Yeah I'm sure it was people's desire for unity, and not the drastic drop in the quality of life experienced by the average Russian during the 90s.

  • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    4 years ago

    Do they also freak out about North Macedonia? They probably do.

    :frothingfash:

    Funnily enough Greeks in Germany are from what I’ve seen closest to Turks than any other ethnicity there, pretty funny how that works. Thing is, lots of Greek people hate Turks because of the history between the countries, especially older people. Thing is, the Armenian genocide wasn’t just Armenian, lots of Greek people lived in Turkey these years, including my great grandparents who ended up having such an aversion to Turkey that they changed the channel the moment they heard Turkish. Greece was also not blameless in what happened, the atrocities were partly in response to the invasion of Turkey by Greece under the pretext of protecting and liberating the Greek populations in Turkey. It seemed to be going well until the Greek side thought “wow this is so easy, guess we’re just gonna take over half of Turkey now instead of just the coastal places where there actually are Greek populations”. So then Ataturk counterattacked and ethnic cleansing happened. The history is more complicated of course but I can’t explain it here since it’s pretty delicate and I don’t even think I have the appropriate knowledge to seriously talk about this.

    I'm not particularly well read on this either, but this aligns with my understanding. I guess the only thing I would add is that a major underlying motivation for the war was the Br*tish empire wanting to cut down the ottomans, greece was just the junior partner fighting the proxy war.

    I don’t want to despair but I’m not feeling good about where things are heading lately.

    Same, I still feel shell-shocked from 2008 because it was the setback that really got me to challenge my assumptions about europe. I lost my job in the US but was sending money to family because what else can you do when you see your family members trying to survive on ~500 eu/mo?

    I’ve had so many dreams about the Soviet States of the Mediterranean and Balkans lol I really fucking hate what nationalism has done to separate all these amazing cultures from each other and how much it hurts minorities. That’s the end of my sad “why can’t we just be friends” rant. I just really hate this shit and how governments want us to hate each other when I just want to eat kebabs and swear in Albanian with my comrades :(

    This really resonates with me too, I'd be interested in seeing more posts from balkan/mediterranean/southern european comrades because there's so little that gets translated to english. Greece is fetishized in the west by lovers of "democracy" and that contradiction can be challenged by highlighting the degree of brutality that was required to put down the communists there in the civil war and after. (The post-1945 timeline is not talked about)

    • Pezevenk [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I’m not particularly well read on this either, but this aligns with my understanding. I guess the only thing I would add is that a major underlying motivation for the war was the Br*tish empire wanting to cut down the ottomans, greece was just the junior partner fighting the proxy war.

      Yes, this is true, but also after the counterattack started, the br*ts were like "OK these aren't the Ottomans any more so we don't really care and also this is just way out of control so now you're on your own now lol bye" and they just dipped and even denied to help fleeing civilians so as not to get in trouble.

      Same, I still feel shell-shocked from 2008 because it was the setback that really got me to challenge my assumptions about europe. I lost my job in the US but was sending money to family because what else can you do when you see your family members trying to survive on ~500 eu/mo?

      What country are they from?

      It's unfortunately a common reality for many old retired people around here. I think my grandparents' pension was even less than that, it was like 350eu/month or something, it's enough to, um, eat and that's about it.

      This really resonates with me too, I’d be interested in seeing more posts from balkan/mediterranean/southern european comrades because there’s so little that gets translated to english.

      Yeah me too which is why I try to post a lot about it and enjoy when other people join in.

      Greece is fetishized in the west by lovers of “democracy” and that contradiction can be challenged by highlighting the degree of brutality that was required to put down the communists there in the civil war and after. (The post-1945 timeline is not talked about)

      Forget about the post-1945 timeline, history before 1940 is basically brief bouts of liberal democracy between monarchy and fascism. Metaxas gets propped up because of Ochi but really he was just Greek Mussolini except it just so happened that he wanted to keep being Greece's Mussolini instead of Mussolini being Greece's Mussolini.

      • sharedburdens [she/her, comrade/them]
        ·
        4 years ago

        What country are they from?

        It’s unfortunately a common reality for many old retired people. I think my grandparents’ pension was even less than that, it was like 350eu/month or something, it’s enough to, um, eat and that’s about it.

        They're in greece, I just don't want to dox myself too much, but some of them were just out of school and working service jobs struggling to make rent.

        oh also you had mentioned:

        Also there’s a very weird perception about byzantium. People don’t really want it to have anything to do with the roman empire, they want it to be Greek through and through so they make weird excuses to themselves.

        Even more amusing because prior to the concept of greece as a kingdom or nation the people living there (within the former byzantine empire under the ottomans) were just considered (and considered themselves) romans.

        • Pezevenk [he/him]
          ·
          4 years ago

          but some of them were just out of school and working service jobs struggling to make rent.

          Oh sure that also happens tons, ostensibly minimum wage is around 650eu/month but you know how these things are... Thank god for souvlaki and no one giving enough of a shit to enforce public transport fees, they're the only reason you can keep your expenses at 5 euros per day if you try lol.

          Even more amusing because prior to the concept of greece as a kingdom or nation the people living there (within the former byzantine empire under the ottomans) were just considered (and considered themselves) romans.

          Oh it's better than that because "romios" is an alternate name for Greek and "romiosyni" for Greek-ness and chuds use these words because they sound cool, while simultaneously downplaying the roman aspect.