Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Razgovory]

I don't see why these groups have to be "hostile", despite the bitching and whining of grallon and viper, Canada is made up of two nations and does fairly well.  Nor am I saying there can't be rewards for getting rid of bad laws.  Even the stable ones like France and Germany have and had problems.  Germany is a particularly poor example since we found Germany's solution to a feared ethnic minority inexcusable.

[Martinus]

I don't see why these groups have to be "hostile"

I am not sure what point you are arguing. My point is that in the Baltics and Ukraine Russian minority is hostile to the very existence of the state. These are not people who migrated there to seek better life for themselves - they came as a part of the occupation force, resent their new homeland's newfound independence and more or less loudly voice their opinions that all of this should go back to Mother Russia.

Raz, in the other thread you admitted that I was right and you were wrong about Erdogan. Why don't you acknowledge that when it comes to CEE issues, I have generally better insights than you, especially if Tamas (the only other resident Eastern European) agrees 100% with me?

[The Brain]

needs moar edits

[Martinus]

needs moar edits

[Razgovory]

I don't see why these groups have to be "hostile"

I am not sure what point you are arguing. My point is that in the Baltics and Ukraine Russian minority is hostile to the very existence of the state. These are not people who migrated there to seek better life for themselves - they came as a part of the occupation force, resent their new homeland's newfound independence and more or less loudly voice their opinions that all of this should go back to Mother Russia.

Raz, in the other thread you admitted that I was right and you were wrong about Erdogan. Why don't you acknowledge that when it comes to CEE issues, I have generally better insights than you, especially if Tamas (the only other resident Eastern European) agrees 100% with me?

Well you weren't completely right.  You were talking about a Muslim theocracy.  That hasn't happened.  In fact Erdogan's main rival is a cleric.  He's more of a Putin.  I am saying that this opinion that certain groups must be removed for the good of the state is stupid balkantardism.  I'm sure some people believe that, but it's not true.  People in that part of the world also believe that Jews fly in through the windows at night to eat their blood.  Neither you or Tamas can ever be enlightened Westerners when you cling to this idea of ethnic cleansing.  In fact this sort of thing makes it more likely not less likely that the state will be destroyed.  A country that wages war on it's on people is in dire trouble.

[garbon]

Marti, you might be very well right that such is backwards states need to do to survive. I'm not sure why we should approve of that though.

[Sheilbh]

Ok but what lengths are we willing to go to get everybody to act in a pure and moral fashion?  We would have to use extremely coercive methods to get Latvia to act differently under the circumstances.  We are hardly paragons of virtue ourselves.

Not let them into the EU until they change and fully meet the minimum standards.

No issues with letting them into NATO because that's not got a similar emphasis on human rights. But lots of countries, especially in Eastern Europe, were desperate to join the EU and jumped through all sorts of hoops to get in. Even now it's the best tool in Western Balkans, and Serbia especially is making huge progress (interesting sidenote Serbia hasn't applied the EU's sanctions on Russia, Montenegro which is, allegedly, flooded with oligarch money has - it's weird because from everything I've read Russia doesn't really care about Serbia, but does about Montenegro), with the exception of Bosnia.

Isn't that exactly what he has been doing?

According to the leaked Commission document on the latest round of sanctions the big country who'll be hurt most is the UK. The overwhelming focus of the sanctions was on access to finance and biggest centre for that is London. Russia's a small part of the market in London, but it's still expected to have more of a negative impact here than in Germany or France.

The problem Latvians (and for example, Ukrainians) have is that they are late to the party - the party being European nation states, which (at least the more stable ones, like France, Poland or Germany) were built to a degree on ethnic cleansing and forced deportations. We don't accept stuff like this in Europe any more but the fact is, it made these countries relatively peaceful and stable.

I think this is true. A similar process could be starting in the Middle East.

We should either put pressure on these countries but then help them cope with the inherent instability of having a sizeable (and hostile) ethnic minority within their borders by offering some extra aid - or we should turn a blind eye to "soft" ethnic cleansing they are practising. Just telling them to shape up and offering nothing in return will not do.

I've no issue with offering them help. My view is that we should have told them to shape up and, in return, they get to join the EU like Lithuania or Poland who don't have discriminatory laws against minorities.

[Solmyr]

According to the leaked Commission document on the latest round of sanctions the big country who'll be hurt most is the UK. The overwhelming focus of the sanctions was on access to finance and biggest centre for that is London. Russia's a small part of the market in London, but it's still expected to have more of a negative impact here than in Germany or France.

There's been a lot of whining in Finland about the sanctions, since many Finnish companies trade heavily with Russia. The dairy company Valio was hard-hit by the food import restrictions, I think about a fifth of their trade is export of milk and dairy products to Russia.

[Martinus]

Sheilbh, Lithuania has a pretty bad track record when it comes to treatment of minorities, actually. I thought we were singling out Latvia as an example - all Baltics have similar laws (for example Polish minority in Lithuania was forced to re-transcribe their last names to look like Lithuanian ones - in fact treatment of Polish minority in Lithuania is a cause for constant diplomatic crises between these two countries).

[Syt]

How transcribe the Polish names? Adding the 1st case (nominative) endings to them? IIRC Lithuanians do that to all names, including foreign proper names. E.g. GWB is called "Džordžas Volkeris Bušas" (http://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush), and I guess that's just how their language works.

Or was there a bigger change required?

[Martinus]

Something like that, yes. For the record, normal countries (which, for this purpose include Poland) do not require you to change your name from Martin to Marcin if you move here.

[celedhring]

Czechs change foreign female surnames to -ová, too.

http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clintonov%C3%A1

[Syt]

Czechs change foreign female surnames to -ová, too.

http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clintonov%C3%A1

Yeah, I've known a "De Beukelaerova."

[Razgovory]

Something like that, yes. For the record, normal countries (which, for this purpose include Poland) do not require you to change your name from Martin to Marcin if you move here.

I think it depends on the language.  English is very flexible.  Chinese isn't.  Translating someone's name into Chinese characters has got to be difficult.  A long time ago immigrants to the US often had their names changed when they came in because immigration clerks didn't know how to spell it and the people coming in were illiterate or simply didn't speak English well.

[Martinus]

That's all a bit different from someone who (as a Polish minority in the Soviet Union) went through his entire life being legally called "Witold" and then suddenly he is being told that he has to change his name to "Vytautas" in his legal documents, no?