Comments by "1midnightfish" (@1midnightfish) on "What do Ukrainians think now? 11 months after" video.
-
5
-
@nebitno6955 Fair point - putin's trolls bring this up a lot but you don't seem to be a troll, I don't think you're using this argument to undermine support for Ukraine. Hence the tone and content of my reply.
When NATO attacks other countries it is not automatically alright, many of us who support Ukraine are not unquestioning fans of NATO and did lose A LOT of sleep over the bombing of Afghanistan and Iraq (I lost my voice too, on a number of occasions, yelling at demonstrations, not that it did much good). Nor do we support the policy of our countries (I'm not American myself) in relation to the occupation of Palestine, for example.
It's not about some people's lives mattering more than others. It's about "never again" (though to me that feels more like "NOT AGAIN...!" these days). The global support for Ukraine is objectively greater than for some of the other countries you mentioned but not because our media is "telling us to support Ukraine": there is simply more information out there, and Ukrainians, who have been living with an incubated version of this horror for years now, have had the time and means to develop their information front in a way that perhaps other countries had not.
Besides, this situation is much more straightforward than some of the others you mentioned: the Ukrainian government is aligned with the vast majority of the people it governs and is not a dictatorship, they have been invaded by a colonial power that refuses to recognise their independence and sovereignty, and this war is an undeniable attempt at genocide - unlike the NATO campaigns against Afhanistan and Iraq, shameful and horrifying as they were. So it's easier for people to be sure who to support even if they're on the outside and not very familiar with the cultures and history in question.
When I watch russian prisoner interviews on Lviv.Media and hear one of those guys say "This 'brotherly war' must be stopped" it makes me so angry... and not only because it's a way of treating Ukrainians as if they were basically russians: all wars are brotherly wars, we all suffer and bleed and grieve the same. That's also how I feel when I hear russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine described by western media as an "illegal war": a phrase I refuse to repeat, as I believe it is only used to protect the imaginary moral high ground over the wars in the Middle East.
Millions if not billions of people support Ukraine, there are bound to be very different viewpoints (some people on YT have passionately objected when I've made similar points in other comments). But I know I'm far from the only person who thinks and feels this way. Happy to continue the conversation if done respectfully.
Glory to Ukraine, death to all dictators! 🖤❤
4
-
@nebitno6955 Thank you for a thoughtful reply, rare in these threads 🙂 I could tell from your original post you've had some really bad experiences, I am sorry about that. I disagree with a lot of what you wrote but that's OK, there are many different viewpoints on this situation.
I make a conscious effort to see this war from a Ukrainian viewpoint, and that shows me countries (and entities like NATO and the EU) that have a bunch of different reasons for wanting to oppose russia, as well as the means to do it. And russia is trying to obliterate Ukraine as a nation, they have tried before, they have made it really clear, there is no question about it. So Ukraine is naturally trying to activate as much motivation as possible from all the countries and entities that make up what we have taken to calling 'the West'. It's self-preservation.
Also, please look up the definition of genocide... russia is doing all those things in Ukraine right now, intentionally, deliberately. We all need to stop being coy about it. putin wants as few Ukrainians as possible on that territory, he wants the language, the culture, the nation gone. Some people have trouble seeing this - some people I know personally, even, mostly from the old protest movements - and I think it's because it interferes with the proxy war narrative they are committed to.
If this were primarily a proxy war, for all the reasons you describe, it would have started back in 2014 - the conditions were perfect for it then. But no, all these governments carried on doing business with putin, our politicians were seduced by the obscene wealth and power of these disgusting guys, and it was so much easier to decide that Ukrainians must brought it upon themselves or whatever.
I hope that most if not all of Ukraine's war debt will be repaid by russia, or what's left of it by the end of the war (I don't have an opinion on whether the rf should break up or not, but putin is doing a really good job of destroying his country). I really dislike to see western companies big and small salivate at the prospect of lucrative contracts - I got into a big YT comments fight about it only yesterday - but at least this time it's not their own governments reducing the country to rubble in the first place so they can make money rebuilding, as happened with the wars in the Middle East 😡
One more thing before I go: I really don't think Zelensky is a warmonger. I don't worship him at all - I try not to worship anyone and certainly not politicians - but he is the elected leader of a country under attack, and he is literally 'sticking to his guns' and doing everything he can to make sure that Ukraine gets out of this situation in one piece with a lasting prospect of peace, freedom and independence. Ukraine literally cannot lose this war: it can either win, or stop existing.
Take care mate, I wish you the best ☺
4
-
3
-
@jgreen2015 Actually the Italian language has three single words for different shades of blue: 'blu' is a catch-all for a darker blue, 'azzurro' as you have described (a word much more commonly used than 'azure' in English), and 'celeste' for a paler shade, 'baby-blue' I suppose, also works when the sky is not so bright but still clear. My English is more fluent than my Italian and is definitely my dominant language, but whenever I hear people say 'sky-blue' part of my brain is always confused about which 'blue' they mean: azzurro? Celeste? Speaking of which, like everyone else I've seen lots of Ukraine flags over the past year, some new, some old and weathered, on my screen, irl... and the shade of blue seems to vary. Sometimes 'blu', other times 'azzurro' or even 'celeste': I haven't come across this variation with other national flags, I'm intrigued.
2
-
@jgreen2015 Yes, I would say 'celeste' has a pastel quality, like one of those baby blankets 'for boys', or a clear sky at the end of the day, when it's still light but the brightness of the 'azzurro' has faded. I translate Italian into English, and translating colour can be tricky, so one thing I tend to do when not sure how to render something like this is an internet search of the word: if you want to see the difference between the hues defined by those three Italian words, just type them into a search engine, one at a time, and compare what comes up (I've just done that, adding the word 'colore' to narrow it down to colour-related results) ☺
2
-
1