Darya, your wonderful writings help me see the world differently -- past and present.
.
And there is a cautionary tale in your essay, a powerful lesson for me to remember (as you wrote):
“...Looking back, it pains me to see how Belarusians lost probably their best chance for freedom and independence and instead chose “stability” that quickly turned into a suffocating dictatorship under Russian control.”
The cultural dynamics of colonialism are very well known also in North America, but paradoxically kept hidden, especially in the U.S. I am speaking about the native peoples. When I was growing up in western Canada, I was aware of the genocidal wars and the reservations, but I never connected the dots between the past and the long term consequences of forced cultural assimilation. It wasn't until I was in a room full of young Mohawks when they responded to the question I posed to them which was why don't you assimilate. I have travel the world many times over, and very seldom have I witness whole peoples literally destroyed their whole communities with alcohol as I did in western Canada.
I may seem to be coming from left field on what was discussed by this recent post, but I believe I do have a point. In a way, I was like a Russian when I addressed those Mohawks. I was completely self assured not so much in the superiority of my white culture, as I was by the certainty that natives were destroying themselves.
My earliest memories are peppered with scenes of passed out natives laying on sidewalks, sleeping and drinking underneath bridges (especially near rail road tracks). I literally knew nothing about the residential school system where children were ripped from their parents and forced to live and attend schools ran by Catholic priests, but I did go to grade school with a number of 1st nation people who were bused in so I while my friends might've been shocked by my directness (I do remember a couple of them begging me with their eyes to shut up else we were going to get kill) I knew enough that my directness would be respected. And, I was right.
For sure, I think there was a couple of seconds, given the looks between the Mohawks in the room whether they should give me the boots, but their leader in words far more eloquent that I possessed made the case as follows. He said look at your cities and look at our lands, your cities are full of garbage and strangers who steal and murder each other, he asked me if I have ever seen any pollution on native soil (treaty land). He said in his culture a person's word was his bond, and that native societies did not have the need for prisons nor lawyers, did not force their parents into nursing homes to be forgotten...Quite honestly, I wasn't expecting what I was hearing. The zinger was when he asked the rhetorical question after ripping to shreds the superiority of the so-called advantages of living in planned communities, and mass consumerism which was would a native American ever have built a nuclear bomb. He knew I knew the answer which was never.
It's been many years since that crazy night. I have doubts about retroactive responsibility as a feasible public policy. I have read that California is experimenting with making cash payments to descendents of African slaves. I think such a policy will alienate people taking an interest in building a better legal system. On the other hand, despite my convictions, I know many people will be like Russians and don't care about the past.
There is no way I can relate to what it is like to be a Belarusian. The sum and substance of my argument is if one believes in the virtues of freedom, then one must believe in the utility of progress whatever road that takes a person. For myself, I now understand that the reason that Canadians should support native rights is that as a people it allows us to think outside the proverbial box, and that is power. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between our human nature and nature itself allows us to comprehend advance scientific ideas, especially in quantum mechanics. Is time linear, or a function of a superposition of multiple states? Surrendipendity abounds in pluralistic societies. I now look back and say to myself I am grateful to have been exposed to multiple world views.
If the world does not blow up, the question that will remain is how to prevent the future from becoming old again. I truly believe that Eastern Europeans are way ahead of most of the world because they understand intuitively that the real battle is for the control of the narrative. Terms like "informational space" I read are common expressions to Eastern Europeans. We all have skin in the game now to prevent future NordStreams from empowering jack-ass dictators threatening to blow all of us if we don't bend the knee.
So, I read your words, with much sadness, and as a product of series of invisible cultural privileges that I still barely understand exist I believe that those who think and feel have a choice, to understand and accept the hard road ahead of them, or say fuck it all and try to make lots of money while pretending that their sense of self worth is not being affected.
In my case, I truly believe that native peoples should have full property rights which would be a revolution of sorts in Canada because individuals can not own mineral rights, and I understand the reasoning, but white people have no business telling natives which of their values is legit, which language they should speak. When we do, we demean ourselves and over the long run empower demagogues who will exploit everyone for their own personal gain.
In other words, there are many of us who want to understand on human terms what we up against...and in the process, we are going to find new ways to kick some ass. Hopefully, not as brutal as was done during the Reformation, but something needs to be done to prevent future Putins and Elon Musks.
In the final analysis, very few of us can translate our hard earned lessons into something practical for the future, not as individuals but we can through sharing our ideas and beliefs.
I respect Eastern Europeans so much more than I did before Russia attack Ukraine. I have very high hopes for Eastern Europeans
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, memories and reflections, David! The more I learn about Russian colonialism and realize how it influenced my life and my native culture, the more I feel the pain of all people who were colonized throughout history.
I apologize if I seemed to have to gone off the deep end. And, in the same respect, I am now regretting that I did not pay more attention to Russia when it invaded Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Syria....not that I could've done anything to change anything, but before the Internet, it wasn't very easy to get news outside the legacy media sources. For the most part, it seems that the main stream news media are little better than ambulance chasers. Yesterday was interesting...it seemed like the main stream media was about 4 hours behind social media in reporting whatever that was in Russia. I am anticipating that when the war is over that the status quo will want things to go back to way things were before the invasion, especially because Russia has an abundance of natural resources, e.g. lithium for electric cars. So, the more people learn from people like yourself about your experiences in Belarusian, the more people will understand the consequences of inaction...especially as many countries are slowly edging to enhancing the executive branches of their government. Recall, Macro invoking a special clause in the French const. to pass pension reform....It is all so abstract until people understand issues in human terms, rather than this ism vs that ism.
This reminds me, having grown up in Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, where many of native origin were proud of their ancestrage. To me they seemed little differenct from others in the large city, except they were much less inclined to seek highter education.
My mother and grandmother had always said that I should try to understand people from differenct backgrounds, "everybody was the same under the skin". So I never thought that I was somehow better than others, whatever their background, where-ever they came from.
Vancouver was somewhat different for native populations, as during the first colonialisation, there were already over a million of native people in the greater area, and today there is only about 2 million total population in the same area. European diseases had much reduced native population, but they are still a significant part of the total population.
So although they were assimilated by the Europeans that arrived, it was less brutal than for the many remote small towns and villages, who experienced the residential schools with its' brutal separation that most natives experienced. I only learned about that while studying political science at university, much before it was general knowledge in Canada.
I had a funny experience at university that really opened my eyes.
I met a student of native origin from what was then called the Queen Charlotte Islands, a large archepelago of the west coast of Canada, which has now reverted to its' native name of Haida Guai.
The Haida's were a dominant tribe in the area, including the northern part of Vancouver Island. They were the Vikings of the west coast of North America.
After a long conversation with my new friend, he said that he saw me as like another native person, like himself. It is only years later that his comment made sense to me. I hadn't seen myself as in any way superior to him, only as another human being, with a somewhat different background. Much like the many immigrants from all around the world, only native people were here first.
I later learned that a great many of Western European origins in Canada had a very different perception of the world. I had naively seen them as a small minority of bigots. However, it was much like the dominant Russian mentality.
We need to see ourselves as human beings first. Our origins & culture give us a sense of identity & security, helping us each adapt to the real world. The differences only make the world more interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing! I loved reading your thoughts and experiences, and I completely agree. Our diverse cultures make the world more interesting and beautiful. It pains and infuriates me that Russian colonialism and the fact that Russians erased so many cultures and languages, especially those nations that are now part of Russia, is still largely overlooked by the West. I wish more people had the same mindset and beliefs as you!
After reading your stories, I feel grateful and saddened that I grew up in the Ukrainian diaspora in the Chicago area. My grandparents fled Ukraine and settled in with Ukrainian communities. For that reason, my mother and by extension me never felt shame about Ukrainian language and we grew up proud of our culture, not tainted by russian colonialism in a place that we could be free- never needing to speak russian for any reason. However, I’m so sad that my grandparents had to leave their ancestral home to do that. The only positive I’ve seen coming from russias escalation now is people now more than ever have drawn attention to Russification and are trying to undo it- I know of Ukrainians trying to learn Ukrainian for the first time or stopping speaking russian entirely if they are able. It’s just sad it came due to such tragic and horrific circumstances.
Thank you for your feedback, Marissa! I agree, I wish this awakening and understanding could come not through such tragic circumstances. Yet, I’m grateful that it finally happened to me and that I started to learn more about my heritage, acknowledged the existence of Russian colonialism and what damage it caused me, my family and my native country. But as you said, I wish it happened under different circumstances. I’m glad to hear that you were free of Russian influence and grew up being fully immersed into the Ukrainian community. That’s my goal for my future kids — to never experience Russian colonialism, never think that they must speak or understand Russian or that they are connected to Russia somehow, and to be proud of their heritage, and celebrate their culture (both Ukrainian and Belarusian culture in their case).
Дзякуй, цікава было пачытаць. And story with your grandmother and vishyvanka made me cry. I am from belarusian family but my parents moved to latvija in the 80's. I would spend all my summers with my grandparents. I have done so much of thinking and unlearning in last years. And in my family some of my grandparents moved from villages to towns, had to change their identity and switch languages to advance in life. My grandfather still code switches when we ask him about his family and past. I treasure the sound of the belarusian language and do my best to learn it. It brings me so much joy to understand how much of it we still cary in our family, with parechka, burak, shuflyadkas, dobra and more. It was really interesting to read your story. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope one day to wear a blouse like that too, maybe make myself as a way to process all the heavy feelings.
Hi Victorija, thank you so much for your kind words! Вялікі дзякуй! I’m so glad to see a fellow Belarusian reading my essays! As you mentioned the Belarusian words that your family use - we do the same, and I didn’t even understand it before that some of the words my family use are uniquely Belarusian until my Ukrainian husband told me that they don’t speak like that in Ukraine and asked me to explain the meaning. I would love to find an online masterclass about Belarusian embroidery and make my own embroidered blouse too, it would be such a treasure for my future kids (and myself).
Neither did I! I grew up in Latvia and my family used it so I just assumed it's russian. It took me until 2020 to actually realise and reflect upon all these things, through conversations with my mother and grandparents to find out that actually they are all belarusian, and for all the hidden and buried stories of arrests, persecutions, moves, tragedies, adaptantions and survival to come out. I am honestly ashamed it took me until that time to start decolonising my own understanding of belarus. And realise how much culture was robbed from our families (and us).
I feel the same: I wish I had learned it earlier. However, I think it’s never too late. I follow a Belarusian woman on Instagram who is creating beautiful Belarusian embroidery, her handle is kasiavadanosava. She is planning on opening a school of Belarusian embroidery in Poland, hopefully she will have online classes as well.
Darya, your wonderful writings help me see the world differently -- past and present.
.
And there is a cautionary tale in your essay, a powerful lesson for me to remember (as you wrote):
“...Looking back, it pains me to see how Belarusians lost probably their best chance for freedom and independence and instead chose “stability” that quickly turned into a suffocating dictatorship under Russian control.”
Thank you, Bill! I always appreciate reading your thoughts and feedback.
The cultural dynamics of colonialism are very well known also in North America, but paradoxically kept hidden, especially in the U.S. I am speaking about the native peoples. When I was growing up in western Canada, I was aware of the genocidal wars and the reservations, but I never connected the dots between the past and the long term consequences of forced cultural assimilation. It wasn't until I was in a room full of young Mohawks when they responded to the question I posed to them which was why don't you assimilate. I have travel the world many times over, and very seldom have I witness whole peoples literally destroyed their whole communities with alcohol as I did in western Canada.
I may seem to be coming from left field on what was discussed by this recent post, but I believe I do have a point. In a way, I was like a Russian when I addressed those Mohawks. I was completely self assured not so much in the superiority of my white culture, as I was by the certainty that natives were destroying themselves.
My earliest memories are peppered with scenes of passed out natives laying on sidewalks, sleeping and drinking underneath bridges (especially near rail road tracks). I literally knew nothing about the residential school system where children were ripped from their parents and forced to live and attend schools ran by Catholic priests, but I did go to grade school with a number of 1st nation people who were bused in so I while my friends might've been shocked by my directness (I do remember a couple of them begging me with their eyes to shut up else we were going to get kill) I knew enough that my directness would be respected. And, I was right.
For sure, I think there was a couple of seconds, given the looks between the Mohawks in the room whether they should give me the boots, but their leader in words far more eloquent that I possessed made the case as follows. He said look at your cities and look at our lands, your cities are full of garbage and strangers who steal and murder each other, he asked me if I have ever seen any pollution on native soil (treaty land). He said in his culture a person's word was his bond, and that native societies did not have the need for prisons nor lawyers, did not force their parents into nursing homes to be forgotten...Quite honestly, I wasn't expecting what I was hearing. The zinger was when he asked the rhetorical question after ripping to shreds the superiority of the so-called advantages of living in planned communities, and mass consumerism which was would a native American ever have built a nuclear bomb. He knew I knew the answer which was never.
It's been many years since that crazy night. I have doubts about retroactive responsibility as a feasible public policy. I have read that California is experimenting with making cash payments to descendents of African slaves. I think such a policy will alienate people taking an interest in building a better legal system. On the other hand, despite my convictions, I know many people will be like Russians and don't care about the past.
There is no way I can relate to what it is like to be a Belarusian. The sum and substance of my argument is if one believes in the virtues of freedom, then one must believe in the utility of progress whatever road that takes a person. For myself, I now understand that the reason that Canadians should support native rights is that as a people it allows us to think outside the proverbial box, and that is power. Furthermore, understanding the relationship between our human nature and nature itself allows us to comprehend advance scientific ideas, especially in quantum mechanics. Is time linear, or a function of a superposition of multiple states? Surrendipendity abounds in pluralistic societies. I now look back and say to myself I am grateful to have been exposed to multiple world views.
If the world does not blow up, the question that will remain is how to prevent the future from becoming old again. I truly believe that Eastern Europeans are way ahead of most of the world because they understand intuitively that the real battle is for the control of the narrative. Terms like "informational space" I read are common expressions to Eastern Europeans. We all have skin in the game now to prevent future NordStreams from empowering jack-ass dictators threatening to blow all of us if we don't bend the knee.
So, I read your words, with much sadness, and as a product of series of invisible cultural privileges that I still barely understand exist I believe that those who think and feel have a choice, to understand and accept the hard road ahead of them, or say fuck it all and try to make lots of money while pretending that their sense of self worth is not being affected.
In my case, I truly believe that native peoples should have full property rights which would be a revolution of sorts in Canada because individuals can not own mineral rights, and I understand the reasoning, but white people have no business telling natives which of their values is legit, which language they should speak. When we do, we demean ourselves and over the long run empower demagogues who will exploit everyone for their own personal gain.
In other words, there are many of us who want to understand on human terms what we up against...and in the process, we are going to find new ways to kick some ass. Hopefully, not as brutal as was done during the Reformation, but something needs to be done to prevent future Putins and Elon Musks.
In the final analysis, very few of us can translate our hard earned lessons into something practical for the future, not as individuals but we can through sharing our ideas and beliefs.
I respect Eastern Europeans so much more than I did before Russia attack Ukraine. I have very high hopes for Eastern Europeans
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, memories and reflections, David! The more I learn about Russian colonialism and realize how it influenced my life and my native culture, the more I feel the pain of all people who were colonized throughout history.
I apologize if I seemed to have to gone off the deep end. And, in the same respect, I am now regretting that I did not pay more attention to Russia when it invaded Georgia, Chechnya, Dagestan and Syria....not that I could've done anything to change anything, but before the Internet, it wasn't very easy to get news outside the legacy media sources. For the most part, it seems that the main stream news media are little better than ambulance chasers. Yesterday was interesting...it seemed like the main stream media was about 4 hours behind social media in reporting whatever that was in Russia. I am anticipating that when the war is over that the status quo will want things to go back to way things were before the invasion, especially because Russia has an abundance of natural resources, e.g. lithium for electric cars. So, the more people learn from people like yourself about your experiences in Belarusian, the more people will understand the consequences of inaction...especially as many countries are slowly edging to enhancing the executive branches of their government. Recall, Macro invoking a special clause in the French const. to pass pension reform....It is all so abstract until people understand issues in human terms, rather than this ism vs that ism.
This reminds me, having grown up in Vancouver, on the west coast of Canada, where many of native origin were proud of their ancestrage. To me they seemed little differenct from others in the large city, except they were much less inclined to seek highter education.
My mother and grandmother had always said that I should try to understand people from differenct backgrounds, "everybody was the same under the skin". So I never thought that I was somehow better than others, whatever their background, where-ever they came from.
Vancouver was somewhat different for native populations, as during the first colonialisation, there were already over a million of native people in the greater area, and today there is only about 2 million total population in the same area. European diseases had much reduced native population, but they are still a significant part of the total population.
So although they were assimilated by the Europeans that arrived, it was less brutal than for the many remote small towns and villages, who experienced the residential schools with its' brutal separation that most natives experienced. I only learned about that while studying political science at university, much before it was general knowledge in Canada.
I had a funny experience at university that really opened my eyes.
I met a student of native origin from what was then called the Queen Charlotte Islands, a large archepelago of the west coast of Canada, which has now reverted to its' native name of Haida Guai.
The Haida's were a dominant tribe in the area, including the northern part of Vancouver Island. They were the Vikings of the west coast of North America.
After a long conversation with my new friend, he said that he saw me as like another native person, like himself. It is only years later that his comment made sense to me. I hadn't seen myself as in any way superior to him, only as another human being, with a somewhat different background. Much like the many immigrants from all around the world, only native people were here first.
I later learned that a great many of Western European origins in Canada had a very different perception of the world. I had naively seen them as a small minority of bigots. However, it was much like the dominant Russian mentality.
We need to see ourselves as human beings first. Our origins & culture give us a sense of identity & security, helping us each adapt to the real world. The differences only make the world more interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing! I loved reading your thoughts and experiences, and I completely agree. Our diverse cultures make the world more interesting and beautiful. It pains and infuriates me that Russian colonialism and the fact that Russians erased so many cultures and languages, especially those nations that are now part of Russia, is still largely overlooked by the West. I wish more people had the same mindset and beliefs as you!
Our mindsets will prevail in the long term, as it is the only way for real peace.
Unfortunately there will be setbacks from time to time, but they are temporary.
After reading your stories, I feel grateful and saddened that I grew up in the Ukrainian diaspora in the Chicago area. My grandparents fled Ukraine and settled in with Ukrainian communities. For that reason, my mother and by extension me never felt shame about Ukrainian language and we grew up proud of our culture, not tainted by russian colonialism in a place that we could be free- never needing to speak russian for any reason. However, I’m so sad that my grandparents had to leave their ancestral home to do that. The only positive I’ve seen coming from russias escalation now is people now more than ever have drawn attention to Russification and are trying to undo it- I know of Ukrainians trying to learn Ukrainian for the first time or stopping speaking russian entirely if they are able. It’s just sad it came due to such tragic and horrific circumstances.
Thank you for your feedback, Marissa! I agree, I wish this awakening and understanding could come not through such tragic circumstances. Yet, I’m grateful that it finally happened to me and that I started to learn more about my heritage, acknowledged the existence of Russian colonialism and what damage it caused me, my family and my native country. But as you said, I wish it happened under different circumstances. I’m glad to hear that you were free of Russian influence and grew up being fully immersed into the Ukrainian community. That’s my goal for my future kids — to never experience Russian colonialism, never think that they must speak or understand Russian or that they are connected to Russia somehow, and to be proud of their heritage, and celebrate their culture (both Ukrainian and Belarusian culture in their case).
Дзякуй, цікава было пачытаць. And story with your grandmother and vishyvanka made me cry. I am from belarusian family but my parents moved to latvija in the 80's. I would spend all my summers with my grandparents. I have done so much of thinking and unlearning in last years. And in my family some of my grandparents moved from villages to towns, had to change their identity and switch languages to advance in life. My grandfather still code switches when we ask him about his family and past. I treasure the sound of the belarusian language and do my best to learn it. It brings me so much joy to understand how much of it we still cary in our family, with parechka, burak, shuflyadkas, dobra and more. It was really interesting to read your story. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope one day to wear a blouse like that too, maybe make myself as a way to process all the heavy feelings.
Hi Victorija, thank you so much for your kind words! Вялікі дзякуй! I’m so glad to see a fellow Belarusian reading my essays! As you mentioned the Belarusian words that your family use - we do the same, and I didn’t even understand it before that some of the words my family use are uniquely Belarusian until my Ukrainian husband told me that they don’t speak like that in Ukraine and asked me to explain the meaning. I would love to find an online masterclass about Belarusian embroidery and make my own embroidered blouse too, it would be such a treasure for my future kids (and myself).
Neither did I! I grew up in Latvia and my family used it so I just assumed it's russian. It took me until 2020 to actually realise and reflect upon all these things, through conversations with my mother and grandparents to find out that actually they are all belarusian, and for all the hidden and buried stories of arrests, persecutions, moves, tragedies, adaptantions and survival to come out. I am honestly ashamed it took me until that time to start decolonising my own understanding of belarus. And realise how much culture was robbed from our families (and us).
I sincerely there is an embroidery masterclass :)
I feel the same: I wish I had learned it earlier. However, I think it’s never too late. I follow a Belarusian woman on Instagram who is creating beautiful Belarusian embroidery, her handle is kasiavadanosava. She is planning on opening a school of Belarusian embroidery in Poland, hopefully she will have online classes as well.
Thank you thank you thank you. And you are so right to say that even if it is later than one would like, it is never too late.
Thank you, Rob!