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Russian Court Jails Woman for Wearing 'Extremist' Rainbow Earrings - The Moscow Times
(www.themoscowtimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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Not directed at you OP, but just a general observation: I still don’t understand why so many Western leftists see things in such a black and white manner. This is especially true from my interactions with Americans in general, it’s almost always “the good guys” vs “the bad guys”, nothing in between.
You can absolute support Russia’s anti-imperialist goals while rejecting all their other reactionary views. The same can be said for support for the anti-imperialist causes of the Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanese, Algerians etc. You don’t have to like them, you just need to acknowledge that this is a historical process that is inevitable.
In my opinion, this is where the strengths of Marxism-Leninism lie, which provides a scientific and materialist lens to understand the world. The question to ask is not: should we support reactionary Global South countries against Western imperialism? The questions we should ask are: why have progressive movements that had proliferated throughout the 20th century across the Global South been largely obliterated? What was the historical and the objective process that had led to the demise of progressive politics and left-wing movements, and the rise of conservatism in the Global South, especially after 1990? What are the root causes underlying these symptoms and what is the process required to cultivate the very material conditions necessary to enable the growth of left-wing political movements in the Global South?
Like medical sciences, scientific socialism allows us to separate the root causes of the disease from a collection of symptoms, thus enabling us to find ways to cure the disease instead of merely treating the symptoms.
Dualism, Christianity, and it's consequences
Maybe because if your lgbtq putting people in jail for wearing rainbow colors really isn't much more complicated than "bad guys"
It's the whole "The enemy of my enemy is my enemies enemy and nothing more"
Like if a nation would label you an extremist political organization and jail you for not being straight they're gonna have to do something other than happening to coincidently be opposed to NATO before you start singing their praises.
Doesn't mean you think nato should be running the country or expanding military bases but if you want to talk about being able to view it as more than "good guys" and "bad guys" being able to say "both these people are dogshit for different reasons" seems sufficiently nuanced
My friend, do I have some news for you.
I come from and have lived many years of my life in the so-called Global South countries. Progressive movements have always existed throughout the Global South. Incidentally, they were all crushed - directly or directly - by Western imperialist powers. Perhaps not as brutal as those were in Afghanistan or Chile, or Indonesia even a decade earlier, but they were crushed nonetheless and the situation allowed reactionary forces to take power, which again conveniently benefited the foreign imperialists. All these countries are now conservative shitholes that you’d claim to be the “bad guys” in your book.
All the left-wing leaders that ever came into power had to face economic threats that forced them to more or less commit to austerity simply to survive. The end result? Left wing governments achieved nothing and only stoked further economic despair, allowing right wing forces to exploit and come into power.
Do you think Argentinians are simply so stupid that they elected the crazy libertarian as their leader? Or do you think there is a much longer history underlying the failures of left wing reforms in the Global South?
Tell us, what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to just “be better”? Every time we have a left wing movement growing that wants to assert sovereignty (which almost certainly means threatening the interests of the Western imperialists), they get crushed one way or the other.
At the end of the day, trust me, if you had lived in Russia, unless you are part of the wealthy elites, you’d much rather live under the stability of Putin’s rule, conservative as it is, than the absolute madness and poverty of 1990s Yeltsin era, when simply walking down the street for being a minority can get you murdered by literal neo-Nazis, when child prostitution literally re-emerged after many decades of prosperity. Ah yes, so progressive of Russia to let the Western liberals in. There is a reason why Gorbachev and Yeltsin are the two most hated leaders in Russia.
This is why there is such a stark contrast in opinion between leftists in the imperial core and the peripheral, developing world when it comes to the Ukraine War. There is a reason why all the AES countries almost immediately came to an understanding with Russia’s plight when the Ukraine War started. The people who have been victims of abuse know that if one day, another victim kills the abuser out of rage, everyone immediately understands that the abuser had it coming. Nearly every country in the Global South stood with Russia and refused to impose sanctions, despite the demands of their Western imperialist masters. Leftists who live in the imperial core and still don’t understand why this is the case simply reveal their complete ignorance of what it means to be a leftist in the Global South.
Again does literally nobody understand the concept of critical support?
That's an awful lot of words to justify discriminating against gay people.
My stance is that nato should fuck off and America doesn't have any room to criticize anybody for their treatment of any type of minority but I still think that countries shouldn't jail people for being gay.
And again, if I were a gay I would understand if gay people put any country that would jail them for that in the "bad" category.
We talk an awful lot about intersectionality but I think what really hurts intersectionality is minorities seeing that their comrades are willing to set aside basic human rights for them if it means advancing a alarmed agenda.
Like it's a pretty hard pitch to say "look I know they would throw you in jail for who you are but you still can't criticize anything this country does because they arent aligned with nato"
You should read my OP if you think this is in any way a “justification”. What I am doing here is indeed intersectionality, and it is that the progressive movement in the Global South can only grow when Western imperialism can no longer intervene in our domestic politics and economy.
You’re talking as if we in the Global South never tried to be progressive, and are stuck with conservative reactionaries that we should criticize. I am saying that there is no point in criticizing the conservatives when every time we had a chance to do something progressive, we get immediately crushed by the Western powers. We simply have no way out without defeating the imperialists first. This is what Mao called the principal contradiction. Everything else is secondary at this point and will never be untied without resolving the principal contradiction first.
There is a book I’d like to recommend, it’s called the Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins, and I think it will inform you a lot about the perspective of what it means to be a leftist in the Global South.
I do think the sort of “don’t talk about it” mentality does more harm than good. Why are we trying to pretend these reactionary elements don’t exist in these countries instead of just holding our whole, principled stance (Anti-Imperialism is needed to properly oust the reactionaries, so anti-imperialist action is needed first, and that can include support for Russia in E.G. the Ukraine/Russia conflict)?
Trying to literally bully people into not complaining about homophobia in those countries seems not only counterproductive but silly. Complaining about gun-obsessed chuds is technically within line of the mainstream narrative of gun control, but it’s also entirely justifiable because gun-obsessed chuds are deeply unhinged. It’s like we think every single person alive is such a completely politically illiterate person that writing “DEATH TO AMERICA AND CRITICAL SUPPORT TO RUSSIA (their current policies on queer people suck though)” will lead to that person going off and voting to murder Russians
This is why weirdos in the Fediverse are able to slander us so easily, people coming in and seeing us outright shut down gay people complaining about homophobia or whatever is a really fucking terrible look. If our concern is that the optics of being… checks notes not outright delusional about the amount of reactionaries in countries ravaged by imperialism… could lead to more imperialism… then first of all, we’re doing something horribly wrong, because we could just MAKE IT CLEAR that the presence of these reactionaries is the FAULT of imperialistic countries like the US, and second of all, why do we then not care about the optics of literally hushing queer people because they’re making our politics too difficult?
Russia isn’t a fucking MONOLITH, there isn’t a single fucking Russian Hivemind that controls every belief of someone there. When we reject criticisms like this because “oh but it’s an imperialized country!” you ignore the fact that 1. These reactionary elements, again, CAME FROM imperialism, so trying to be all hush-hush about it is far less effective than just acknowledging that, and 2. Progressive elements in the country probably share the exact same criticisms because these are criticisms of lobbying groups and conservative orgs, not Russian people as a whole (why would it be? There’s some weird noble-savage shit going on here where some people who call themselves “anti-imperialist” can’t help but act like every single person in an imperialized country is infallible, EVEN WHEN their existence and power came directly or indirectly from imperialism. Yeah, I’m just some white person, but this feels super racist and dehumanizing to me, like some kind of fetishizing)
You have fundamentally misunderstood my position. Go back and read all the comments I have made on this thread, under no circumstances have I ever said that “don’t criticize, don’t talk about it”.
I have laid out the historical cases on why progress will continue to be stifled as long as we remain oppressed under the threat of foreign imperialist intervention. From Indonesia to Chile to Afghanistan to Russia, millions of people striving for exactly what you are telling us to do, were brutally murdered in the name of anti-communism and enforcing the liberal free market order. These were merely the most prominent examples, but across the Global South, there are endless stories like this, perhaps not as brutal, but no less harrowing.
Let’s make it clear here:
For us in the Global South, the prescription has never been more clear: the defeat of capital and the emancipation of minorities (including LGBT minorities) go hand in hand with the total and complete defeat of Western imperialist intervention in our countries. This is the principal contradiction. We will continue to fight the reactionaries in our own countries, but we also fully understand that no progress is possible as long as Western imperialists can continue to oppress our political aspirations, economic sovereignty, national and cultural identities.
For the comrades in the imperial core, you will have to figure out the principal contradictions yourselves. You will have to figure out how to defeat capital and the reactionaries and to emancipate the oppressed minorities in your own country. The best you can do for us progressives in the Global South is to defeat your imperialism from within, so the progressive movements in the Global South will finally have a room to breathe.
Yeah, and I’m not disagreeing with any of this? It’s like you’re inventing beliefs I don’t even have
Well if you think Russia is bad, wait till you hear of all the countries the US is giving money to. Russia destroying the us would lead to more LGBTQ people worldwide having better conditions than now.
Not because Russia is "good" or the us is "bad" but because the US is funding fascist regimes and reactionary movements across the world, which Russia does not have the resources to do
Yea that's why I said repeatedly and explicitly that America of all people had no room to criticize them on this but that doesn't mean it's not a bad thing.
Russia not criminalizing homosexuality would also lead to more lgbtq people worldwide having better conditions than now and that seems a lot easier to accomplish in the short term than defeating western hegemony
And it's not like being incredibly homophobic is helping them defeat the west, in fact as others pointed out if they'd stop going out of their way to persecute lgbtq people it would completely nullify one of the main criticisms of them and allow them to correctly point out its another of a long list of standards that America holds other countrtries to while completely refusing to hold itself to the same standard
Hmm, I don't understand the dualism aspect, do you think you could explain to help me understand?
I think she just means "dualism" in the sense of the metaphysical view that the world is composed of opposite forces in all things: good and evil, light and dark, mental and physical, chad and soy, etc.
ah okay yeah makes sense, ty for the clarification
I think they might mean a the belief some people have of an independent morality from any earthly actions a person performs. As in, there's a mind you have with intentions and you're morally just so long as your intentions are good, regardless of what you're actually acting on the behalf of. American liberals sometimes do this to assuage their cognitive dissonance
I took it to mean manichean type doctrine, but I might be wrong. For example, Augustine (possibly the preminent early theologian of Christianity) was originally a Manichean - it was very widespread and popular, influencing thought and understanding to this day, being a sythesis of 'western' and 'eastern' (and no doubt 'northern', i.e. turkic/siberian too) thought of various kinds.
I think Vijay Prashad wrote something about Russia like its viewed in the West as either the Vatican or hell... not hell, he uses a different word, its a much better phrase than I'm able to remember. But the point being that dichotomy between the source of moral authority, or the opposite (I guess alluding to Moscow as the fourth Rome).
On this particular topic, my own view is that Russia is restricting the rights/priviledges of what they term the 'international' LGBTQ movement, because I think the west uses wealthy urbanite associations of that kind in Russia (particularly St Petersberg/Moscow) for spying activities. At the same time, Putin has said (though ofc its necessary to examine what is done, not just what is said) that the LGBTQ community is part of Russian society, and shouldn't be attacked or victimised - this is probably because as a legalist ruler he wants to be in compliance with various legal obligations, and also doesn't want internal conflict. I think he isn't particularly opposed to the restrictions, because of the support it wins from the Orthodox church.
I wonder also with this particular topic, how much of the impetus for these kind of anti-progressive movements is to do with political kompromat. Certainly I don't think most of the elite, like aristos or capitalists for example, really care about sexual preferences, but rather its a useful political tool if the masses (are persuaded to) consider it immoral. Like with the 'Lavender Scare' in the US, but then I've also seen a CIA testimony saying that they (I paraphrase) 'like homosexuals because they're useful' referring I think to the usefulness of having something over someone. I suppose I mean, I wonder how much (alongside other factors) the passage of anti or pro LGBTQ laws is to do with wanting a political weapon, or alternatively as a kind of disarmemant treaty among the ruling classes.
This has a factual basis, many LGBT communities in the global south are aware of it. Being LGBT in a country shit for LGBT people re: almost all of them makes it easier to blackmail you and spam you with propaganda that somehow America and the west are a significant leg up on LGBT rights, somehow. And of course they sweeten the deal by giving you money
yes, and i think the state response is predictable - round up as many as you can on spurious identifiers (sumptuary laws like these rainbow jewelry), interrogate them and get them on record, and try to judge who is or isn't a threat to state security, or who can be useful or 'turned'.
ok, but this does all sort of seriously put into question why these countries continue to even allow homophobia to exist as general consensus. That’s a huge security issue and it’s not one you can fix by just killing gay people, because the whole reason they’re being blackmailed is because nobody knows they’re gay yet. Why exactly do these countries go the more labor intensive and probably controversial route of interrogation and suppression when they could just start like, distributing queer theory?
Frankly it's because of brainworms and old propaganda. Cuba and East Germany explicitly mentioned this was a part of why they're championing LGBT rights
CW corpses and undead
Ah, so we’re basically trying to prevent the undead corpse of the USSR, impaired heavily by the systemic disease known as a capitalist-run economy, from fully disintegrating before it can take out fellow zombie-state US with it, and as a side effect of the aforementioned zombie-like state it is barely capable of self-regulation and legislation like this is basically a regulatory version of the various fluids leaking out of a zombie’s body (the wounds were inflicted by the US while they were both “alive”*.)?
And in the mean-time the actually functional states like Cuba or even China are slowly attempting to adjust to the zombie apocalypse currently playing out?
Edit: *: The USSR was actually alive, the US was granted a state of malevolent intelligence for it’s own self preservation by its head liches
Have you read this report titled Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice & Neoconservatism? You might find it interesting.
Excerpt:
I haven't - although I think having read the intro that I've seen it quoted without attribution. I will read it!
Its reminiscent of a lecture I watched about the British Empire in India (I forget the name, but can probably find it again if you're interested), where the lecturer drew a parallel between the colonial concept of 'empty land' (like in Australia, ignoring the people who were living there, or indeed the US), and a similar concept used to justify conquest of obviously more populous and urbanised places like India, one example being with this kind of accusation about women - that the people there were 'savages and weren't treating their women properly' (betraying of course the accuser's view of women, as property without agency), and that a 'white coloniser' would have a better idea about how to 'treat women' (property, like land) than the native inhabitants. I suppose related to the liberal and religious concept of the civilising 'burden' of the coloniser. But we have seen this used very recently, with Afghanistan.
In any case, thanks for the link!
Yeah it’s written by one of those realist think tanks (personally I have some issues with the realist takes despite their seemingly rational argument but this paper is quite clinical and objective from a materialist standpoint and makes compelling argument for the case it is presenting).
Putin joining my extremist stance that Pride is gay Zionism and will ultimately result in factional warfare between us and the TERF gays and lesbians, the Greenwaldians who will purge bisexuals, the creation of gay Israel, and other abominations
Imma guess that pride is the capitalist foothold into the queer community like Israel is the US's imperial foothold in the region.
Capital will subsume everything it can to preserve itself, lgbtq included. Just like white can be expanded to maintain power, everything else can be absorbed too. What cannot be is revolutionaries, they will be killed.
@voight@hexbear.net is that right? I'm just guessing.
Pretty much but it's also the first completely even split of 33.3% joking/serious/secret third thing
~~Gaysrael 👎👎👎😡😾👎~~
Gayist Autonomous Oblast
Oh I don't think it's a joke its plain as day.
New site tagline
~~Gaysrael 👎👎👎😡😾👎~~
Gayist Autonomous Oblast 👍✅✅👍
Just DM whenever y'all get low
Honestly I do unironically hate society (societies?) for the whole recurring “being massive shitheads to anyone who falls out of their norms” thing so sometimes I like the idea of a gay separatist state so I can just plain not give a shit about their thoughts and not fear retaliation, but there’s no way to guarantee shit wouldn’t go wrong in exactly the same ways as Israel on a long term timetable. Can't even just fuck off like everyone else seems to want.
~~Gaysrael~~ 👎👎👎😡😾👎
Gayist Autonomous Oblast 👍✅✅👍
And western leftists will also immediately believe something if it conforms to what they originally wanted to believe. If some western rag says something mean about China, they will rightly be suspicious of it, but "The Moscow Times" is suddenly a legit source? (Look it up it's pretty much a pro western newspaper that's not even based in Russia). I don't know much about this case, and yeah the LGBT situation in Russia isn't great, and it's quite possible that this lady was probably targeted because of rainbow earrings, but you're right, western leftists really need to understand what the "critical" in critical support means.
While The Moscow Times is indeed a pro-Western liberal news outlet, this particular incident did happen as it was reported in Russian media as well. What’s not reported in the article though is that she was detained for like 5 days so it’s not like she’s rotting in prison or anything (people in the US have gone to jail for weed possession with far worse sentence). Still this is something we should condemn while understanding that their progressives have their own fight in their own country, whereas the best the comrades from the imperial core can do is to bring down their own imperialism from within - that would really help the progressives across the Global South.
it does in fact report that it was only a five day sentence. Idk I guess Im just sad and pissed that innocent queer people are getting targeted. But I remind myself to look at the bigger picture, and not have a kneejerk response. Like Im not saying Russia needs to legalize same sex marriage or introduce anti discrimination laws, but if the situation could go back to how it was in the 90s or early 2000s where people were just left alone. Its just a part of this reactionary wave in Russia where they technically even banned gender markers: https://www.sostav.ru/publication/feminitivy-65608.html. Basically the headline says The Supreme Court has declared the use of gender markers a trait of the LGBT movement. Its a lot and it just makes me depressed for non-straight folk in the region. But I get it, I'm being a liberal by bringing attention to this. May things change one day.
The article also mentioned a Ukrainian flag pin. Now I don't know much about people that would wear that but lots of them have also been photographed with other interesting regalia.
I missed that and yes I agree with you.
I mean they're not wrong
Im not sure if you understood exactly so just to clarify and as a Czech speaker Im sure you have the same thing of like you can transform автор (author, grammatical gender male) into авторка (authoress?,). Or like in english waiter-waitress, actor-actress. That is what the Russian Supreme Court has banned.
Idk if it's a ban per se, it's a trait of the LGBT movement that they're banning. The point is to bring it up I guess and see if they like queer people, and if you have enough traits you will be censored
Well yes, but you realize it's not a LGBTQ thing? These are regular suffixes that everybody uses in their speech. I suppose you could make an argument that they are used more extensively by socially liberal people, but its rly not something that's indicative of political beliefs or affiliation. It is flat out ridiculous.
Yeah obviously, but the point of displaying them next to our name or bio is obviously a pro LGBT thing, and a feminist visibility thing (another thing they scare monger over)
Our government has invested a great deal of money into media designed to cultivate all or nothing, black and white, good vs evil thinking in us from a young age, and the media typically reports on foreign policy and designated enemies in ways that rely on this programming to build simplistic narratives of heroes and villains. We may be past the point where most Americans consider America the good guy, but most Americans still very much see other countries as the bad guys, which is easy because most of us don't have the money to travel to those places and meet the people there, so we just sort of subconsciously assume that they're not real people, not like us.
Many left-wingers (most especially Trots, I find) think the question is: "Should we support a multipolar world? In fact, is the coming world going to be multipolar or just Russian/Chinese imperialism replacing American imperialism? Should we support Russia in Ukraine and/or China against Taiwan?"
But these are all pointless questions. What does it matter if you support Russia/China or oppose them? It's akin to spending your time debating "Is the hurricane coming inland good or bad?" instead of saying "Fuck, okay, there's a hurricane coming inland. What should our individual responses be? Should we start prepping? Get involved in local politics to better withstand it?" and even "How did this hurricane come about? How will existing infrastructure be affected? It's been looking pretty rickety even before the winds started up..."
I try to imagine that I'm looking back on the events of today from 100 years in the future. Doing so makes all questions of justification much less interesting than the question of "Where does this lead, and how is it fought?" It also explicitly imagines that there is a future, which is something that many people (quite reasonably) struggle with as climate change and massive wars continue to engulf us, which helps give perspective; just because things are a certain way now, doesn't mean that they'll be this way in 5, 10, 20, 50 years from now. It's almost impossible to have predicted the world of 2024 from the position of somebody in 1924 or even 1974, in the multitude of ways that it has changed.