himself, unlike slave who is not in control of himself. They were real men, many times they were offered a choice between freedom and slavery, and they often chose freedom, even if it meant death. Those heroes who fought against all odds in Persian wars or in the fall of Constantinople, but you modern Greeks? Never would you even think the possibility of trying to bee free and sovereign, no for you are just bitches who have lost all their autonomy under dual rule of Germany and USA(and your Heresiarch/leader of your church pathetically under faketurks). Better for Russia not even to try to ally with slaves, at least Germany, France and Turkey have more or less some independent initiative or capability left. Hah even Hungary, Serbia and Poland have more mastery over themselves than Greece! Actually being slaves ally is impossible, for his master would never allow other masters, first slave must break free….
Hard to say this, but CNN was the most truthful in reporting on the opposition crowd size in Minsk, although they still overestimated.
CNN: 50,000
Reuters (cited its own reporter guesstimate): 200,000
Opposition: 300,000 – 400,000
My guesstimate is 30,000 – 40,000 at its peak.
Watch this video and judge by yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0TqtmOQh8c
All these low density protester areas, covering the majority of ground in the video, can be achieved with a few thousand people some ~2 meters apart. I have seen many protest pictures, and when they are packed, you can notice because you can barely see the ground.
The Maidan was impressive and I blackpilled back then: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/2013-12-08T000000Z_2084541347_LR1E9C811JQNT_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-scaled-e1587671563690.jpg
Aerial view is a must because it shows the density, and the video shows that the density outside of the highway intersection core and to the right of that phallus-like monument is low.
So far, I’m optimistic that Lukashenko will not lose power outright, and among the silovik elite, the situation and next steps are being coordinated with Russia. Luka has no choice, he’s being dragged along, although I know this would not be his optimal choice, as his past sayings have shown time and again. It’s his personal conviction to not get too close with Russia. But because he’s also a survivor, he may concede.
Regarding the protests:
The good – the overwhelming majority of people are sitting this out, even if they don’t like Luka.
The bad – sometimes a persistent minority ends up winning, but this very much depends on the will of the siloviki. The situation is manageable, and the most pressing issue is whether large strikes will materialize. Most of those strikes you heard about are limited in size and duration.
I heard Lukashenko is preparing his supporters for rallies in the regions. This is a smart move, because you have to show you still have support. Street presence, you know, so the opposition doesn’t get too smug thinking anything goes. His rally in Minsk was hastily organized, like, I heard about it less than one day before the event! The opposition announced it days in advance.
BTW, after the rally in Minsk, some participants were arrested when leaving. I don’t know if they were picked randomly or there were counter-intelligence operatives (very likely) among the crowd who identified ring leaders who directed/encouraged the rest. Again, this is the correct step, a headless crowd hardly achieves anything and may become bored. Much better than beating up random people in front of the cameras.
Quoting myself:
So I just went over to Colonel Cassad’s blog, one of the most visited on LiveJournal, and he has the same conclusion as I do regarding Luka’s hastily organized rally, in contrast to the opposition:
I think Lukashenko did a mistake yesterday: for the first time, he said he would call new elections under certain conditions, namely a new constitution. However, he said, in case of violence by the opposition, they will be crushed, he wants to do it on his own, not by threats. If you were a cop, would this sap your will to resist the mob? I don’t know, it sounds demoralizing. On the other hand, it may calm down those who are less confrontational and are content with a compromise. It could help, or could backfire. I guess his extending hands very much depends on the mood of the crowd and how they will perceive/react to it. As the saying goes, it’s a gamble.
I would not comment on funding. Just have a look at the Portland and those people who got bailed out….
Belarussian have no interest in UN/NWO? Just have a look at Ireland. It was a conservative catholic country just a few decades ago. And now?
This is why Russia needs to put pressure on Lukashenko to leave. Russia should position itself as the guarantor of free elections.
Still, it is hardly surprising that most young White Russians want to look West rather than East. They can see for themselves the massive difference in lifestyle and wages in Poland and Lithuania compared to Smolensk Oblast, and a lot of older White Russians live off the remittances their children are sending back from Poland. Russia holds an emotional attraction, but not a practical one.
The tragedy of Russia is that the ruling cliques never figured out, or never cared to figure out, how to emulate the Chinese model of combining greater economic freedom with nationalism. Putin et al. continue to think like Soviet apparatchiks convinced that the state has to control the businessmen with a heavy hand. Meanwhile Russia is falling further and further behind.
Magnificent presidential work from the big guy:
https://vz.ru/news/2020/8/18/1055597.html
All western friends interested in this type of thing are messaging me, saying what a beautiful and clean city Minsk looks like ( spectacular ,elegant soviet and other style architecture). Images have covered a far larger area than for Kiev….which created a negative/non-impression for westerners.
He should turn the protests into a big tourism promotion
And this is a great!
This is nonsense. 83% of Belorussians voted for the preservation of the USSR in the 1991 referendum – more so than the ~70% in Russia and Ukraine.
Looks like the Belarusian-language Zmagarist programme on “national security” has disappeared from the website the same way the one in Russian did. Meanwhile Atlanticist “analysts” are claiming that “no significant Belarusians have called for the country’s exit from the Eurasian Economic Union or Moscow’s Collective Security Treaty Organization”. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/why-vladimir-putin-is-unlikely-to-invade-belarus/
1) Most nations did recognize FYROM, this is a fact. No point in denying it.
2) Under erdogan turkey has overextended itself, alienated large segments of its domestic population and diaspora, plus its traditional backers in the west. The turks literally have bad or sub-par relations with every state they border. Let that sink in.
3) Please expand on how you would use this supposed soft power that the Russians have. I am curious.
4) So was the idea of a Franco-German partnership 100 years ago. Pan-slavism need not mean every Slavic state must join some union, but calling the idea delusional is a bridge too far.
Russia has exactly zero influence in Greece, talk of “friendship” is utterly asinine in the realm of geopolitics
If/when Russia becomes more powerful state it will get more “friends” regardless, and any previous transgression will be disregarded out of simple opportunism
Expecting Russians to hamper themselves in Syria, Black Sea and the Caucasus because it might hurt the Greeks feelings is simply silly
If pan-Slavism is a delusion (it is) then this notion is akin to a mental illness, Russia has zero soft power which is why retards in Minsk and Kiev think the West is going to save them
Constantly broke and in debt since its very inception, contemporary Greece is probably the most fake country that exists. In an ethernal need to be proped-up by powerfull sponsors, it’s always on a lookout for prospective “geopoliticial buyers” to rent its geographicals location to.
Russia does not have the means, nor the need to “sugar dady” Greece. When Russia was lured in WWI by the prospects of showing-up the flag in Constantinople and the Aegean shores, this endevour resulted with total disaster for her. There is a valuable historical lesson here: measure your capabilities and judge your “friends” wisely.
Russia has soft power, it just doesn’t cultivate it. That has been one of my primary gripes against the Kremlin for the past decade. China is not much better in this respect either.
Why is pan-Slavism ‘delusional’?
There is like 300 000 Poles – in total, around 700 000 Roman Catholics and Uniats in Belarus.
I assume practically all of them are anti-Russian and pro-Western.
What really makes Belarus tragic is the fact that between 1890 and 2020 its population didn’t increase even by 30%
Russia has no soft power, at all. You would immediately list its soft power components if they existed.
Pan-slavism is delusional because most Slavs despise other Slavs the most. Who do you think Czechs, Poles, Ukrainians and Zmagars hate the most?
Who do you think Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins and Bulgarians hate the most?
Russia would have been far better served had they stopped at Rus’ borders and let their “brothers” be German and Ottoman servants and slaves for all eternity.
Lukashenko’s strategy has always been clear:
1) Keep holding elections, even though he never had any intention of respecting their results.
2) As a consequence, periodically ban/imprison opposition candidates, lest anybody forgets how fake the process is, and announce results that are impossible to believe, even for the not necessarily so antagonistic Belarusian population, that gets gratuitously insulted.
3) On the eve of the latest elections antagonize and insult its only real ally, arresting 33 nationals of that ally on fantasmagorical charges and threatening to extradite them to Ukraine.
4) When even the peaceful and mostly indifferent Belarusians get tired of the whole comedy:
4.1- Proclaim that he will have to be killed before ceding power.
4.2- Proclaim that he might cede power after a change of the constitution followed by new elections.
I haven’t seen any strength in that “pro-Russian” line whenever it mattered: every time sanctions have been adopted or renewed, every time a new neighbor of Russia joined NATO or every time Ukraine’s integration with the West could have been vetoed until it stopped killing civilians in Donbass (the EU bombed Libya to depose Gadafi because he was shelling civilian areas in Misrata but asks Poroshenko to sign an association agreement while he does the same on European land).
Gulag fodder
Summary for those who don’t read Russian:
Ukraine is recruiting persons with combat experience and knowledge of Belarus language for work outside Ukraine, where their lives might be at risk. Promised salary: $1,600-2,900 monthly.
Now, you have only one guess to figure what Ukraine intends to do.
In addition. A number of Polish “tourists” trying to enter Belarus when asked about the purpose of their visit said “mountaineering”. For those who don’t know the geography of obscure places, the highest “mountain” in Belarus is 345 m (for Americans: about 1,130 ft).
I insist with my idea of sending all of them to a good old Siberian gulag. LOL.
I’d say the highest level siloviks haven’t (yet?), but some rumble in the lower ranks is certainly brewing even in the open already :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=RjBeavMsMeo&feature=emb_logo
“There is like 300 000 Poles – in total, around 700 000 Roman Catholics and Uniats in Belarus.
I assume practically all of them are anti-Russian and pro-Western.”
I wouldn’t assume that without seeing evidence. In the Soviet Union (as well as following its collapse) because of an absence of any Polish national administrative entity, they were to a high degree assimilated.* Plus, according to one theory, bulk of those who call themselves Poles in Belarus are actually historically Polonised ethnic Belarusians of the Catholic faith.
*From wiki about their language:
Подавляющее большинство поляков Белоруссии лингвистически белорусифицировано, оставшиеся в основном перешли на русский язык: согласно переписи 2009 года 58,15 % поляков (171 287 человек) родным языком назвали белорусский, 33,89 % (99 819 человек) — русский и только 5,38 % (15 584 человека) — польский. Польский язык почти не используется в домашнем общении — по данным переписи 2009 года на нём разговаривают дома 1,30 % польского населения (3837 человек).
I think Lida was one of the places where plurality voted for Poznyak in 1994. Probably not the most representative of the whole country.
I mostly agree, but still in my opinion they are a real nation, for they share the faith and church of Byzantine Greeks and inhabit same areas as ancient Hellenes, and their language is direct descentant of Koine Greek.
If caught they should go straight to a uranium mine in Kolyma.
All of Europe will be black and brown sooner or later, so none of these petty ethnic European squabbles matters much long or even medium term.
The only reason Eastern Europe has mostly been spared multi-racialism for now is because for decades they were poor, but that’s changing rapidly and now increasing numbers of non-whites see Eastern European countries as as appealing as Western Europe.
If anything Eastern Europeans might be fundamentally even more susceptible to race mixing than Western Europeans because of their staunch “Christian values” which are raceless. All I’ve ever seen staunch trad con Catholic Poles do is oppose Islamisation, they don’t have a word to say about blacks, Indians and Chinese.
They used the term “alpinism” (sounds the same in English and Russian), so mistranslation is out of question, in sharp contrast to their intentions.
Here are the links (sorry, no English)
https://www.yaplakal.com/forum1/topic2155551.html
https://marafonec.livejournal.com/14332550.html
https://news2.ru/story/608374/
https://newsland.com/community/7300/content/poliaki-ekhali-v-belorussiiu-zanimatsia-alpinizmom/7193696
All of Europe will be black and brown sooner or later, these petty European squabbles won’t account for much then.
I’d ask the residents of Siberia first. I’ve seen many suggestions in comments to send Banderites to Siberia, and almost always there were responses from people living in Siberia saying that they don’t want shit there.
Think positive: when Europe becomes European Caliphate, there would be no more feminists. Plus, nutcases thinking that they are of different gender than nature made them won’t be considered normal. There are good sides even to Islam.
BTW, there is a good side to the American police. Even if I feel like a dog, I’d still be arrested for peeing in public.
No IT people on the list although they are most exposed to Westerners.
Lukashenko has made a brilliant move. He has awarded medals to 250 critical members of the adminstration and published the list widely in the local press.
Belarus is historically Polish-Lithuanian land. It was Kievean Rus before the Mongols. Russia was a short term occupier.
Agree. The Russian for hiking can be translated as going to the mountains. I hate Russia verbs of motion.
Just seen Anon’s comment about Alpinism. If that was the term used, it is not ambiguous.
Not necessarily. In fact, maybe not at all. Remember that most of the Poles in Lithuania are Russian-speakers ( as first language), same pattern in the other Baltics.
The demented sadist dictator in charge of Estonia until their “occupation” by the Soviets was a Russian ( via his mother) with an Orthodox father – despite that this schizophrenic loser ( well, I am assuming that based on current Estonian elite) was a big implementer of Estonian ethnocracy
That may or may not be true. Force conquers all. Russia, if it set its mind to it, once the eu collapses, can incorporate large segments of the Slavic world and they will go for it.
As for soft power. Well how many slavic states like man on man anal sex? Not many. That alone is a thread that the Kremlin could pull on if it wanted it. So far it has barely lifted a finger. There are dozens and dozens of pro family and traditionalist parties all across the western world that want a major power to stand up for their Christian values. Where is Russia?
The term “Kievan Rus” was invented in the nineteenth century by Russian historians. The state was called Rus when it existed.
How many non whites are in Poland? Not enough for it to be an issue for them.
Nice try. The commonwealth was a recent construct in comparison to Kievan Rus’
Belarus is Russia, end of story.
Exactly, so the continuing part of Rus was the part the Mongols didn’t conquer, not the usurper Muscovy! The nobles ruling important parts blended into the PL Commonwealth without conquest. More “Russians” lived in the PC Commonwealth than in Muscovy.
Bortnikov (Head of Russian FSB) has arrived in Kiev. A bit early to extract Lukshenko yet?
I would think that apart from the 250 new medal holders, others in Lukashenko’s administration would spill the beans on FSB personnel stiffeningup the KGB for the sake of their future careers. Heck, even in the 250 some might think outing any Russian action might save their long term careers. Green men would be a fatal mistake for the Russian economy. The longest piece of pipe Russia has laid beneath water without a non Russian pipelaying vessel in 254 metres. Done recently. Still not Northstream 2.
Russia has potentially meaningful influence in Greece (including Cyprus) from geopolitical perspective but they have largely squandered that. For example, Greece and Cyprus have several times blocked or delayed EU sanctions against Russia. This is motivated more by tactical reasons by these two Hellenic states but Russian diplomacy has a role. Additionally, Russian-Greek businessmen have extensive interests in northern Greece.
Did I suggest that Russians hamper themselves to assuage Greek feelings? However, misguided Russian policy has been detrimental to Greek interests.
There are no friends in geopolitics but there are friendly relations between peoples which can be instrumentalised in certain ways to influence policy.
Greece and the Greeks are probably the least fake nation on earth (perhaps with the exception of the Chinese) as we have a long continuous history, language, customs and geographical location (with some shifts here and there). Certain constitutive elements of that identity have changed, like all ethnies do. Unfortunately, economic crisis are all to frequent but in some cases they were necessary to sustain a strong military to gain land – which the Greek state was very successful in doing between 1821 to 1912. Rather less so since then.
Like there aren’t Poles and non-Pole/anti-Russian pro-Poles who wish for such:
https://twitter.com/BBCSteveR/status/1295003032762097665
The chief obstacle to Russian maneuvering in the environs of Greece is not a lack of soft power or a lack of diplomatic effort, but NATO. It would be absurd for Russia to attack Turkey or intervene in the west Balkans, risking violent retaliation by NATO, for the sake of a NATO member, which is what Greece is.
Or “Russia” as it was known in Latin or “Rossia” in Greek.
Mongols took Kiev in 1240 (khan Batu). The grand prince of Moscow (also the grand prince of Rus) Ivan III (Ivan the Great) beat the grand horde to a pulp in 1480. This ended dominance of Mongols/Tatars that started with their taking of Kiev. He freed Rus at the time when Lithuanian prince still ruled by Mongols’ permission (had yarlyk from them).
Even trolls should be educated, at least the ones writing here, where they cannot rely on censors to remove info not approved by the globohomo.
I did not suggest for Russia to attack Turkey on Greece’s behalf. This is an absurd suggestion. They should only do this if it was in Russia’s interest. No serious state does favours.
I disagree. After Luka’s call all of Russian info sphere blew up with activity in his support. It is not monolithic but the tone changed. I don’t follow Belarussian info channels but I heard they are none existent. I think he is leaning on their expertise in info sphere and it’s showing because his actions are in sink with Russian narrative.
I have a slight suspicion that Russians learned to do both thick obvious propaganda and sly under the radar stuff. Like people criticizing Luka but then praising his turn around when they have some activity from him. Or being even handed to rope in people from the other side and then slowly feeding them info to have them flip.
Anyways my personal opinion is that it’s good to either actively fight for your sphere of influence because you can win there or the exact opposite and concentrating on your held territory to develop it stronger. It really depends on circumstances. In this case I suspect Russia will fight.
He did not offer anything real. Just a convo with random workers.
Exactly what Lithuanian ruler held the Mongolian yarlyk and needed their permission to rule? I was under the impression that Horde control of this area was least onerous of all the territories that they had encountered in Europe, never actually being incorporated into the Mongol Empire.
If you understand Russian, here you can find info why Lithuanian princes paid Tatars ~130 years after Rus beat the Horde and stopped
https://warhead.su/2018/02/02/zolotye-yarlyki-kto-dolshe-nas-platil-dan-tataram
Pan racialism of all types is retarded and does not work not only with whites. I guess it’s for the better.
I don’t understand how these western spooks keep pulling this off. How can Russia be out maneuvered by the Evan McMuffins of the world, again, and in Belarus of all places? I suppose the answer is that Russia might not be outmaneuvered and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. It is humbling to have no idea what is going on.
I’m going to predict that things turn around, and some reasonably good outcome happens. I’m basing this off the knowledge that the Russian/Ukrainian tensions far predated 2014, so the gay spooks acted more like arsonists than true social engineers, and the assumption that the Russian government can’t be unprepared for whatever tricks are deployed in Belarussia. The primary objective is probably to get Russia to interfere in an overt, clumsy way, so that Russia can be smeared as an aggressor, so I expect the Russian response to remain subdued and mostly psychological and clandestine
If I remember correctly Plano Carpini in his History of Mongols book from the 13th visited Kiev some time after the Mongol conquest and said that the lands of Kiev were almost totally deserted and there are only couple hundred families left in the city itself. Actually that explains many things historically, like how and why Kiev lands were for a long time peripheral for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and PLC. So it took couple hundred centuries before Kiev-Ukraine region could again be an actor in international politics, like in the 17th Century. I know that soon you will nitpick on something but hey it makes sense, after all the land of Kiev were much more fertile than the lands surrounding Moscow or lands of Lithuanian heartland.
Belarusian dude goes to anti-Lukashenko protest wearing a Putin t-shirt and carrying a Russian flag. Reactions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f68gnreVg3s
Pro-Lukashenko rallies were held in Mogilev and Gomel. Decent sized crowd numering in the thousands each, good job on this front, though as one commenter put it, the PR campaign is half-assed, for example, he couldn’t even see the youth group (Komsomol-equivalent) in the state propaganda, and they were actually there.
It remains to be seen what Lukashenko promised to Russia, and whether he’ll deliver. Russia is quiet, but it’s obvious to me that they are backing Lukashenko and coordinating with his security services. Closer integration and perhaps a military base tied to generous Russian aid can boost the economy and actually protect Lukashenko (public discontent fades), else the Kremlin can tighten the screws and start negotiating with the sane opposition and the silovik elite around Lukashenko, so there is a compromise. Russia and the opposition around the blogger’s wife have not burnt their bridges, and actually the spokeswoman/representative of Babaryko, who’s now in the wife’s team, had an interview with the Echo of Moscow recently and said Russia can be a mediator. But we know that there are Russophobes in the team too, and the blogger himself appears to be one (but maybe he’s pragmatic?), these would need to be ejected.
We are in agreement here, of course, if by nation you refer to “ethnos”.
Remember, I called it a “fake country”, not nation, because it’s not a sustainable country, unless sponsored lavishly.
On top of that, Greece has the audacity to disregard the basic human rights of significant portion of its non-Greek population, many of whom are Slavic speakers.
Anyway, since this is off-topic I will stop here.
Very powerful comment, if only I could agree more than once
The current historical narrative of Chinese history is almost entirely, 100% fake.
Since China has no religious or ethnic bedrock to anchor their empire to, they (the CCP, that is) invented the narrative of the ‘grand Chinese 4000 year old civilization’.
It’s all mostly bollocks, the Chinese have been either been in discord and strife or ruled by various foreign powers for most of their history.
What we view as ‘traditional Chinese culture’ is mostly Mongol and Manchu larping.
(I mean, there is certainly a Chinese people and a Chinese history, but you’d be hard pressed to see the truth behind all the whitewashing and dissemination.)
The part that the Mongols didn’t conquer was the northernmost part of Russia – Novgorod and the parts bordering the White Sea.
The parts in modern-day Ukraine were, in fact, the parts most severely damaged by the Mongol invasion.
But in a way you’re right. Ivan IV destroyed Novgorod in a horrific fashion (they’re still very butthurt to this day), but since St. Petersburg and Peter I’s rule can be considered as a continuation of Northern Russian traditions, they came back with a vengeance.
I had higher expectations for you…
Much of what we view as ‘Chinese culture’ is fake news.
For example, rice wasn’t the original Chinese staple crop (millet was); rice came to China from South-East Asia, and only took off in earnest during the Song. (I think, don’t quote me on the timeline.)
Another example: what we know now as tea dates to the Yuan. The Chinese had tea before, but it was a very different drink, prepared differently and consumed in different contexts.
Chinese writing became a true writing system with real literacy only during the Qin.
Etc.
Point is, Chinese culture is neither as old or as unique as we pretend. It was always globalized and in context of mainstream civilization.
Regarding Belarus, this is to to be expected from a svido or a sugar coated version of such:
https://twitter.com/szntti/status/1295739213648994305/photo/1
Merkel and Macron have told Lithuania and Poland to pipe down.
My guess is that their spy in Belarus, MFA Vladimir Makei – representing the Atlanticist wing of the country in its multi-vector approach – advised them that Lukashenko will prevail and a strong response by the EU will push the leadership toward the Russian embrace.
I was actually rooting for sanctions. We don’t know to what extent Russia helped Lukashenko, but it’s rumored that he will relent to more integration and a military base, both of which he resisted in the past. Bortnikov has arrived in Minsk today.
Yes but it is also a consequence of a real divergence of interests. In the Ukraine the US overcame opposition from France and Germany to launch the ATO, this will not happen here, partially as Trump will not be interested, as you say the situation is very different and also because France and Germany are more resolute in opposing further destabilisation attempts.
Phase 2 of the protest? “Blame Russia”.
Belarus’ oppositionist and most read news portal is reporting that Russian media specialists are coming, i.e. they will take over the narrative, citing striking zmagar and liberast state TV employees:
Here’s what the readers are commenting: https://talks.by/showthread.php?t=14466672
For the record, this is the first time I have read the opposition blame Russia.
One of the striking employees, a fat young white woman who thought paradise is just around the corner and gave her all to the revolution, probably a closeted leftist inspired by the decadent West and feminism, gave this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUyHRqWO4PU
How long will the protest remain Russia-neutral? Because it mostly is. I think that upon losing momentum, grant-eaters in the opposition will start to pin the blame on Russia, so that some of it sticks. We’ll see. The reality is that like in Ukraine, those parroting patriotic slogans, especially the more intelligent, are in an union of convenience with the more romantic nationalists, because their real inspiration comes from the globohomo core of countries. Does the woman above really give you the zmagar vibe?
Of note: as I said previously, high-ranking silovik and old pal of Putin, Bortnikov, is in Minsk today. Just as Russian “media specialists” are taking over the state TV. On the same day. What are the chances that they are Russian intel operatives? This is a good development and shows what’s going to happen. Belarus will all but join Russia at this point. It will not be called annexation, of course, but “deeper integration” and more military presence. Perhaps someone in the opposition who’s pro-Russia or pragmatic, and popular, will be allowed to join the government to calm the crowd further.
The Lithuanian Yarlyk such as it was did not involve tribute. It was a diplomatic measure.
Anyway, the point of the Commonwealth was that no single noble ruled it. It was a democracy of nobles like the Holy Roman Empire to the west of it. Most of the former Kievean Rus population was part of it. Moscow imposed the Mongol model later.
Kiev was also a place to store goods ready to take them downriver to Constantinople in the spring. After the Latin sacked the city trade never really recovered. Another large nail in the coffin of medieval Kiev.
“Democracy of nobles” “like the Holy Roman Empire to the west” “Mongol model”
How historically ignorant are you?
Holy Rus has nothing Mongol in it, and neither does the reformed Petrine and later-on Absolutist Russian Empire.
Democracy of nobles equates to oligarchy. The disastrous elective monarchy model, Liberum Veto, oversized caste of pauper nobles, magnates and braindead Jesuit Inqusition and religious strife together combined to bring the whole rotten structure down. In a span of century – from charging at the Turks at Vienna, to Partitions – the Commonwealth was no more.
Holy Roman Empire was a titular joke which resulted in the tragedy of Reformation, Counter-reformation, 30-year war, Austrian succession war etc.
Do you ever pause to reconsider the bullshit you spout?
Except Kiev’s economic and political significance declined before 1204, with repeated conquests and pillages by Rurikid Russian Princes from 1169.
The fact they were ruled by foreign powers for so long but retained discernable Chinese characteristics indicates how strong the ethnos is.
You are such a little liar who will improvise in a pinch. Pre modern cities were rarely as dependent on trade(for majority of population) like you suggest and even if it would’ve been then the Istanbul of 16th Century under the Ottomans was much larger city and much bigger center of trade than it was in 12th Century. Michael Kantakouzenos as example was the richest man in the Constantinople of Ottoman empire of that time and hugely succesful trader who made 60 000 gold ducats per year by Russian trade alone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kantakouzenos_%C5%9Eeytano%C4%9Flu
My understanding was, but I am not totally sure, is that Rus mostly exported beeswax and furs to Constantinople, but were there any other important commodities, if anyone here could enlighten me on this matter?
We don’t know if all these oppositionists who have gone to Lithuania or Kiev, wanted to run to Russia first, but were given a negative or no response because the authorities don’t want to commit to a position immediately. Of course they don’t need permission to actually go to Russia, but Russia doesn’t want to be forced to commit to a political position either way , which would occur if Batka then asks for them to be deported back. For the moment it is best Russian authorities are not involved in this issue.
OR it could just be that everybody is on holiday in Russian government ( Mishustin on working visit to Far East region) and they have told Batka to f**k-off and wait, use delaying tactics until everybody is back from holiday at the start of September
A lot of the “8,000 year old unique Han Chinese civilisation” stuff comes from modern Chinese jingoism itself. They basically say any group who lived historically within the borders the PRC is Chinese.
The reality is modern Chinese “dialects” are as different and unintelligible to each other as different European languages are, which makes even the idea of a uniform Han Chinese race today questionable, let alone the idea that people and cultures that existed thousands of years ago are the direct ancestors of the “Han Chinese”.
Ancient China was more the equivalent of Europe, made up of lots of different kingdoms/countries who didn’t see eachother as part of the same civilisation, at least not more so than Europeans saw themselves as descending from the same Ancient Greek and/or Christian heritage.
People often think that ethnos and/or nation are synonymous with a state or a country. Actually, the most enduring ethnies have often survived centuries without a state which belies the nonsense of pseudo-academics like Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson i.e. the state creates the nation or ethnos rather than the state consolidating the ethnos.
I resent you very much for making me defend China.
Obviously untrue since they share a written language.
Even in the Spring and Autumn period they saw themselves as part of the same people (Huaxia) despite regional variation, so this is pure fantasy.
You are confusing the various different states which occasionally split from the main empire and reemerged in times of chaos (Qin, Chu, Jin, Yan etc.) from the non-Chinese which were assimilated to be a part of China (Nanyue, anonymous barbarian peoples like the Di, the Miao) which I have never heard anyone claim to be part of Han Chinese culture.
Looks like Latvia is bailing on the project, or at least hedging their bets.
https://m.vz.ru/news/2020/8/19/1055809.html
They refused to recognize the Guaido Тихaновская lady as the President of Belarus.
Someday, I hope to read these words and have them be true. Alas, for now, it’s just a dream.
Bonus points for the correct English spelling of “Kiev” though.
The parliament made a vaguely worded announcement yesterday calling for a repeated election (lv, en_Google), with 80 votes out of 100. I guess the government would rather not rock the boat right now.
He is right in that ancient Chinese sounded a lot different from how Chinese sounded now, although its writing system is the same since the Han dynasty.
Mandarin and Cantonese are different languages, at least in spoken form. A speaker of one with no knowledge of the other could not communicate with each other any easier than speakers of Spanish and Italian.
Chinese writing is basically hieroglyphs so does not directly correspond with the spoken language/s any way and is not comparable to languages with alphabets that are a physical representation of the spoken language.
Traditional Japanese and Korean writing makes heavy use of Chinese hieroglyphs, but no one would say those languages are also Chinese because of that.
Rice has never been the staple crop in the Yellow river basin which is the cultural heartland of Chinese civilization. But your premise that the main marks of Chinese civilization are tea and rice or that Chinese civilization or culture is existentially somehow dependent on them, is very misguided. Staple crops and popular drinks do change over time, what kind of idiot thinks that they are main characteristics of culture. Hey wacko most Europeans didnt eat potatoes three hundred years ago, and Italians rarely did use tomatoes in their cuisine two hundred years ago. Guess what Irish and Italian culture are fake news! Scots didnt drink whisky five hundred years ago, their culture is clearly a Tory propaganda or something!
And you fool Confucius and Mencius lived and wrote their classics before the Qin dynasty, but I must salute those fellows! Quite hard to write something down with false writing!
The reaction of Latvians is quite interesting. One of the Latvian Russophone liberal bloggers believes that toppling Lukashenko by the protestors will inevitably lead to Russian FSB taking power in the country, which for him is very concerning as it would potentially mean Russian military 20 miles away from a large Russophone city of Daugavpils. Unlike Western commentators, he also personally knows the people of Belarus and their feelings towards Russia and Putin, which are not what you’d think if you only read Twitter and Facebook…
The Mongol army was more meritocratic then the European ones, probably why they ended up conquering so much of it
And? Han Chinese have a shared intellectual culture and self-identity for two thousand years (and a shared popular culture for a thousand). They are highly genetically homogenous.
Even when they were purely characters, their languages have completely different grammar and syntax so the written language was not the same for Japanese/Koreans and Chinese. But this is not the case with Mandarin and Cantonese.
Confused half truths, very few in China believe or have believed that their culture is 8000 years old. Also there is difference between zhonghua ren and han ren, no one in China claims that Mongolians or Tibetans etc. are Han.
There have been times when China has been divided, but more often China has been united during the last 2000 years. Also Northern China is more or less united under one language, unlike the Southern China. Yellow river and North China Central plain is the heartland of Chinese civilization and most people there have spoken mutually intelligible language for over millenia.
Very good response. Everything changes over time as do the constitutive elements of ethnies. Even such fundamental elements like religion might change as the ethnie adopts a new; but somewhat, related worldview to suit their existential problems at that time. However, the key is that is the same ethnos is enacting those changes.
LOL
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/6105976.html
In my understanding which is based on famed Italian geneticist Cavalli-Sforzas research on genetic distance between human populations, the southernmost Chinese like Cantonese are much closer to Southeast Asian people than they are to the Northerners. Actually Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians differ more genetically than Europeans and Northeast Asians do. Therefore it would be wiser if we would speak of Malay race like researchers of 19th Century spoke of. But many or most Chinese themselves are mix of Southeastern and Northeastern Asian populations/races. Still the Northern China has always been the very heart and brains of China, the true cradle of their civilization. People there have always been more family centered, less clan centered, less mercantile than the people of the south, fairer and taller. But probably more than 95% of overseas Chinese are from Southern China so few westerners have met or interacted with them, especially with those Han who are from the North and away from the coast and less mixed with the Southerners. Like people of Shaanxi, Gansu and Shanxi. I can understand why Mongols and Turks of the old preferred them…
Its been a long time when I read of his research but after quick googling I found some charts based on his work.
https://pumpkinperson.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/cavali-sforza.png
https://i.imgur.com/cM1xl.gif
Well, while Russian FSB is not taking power now, it seems that it is closely cooperating with the KGB. It the end, at least, is gaining influence in Belarus. Likely the BelaMaidan was already gamed by the FSB. But it is not over, yet. Some Smagar outbursts lie ahead. I don’t think Western patroons will surrender without some more tries.
You are correct in your general assessment of the differences, however I think that the claim that Southern Chinese are more similar to SEAs than Northern Chinese is prima facie absurd and I believe it is disproved by genetics studies. It has also been shown that both groups are descended from the ancient Central Plains Chinese. There are similarities with Vietnamese, but this is because of Chinese colonisation of Vietnam rather than vice-versa.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4418768
Thanks for your interesting link and reply. I will admit that my understanding of genetics is limited so I am possibly wrong. Still there were many speakers of Kra-Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages in Southern China when the Chinese colonized slowly but surely Southern China in over two millenia. Maybe at least the maternal lineage of the Southerners is highly divergent from the Northern one?
Well, regardless of whether it’s misguided or not, it’s exactly what normies think when they talk of “4000 years of Chinese civilization”. What’s more, the current Chinese regime does nothing to dissuade them.
Exactly. Nobody really talks of a “4000 year old European civilization” while trying to link it to things like pizza, whiskey or plaid shirts. Compare and contrast.
Northern Chinese have a greater Central Asian and Western Eurasian autosomal admixture and mtDNA diversity. For the historical Han lands (excluding Manchuria, Eastern Turkistan and Tibet) this seems especially true for the Gansu province where Y haplogroup R1a is present in sizable numbers. Perhaps this is due to Gansu being one of potential gateways from the Great Steppe into the Han lands. Also it seems that Y haplogroup R1a presence extends beyond Gansu into Henan. The good people on pereformat.ru believe that this might be due to the Scythian Saka expansion prior to the Han Chinese civilization unification.
http://pereformat.ru/2015/05/henan/
Of course in Xinjiang the Corded Ware/Andronovo Culture Y haplogroup R1a and Yamnaya/Afanasievo Culture Y haplogroup R1b are widely represented. Together these haplogroups might well represent around 50% of the male population.
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep19998
Also looks like R1a people (perhaps Corded Ware related ?) were among the first inhabitants of Xinjiang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaohe_Cemetery
In Tibet the Y haplogroups are mostly Asian, some of them very ancient. Although the Zhang Zhung of the Northwestern Tibet might have been influenced by their Indo-Iranian neighbors. This influence is also possible in the Kham region of Tibet. Although I did not find any info about the proportion of different Y haplogroup lineages in different regions of Tibet, I believe this paper allows for inferring some 10% Central-Asian admixture in Tibet.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929716302737
They don’t. Only one Chinese language has a written form. That’s like saying that Germany and Italy ‘shared a written language’ 1000 years ago when nobody wrote in the vernacular and used Latin instead.
What’s more, Latvia prudently did not recognize Belarus equivalent of Guaido (Tikhanovskaya) the winner. So far, the events follow the Maduro scenario, to the consternation of color revolution puppet-masters, i.e., globohomo.
I do not like or trust Luka, but at the moment he is the only hope for preserving Belarus as anything semi-decent. Tikhanovskaya is a nonentity, she can only be a puppet of globohomo. So, her victory would mean that Belarus becomes a shithole. In terms of destructiveness, globohomo can easily compete with a nuclear war.
Yuan dynasty lasted about 80 years.
Денгы to that.
Nice to have you here again!
Zhangzhung, which is modern Guge and Tsang, with Kham make half of the modern Tibetan population, so there is some proof that Khampa have Iranian influence and therefore half of Tibetans? When Kham is only relatively densely populated Tibetan region near Chinese Sichuan and Southeast Asian Yunnan, therefore they have closest historical connection to East Asian populations and they dont have a history of interaction with Indo-Europeans unlike Amdo with their ancient connections with the Wusun and Ordos cultures.
If you have any knowledge to share about Zhangzhung I would be most eager to hear, there are many white spots in history regarding that area of the world. Like was there somekind of highly civilized Iranian civilization living in Western Tibetan plateau during the iron age, were they the ones who gave birth to ancient Tibetan religion of Bön? What was their connection to Indian subcontinent, for their holy places are one of the most holiest places in Hindu-, Jain- and Buddhadharma, like the sacred mountain Kailash and Manasarovar lake. Actually Kailash is the holiest place of Hinduism. What is the connection of the Zhangzhung script or scripts to their ancient kingdom? Has there lately been any archeological breakthroughs concerning their strange stoneforts and structures in Western Tibetan plateau? For the Chinese government has permitted archeological excavations on that area only relatively recently. Is there any basis of the claims of Bönpo that their religion comes from the Zhangzhung?
Slaves but not Christian ones. Timber too.
The point of Commonwealth was that the thieves had a falling out over spoils. Their model led to the decline of Commonwealth, as their noble mafia never agreed on a single godfather.
BTW, Rus not only stopped recognizing Mongols as higher authority 130 years earlier than Lithuania. Rus destroyed the pieces that the Horde split into: Kazan khanate, Astrakhan khanate, Siberian khanate, later Crimean khanate. Commonwealth’s role in opposing Mongols/Tatars – zero, zip, nada.
Damn! It was late.
Rome, Munich, Milan, Peking, Bombay. These are English words and Kiev is The Ukraine.
But the Mongols ruled Northern China at least 50 years before the Founding of Yuan, which had majority of population before the Ming dynasty. Therefore I would claim that Mongols ruled over the majority of Han at least for 130-150 years. Which is not as short time as Yuans 90~ years. Some border areas of China proper they ruled even longer.
What’s more, Yuan dynasty (Mongols) accepted Chinese imperial structure of government, adopted Chinese dress and hairstyle, etc. Eventually Mongols simply assimilated into much more numerous Han Chinese. Modern genetic analysis finds Mongolian genes in quite a few Northern Chinese, but that’s all that is left of Mongolian conquerors. Pretty much like Neanderthal genes in modern humans: they are there, but the fraction in the total clearly shows who won.
Sorry that I called you a liar, that was very petty of me.
I have read before that 5-10% of the Northern Chinese population was non-Chinese before the establishment of the Sui dynasty
Mongols didnt adopt Chinese hairstyle or dress in China. Were have you heard so? They kept themselves separate from the Han and didnt force them to adopt their dress and hairstyle like Manchus did. Most Mongols fled from China and regrouped in Yunnan, Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and continued warring with the Ming in the name of Northern Yuan, although some Mongol banners switched sides and served the Ming emperor.
Powerfully reveals Philip is unaware of basic historical facts – sure.
ac has a reputation for being perhaps the most consistently wrong poster on these threads.
Yes, many (most?) Chinese ‘dynasties’ (what a stupid translation) were short-lived and/or foreign occupations.
‘AP’ is the worst person to parrot. He’s a paid shill and his ideology comes from literal Nazi collaborators. (I mean – if you’re a Nazi, at least have the balls to not be a colonial lapdog.)
This was my own observation.
Before the Southern Song vast majority of Chinese population lived in Northern China and before the Sui most of that population was ruled by small kingdoms and dynasties led and established by non Chinese peoples who were originally nomads of the steppe. So thats probably where the genetic contribution of AnonFromTN’s “Mongols” came from.
Interesting that AnonFromTN holds such Social Darwinist views, clearly Nigerians and Bengalis are greater “winners” than Russians or Germans.
Also Mongols employed huge number of non Chinese bureaucrats in administration of China, Semu, they were called.
Based on present trends, Nigerians and Bengalis are winners. They get all their problems solved by the hard work of others and don’t have to do anything themselves. The European/North American project of opening the world to trade and improving agricultural yields has been an enormous benefit for the non-white world at the expense of whites. Without a change in course, this tendency will lead to extinction. White people need to recognize that science and economic growth unless put to proper use are going to destroy us. Unfortunately most people seem to regard scientific progress and economic growth as ends in themselves. This is a mistake.
No. This is so spastically wrong that it took a serious bit of will to actually bother to respond.
The “foreign occupation” dynasties were Yuan(Mongol), and Qing(Manchu). I can add Jin(Jurchen) into there, but note that they never fully occupied China and they’re not usually counted. The Yuan lasted about eighty years, and Chinese are pretty obviously not Mongols for better or worse(for starters, lack of good cavalry); the Manchu lasted about 300 years – good for them, but their efforts to import their culture was desultory at best since they were themselves basically a Jurchen-Mongol alliance out of necessity. The Jin lasted about a hundred years squished between Mongols and the Chinese of constant warfare before getting annihilated.
In contrast, even post Qin, Han lasted about 400 years, Tang was about 300, Song about 300, Ming about 300, etc. China had a number of periods of civil war or multiple claimants, but they all identified as Chinese in culture. Ethnically and even in practice, it was often divergent: I have Mongol ancestry and the Chu culture my ancestors came from practiced fire shamanism, etc but still my ancestors essentially identified as Chinese and post Qin, a lot of rival cultural artifacts were destroyed or suppressed by the imperial characteristics of Chinese culture.
So, well, no. Most Chinese dynasties were not “short-lived” or “foreign occupations.”
Your link nicely answered my question. Still I do wonder if there are large genetic differences between Chinese groups in the south. Like how big is difference between the inhabitants of Yangtze and remote hilly areas of the Canton and Fujian?
Actually, I meant the fraction in the genome, not in the population. If we go by populations, bacteria are the biggest winners, hands down. Among multi-cellular organisms nobody can beat soil round worms and insects.
As far as Russians and Germans go, I hear that the safest places in Germany today are those where Russian concentrate. Also, I am told that in schools Russian kids protect Germans, so that German parents advise their kids to make friends with whatever Russians they have in class to be protected from Turk and rapefugee children.
In Forest Hills, Queens NY (where I spent the first part and much of my pre-teen life), I’ve been told that many of the former Soviet Russian speakers, have a grade school rep of being smart and physically tough. I’ve heard about this elsewhere, including complaints among some of the brothers about them being rough.
I got it, but I just took the idea to its logical conclusion. Bigger the population the larger is its potential to ensure the survival of its genes, or so it seems. Many times there has been on earth mass extinction events or even huge famines among most populous nations. Sometimes numbers help and sometimes they dont, there are too many factors and causes to ever know how things will end in a world without end…
Not true.
Muscovy, which was I believe not actually a part of Kievan Rus although a Russian state or at least colony growing into one, did not throw off Golden Horde rule until 1380. And consequently Novgorod and Pskov were liberated from them, which were remaining Kievan Rus states, by virtue of Muscovy defeating them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kulikovo
Lithuania liberated Kiev in 1363. That’s how the Commonwealth was originally formed, the Kievans fought for the Lithuanians to throw the Mongols out and stayed with them to keep them out (and keep the Tatars down).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_at_Blue_Waters
“One of the Latvian Russophone liberal bloggers believes that toppling Lukashenko by the protestors will inevitably lead to Russian FSB taking power in the country” – Perhaps this was the plan from the very beginning and the counter candidates of Lukashenko were patsies seeded with FSB/GRU support and money.
The Guaido woman meets Bernard Henri Levy. That’s her guilty confession.
Levy, there are few living men who I despise more… or is there? Even Hillary and Soros seem more likeable and less smug. Levy is like everything wrong in modernity in one neat package, false intellectuality, shallowness, false moral righteousness, unabashed hedonism, lack of spiritual depth or piety, all talk no works etc…
Yes of course.
I am robust.
I tend to read personal insults as the other guy losing, not me. Poor Gerard. The biggest loser on AK’s blog. The real insults are dished out on The Saker repostings. I combine glaucoma and dyspraxia. So my typing is not always what it should be. Bear that in mind sometimes.
Welcome aboard you bring a new perspective.
I think that the Russian response to the Belarusian situation is possibly even more interesting than the situation itself.
Russian state-controlled and opposition media alike seem much more interested in promoting the opposition to Lukashenko than showing a balanced picture. The manifestations supporting the Belarusian opposition in front of the Belarusian embassy in Moscow go unhindered. To my best knowledge, no manifestation in support of Lukashenko has been organized in Russia.
Russian nationalists are quite reluctant in showing their support to the “last dictator of Europe”. Russian communists are also way less vocal than they should have been given the nostalgic glitter of the pseudo-Soviet Belarusian economy.
In fact, Russia seems unsure that it wants Lukashenko to stay in power. Unsure perhaps even whether it should get involved in all of this.
Although the Rus Princes that gathered in the more northerly areas won a smashing victory over the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikova in 1380, they still managed to pay a tribute to the Horde for almost a century later, till 1476. From before 1380 the tribute was 13,000 – 14,000 rubles per year and as the Horde was losing its grip on the lands of Rus it was 5,000 – 7,000 per annum from 1380 – 1472. It went down to 4,200 from 1472 – 1476 and 1,000 per annum of “gifts” after 1480.
Similarly, the great victory at Blue Waters (1362) organized by the Lithuanian Prince Algirdas didn’t immediately translate into a cessation of the tribute to the Horde, but apparently continued for about another 35 years, till the end of the 14th century. The complete end of the tribute occured after, Tokhtamysh fled to Lithuania and, in a document to Vytautas, relinquished his rights to collect tribute from Lithuanian lands. I couldn’t locate any information about the exact amount of these tributes.
So, although the end result was similar in the North and in the South, we see a great difference in timing, where the Lithuanian/Ruthenian lands actually ceased paying a tribute to the Horde close to 80 years earlier.
Actually in Chinese historiography the Jin are regarded as an occupation dynasty, the success of the Jin was large enough to be regarded as one of the major disasters of Chinese history, along with the conquest of northern China by the Huns in the 4th century.
Sorry, history is not your strong suit. Mongols had nothing to do with the capture of Kiev.
Lithuanian Prince Gedimin did capture Kiev in 1322, but he defeated not Mongols, but Russian Kievan prince Stanislav and his allies. FYI, Tatars were on both sides in that war.
Gedimin’s son Olgerd recaptured Kiev in 1362-3. In that episode Olgerd did actually fight Tatars. BTW, out of 12 Olgerd’s kids 10 were christened into Orthodox faith.
However, Olgerd had yarlyk from Tatars (dated 1362). The last known Tatar yarlyk to a Lithuanian prince was dated 1560 (!) to Sigismund II.
LOL!!!!! Identical insult to go with identical nonsensical arguments and even identical blog posts from the “AP” account . Is anybody out there actually counting how many times this has occurred just for the last month? A supposedly “pro-Russian” blogger cloning **** from a pseudo-Banderite ***** ( insert noun, because of threat of ban) .Further confirmation of what I inferred after I had asked if there is some Norman Bates/mother thing going on here
Anonymous coward is a genius and true patriot, who does not deserve that slander Mr Karlin – particularly when it is nonsensical.
At least Sudden Death, and even the decrepit Israeli-vietnamese troll Ano4 are worthy opponents – but for you to use the arguments of and “tag-team” this ***** ( use your imagination and insert 2-3 more lines of things that you would probably ban me for again if I wrote them) “AP” account so often is both “seriously WTF” and highly despicable.
But the other accounts here should be ashamed of themselves for not scrutinizing Karlin for it and indirectly creating this monster . Karlin deserves great credit for his blog, credit for probably or possibly being a normal and successful guy away from the blog – and deserves nerve-gasing for exploiting the anglo-part of pro-Russian internet/Alt-Right as a way to subversively promote anti-Russian filth.
Phillip….we’re like brothers, siamese twins joined at the heart. The intellectualism from my masterpiece commentary is derivative from the personal insults…and the insults that I give are a high form of intellectualism. It’s a perfect equilibrium
If they are all on strike then I think it’s natural for Russian guys to take over the state tv.
BTW – why are these pricks still using the Lithuanian monstrosity ,white-red-white flag in protest? Not as direct as the UPA flag , but it is synonymous with Nazi occupation and collaborators -the biggest reason they stopped using the flag after restarting it a few years after Independence in 1991 (NOT because of “dictator” Lukashenko forcing the current flag on them).
If I remember , Lukashenko was not violently against this flag when they had a referendum and a huge majority voted to change it, now using the very nice looking Belarussian flag . It was unusual in that this issue was a reversal of now…..Soviet part of society was very vocal and forceful in negative attitude to the white-red-white…..modern liberals ( liberast not a term that could be accurately applied to those people then) + crypto-nationalists were very passive in their promotion of the white-red-white that was formally created for the Peoples Republic during the civil war.
Anyway, even Navalny at his most retarded has not disowned the current Russian flag and they do at least wave them at his rallies. Why should these cretins in minsk disown the flag as a “symbol of the regime” instead of promoting it as their own sign of patriotism plus use some other symbols? Traitorous. At least for the Nazi-occupation connection I can assume that most of them are doing it innocently because they are very dumb and ignorant.
But I repeat – that flag they use in the protests was heavily voted against to be used as the national flag when they had a referendum in the 90’s
The Huns did not interact with China; the Jurchens were certainly a disaster insofar as they led to Mongol rampage but by themselves the Jin dynasty was limited.
The Chinese may have encountered the forebears of the Hun, the Xiongnu but that was ended by the Han dynasty in their favor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han%E2%80%93Xiongnu_War
For those who don’t understand Russian, it means “Are you quite mad?”
More like cluelessness over how this would go over in Russia and how much easier it becomes to “compromise” her if needed. She’s a housewife who’s only running because her blogger husband was locked up. We shouldn’t expect her to be particularly bright and politically aware.
Maybe so. Does it really matter? The point wasn’t to count the years as in some dick-measuring contest.
The point is that the meme of “uninterrupted 4000 years of special snowflake Chinese civilization” that China peddles is bunk.
(How many foreign occupation ‘dynasties’ has Italy had in the last 2000 years? One, if you count the Vandals? Anyways, China was always chaotic and a key player on the global stage of mainstream history.)
Well, the obvious media strategy would be to hammer home to the people that the street opposition is astroturfed, manufactured, funded and run by foreign governments. There’s plenty of evidence for it. It’s absurd to believe that foreign agents will further democracy in any real sense.
Furthermore, that going down that road will be disastrous for the country. All they will get is a homo pride parade, a Jewish president, perhaps a NATO military base, and further ruin, fiscal and moral. Many such cases.
Israeli? Self-explanatory (BTW I am neutral on israeli issue)
Vietnamese ? I explained this before in a previous post. Don’t be like Karlin where you pretend not to read my posts, deliberately argue indirectly against the undisputable facts in it…but then conveniently seem to have read the one “insult” in the post that is used as a pretext to ban me.
The vietnamese aspect of your lifestyle is because of the young boys inference ( or is it Thailand or Cambodia? – you tell me because your the expert)
I want to be clear – I despise you. You’re a bad person – though you may pay your taxes accurately
WTF? Like they were “attacking” the embassies of Gruzia, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia during their revolutions? Or protests in Abkhazia? Nobody in Russia was ever “disciples” of Shevardnadze,Sargsyan and certainly not of Kuchma/Yanukovich you dummy, so why should they mass protest for them? That doesn’t meant though, that people aren’t against west/EU actions there.
Karlin wrote very well about the similarities in the protests and eventual outcome this could have with the Armenian revolution last year. The only difference is that Poland and Lithuanian prostitutes and other EU trash are promoting the protests/revolution and nobody is interested in Armenia. For these dumb narcissists in EU and Gosdep, overthrowing 26 year “dictator” gives them something to do with their (overpaid) time and would increase their egos – Sargsyan gave them nothing of interest. Anyway Turkey and Azerbaijan are strategic partners ( or very important) for the west, but strategic enemies of Armenia, so their revolution would always be less externally influenced.
The facts are that everyone is on holiday after a long period of Coronavirus-dominated lifestyle – they will formulate a position after. VVP deserves a holiday. If a gas explosion in residential building occurs on New Years Eve, killing many people….people know he will be there showing respect and sympathy as late as 3 hours before the start of the New Year . If your 2 boyfriends Poroshenko/Valtsman and Zelensky have to do the same thing ,we know that the same actions would be impossible because they are too busy doing “patriotic” holidays during New Year/Christmas……..in Maldives and Oman.
WTF? State media reporting on Banderastan has always been different and independent to Kremlin position you clown. Russian”state” media have been entirely balanced on Belarus and nothing like liberast freak media. Plenty of experts saying this is the west, plenty of experts saying this is because or corruption/bad governance for Belarus ….just as how they were reporting for all these other revolutions ( except Evromaidan)
Would you be connecting western media co-ordinated, uniform conspiracy reporting on Navalny’s “poisoning” with the actions of western governments/intelligence? No, of course not – such is your liberast hatred of Russians you only do this for Russia
Using Russian slang implications it may also hint at a “are you a complete d*ck head?” question. Like in чудак (или чудило) на букву М. Russian is such an expressive language!
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%BA
In the case of Gerard Mandela both questions might be asked with enough justification. He throws tantrums in nearly every comment, insults people and writes emotionally charged rants. Some of the things he writes I would agree with, but his extravagant aggressiveness is really a complete and total turnoff where discussion is concerned.
You are free to shift your commenting activity to The Saker’s blog. I think your input will be more appreciated there.
LOL.What nonsense response. Counter-projections much?
No. Never will never change what you falsely claim as “hysterical”. But I have to improve my syntax, anglo grammer and punctuation. It’s a struggle for me and can slightly reduce the quality of the thinking behind the post. It’s difficult thinking in one language and writing in the other.
There is so much fakery from you. Why are you stating that the Kremlin is sending their official policy on Belarus…via tone of the television coverage ? WTF is in your head? When has this lie ever been true for any issue? You want “state tv” to reflect the thinking of 1% of the population in it’s editorial content just to satisfy your ego? It is bad enough that radio and “state tv” debate shows are 50% liberast view guests ( or does it not classify as state tv when convenient?)
BTW Karlin, if you have banned him, then you should unban the “Lyttenburgh” account. He is at the high intellectual level of AnonFromTN,Cyrano,Dmitry and Anonymous Coward…..and 5 times more frenetic than me. Lyttenburgh is completely all over the place. He’s perfect for the further improvement of the blog
The Saker – nice guy. Genuine masterpiece blog he wrote on Solzhenitsyn and I enjoy his writing on Russian-world history…..but he is clueless on domestic issue of Russia.
Except for our guys not getting killed in Syria and eliminating kavkaz and central asian terrorists fighting there……I have minimal interest in Middle-East issues and the sins of America in that region, which is of course an area of prolific writing for him.
I mean, there’s quite a distance from 4000 years of snowflake civilization to no continuous culture; the Chinese lean much closer to the former with continuous existence and reemergence of single written language, philosophies and political centralization.
I’m not as sympathetic to “5000 year old civilization”(without a doubt Confucius recognized Zhou but beyond a historic ideal, was that really an unified culture?) but any objective view of even a conservative appraisal if post-Qin would indicate China as a fully formed concept by Han Dynasty.
If Western civilization began with Ancient Greece, then surely Chinese civilization started with the Shang over 3000 years ago. At least they share unbroken geographical continuum with it, unlike England or Sweden(laughter).
Most people nowadays dont know that for a long time westerners thought that Shang was just mythical civilization created by ancient Chinese chroniclers, there were even reform minded Chinese during late Qing and Republican era who thought that Shang was fake and criticized heavily traditional Chinese historiography, but in the end archeological excavations proved them wrong, something similar happened with the jade mummies and terracotta army, for there was a consensus that they were just Chinese tall tales. History and research has proved again and again that Chinese historians and chroniclers of the past have been quite trustworthy, unlike their Indian colleagues. Therefore I truly believe that the Xia dynasty of the legends was a real civilization, its not unheard that major civilization could exist without written language, like people of Bactria Margiana archeological complex, Vedic Indians and Inkas of Peru, so it is not by any means impossible that the Chinese had civilization hundred of years before invention of writing during the Shang dynasty. Erlitou culture is good candidate for being the original Xia dynasty.
Ps. Ancient Indians were very bad with recording history or making good governmental records, and always had tendency to mythologize stuff, but they were excellent systemizers of philosophy and religious beliefs, when Chinese on the other hand had inclination for too abstract terminology and thought regarding spiritual matters. Of course this is just rough take or estimation, and modern Indians have so much Bhakta/devotional attitude that they sometimes lose their ability to evaluate things rationally.
At the very least, the idea that the CCP alone is responsible for the idea that China was ancient is innately ridiculous to anyone with a vague awareness of Sima Qian.
Or Confucius, for that matter.
I have always heard about China being an ancient civilization without distinction between ethnic groups there.
lol you are wrong as you almost always are. AK made this correct observation first, I only repeat it.