I see no problem with that statement. I see no problem with asserting that anti-racism is a superior ideal to racism. Fact is that there are countries where racism in football rears its head far more than others, and racism is contemptible and should be dealt with.Castiel said:CSKA Moscow or its fan base isn't categorically racist. The Sky commentators during the game said something to the effect of: "Perhaps UEFA needs to take a harder line stance in countries where they're not as enlightened." Isn't that in itself really offensive to Russians? The actions of some fans is now projected onto an entire country.
lloydie said:Zodiak said:Hello everyone!
I am from Russia. First of all, I'd like to post a sincere disclaimer: 1) I am not a CSKA fan, 2) I'd be happy if all of our clubs are banned from Europe until this is sorted. 3) Please don't take any of this personally, my writing style is bold and maybe aggressive only for the sake of clarity. 4) I am, much more than many of you, sick and tired of racism and homophobia that's gathering strenght now in Russia. But, as I'm about to elaborate, it's not a reflection of the Russian people and the Russian culture - it's a childish, primitive reaction of an angry and lost generation that's ready to hate anything and anyone. It's a social problem that's here and now, that has no history, but might have a future if nothing is done.
Every time I see something like this happen and the reaction that follows, I want to explain the true underlying reasons for this, to maybe provide a little insight into why all this is actually happening. I will not try to justify whatever happened and will happen, but rather provide a possible deeper explanation for those of you who might be interested. Since I don't have a popular blog or any other meaningful way of posting what I'm about to post, I've decided to use the Man City situation and post here. So please don't take it personally, I am as unbiased as can be about this issue.
The problem of racism is a complex issue. But when the West says that racism is ingrained deeply in the Russian culture, or that we have a backwards society in this respect, this is simply not true. Russia never had overseas colonies that it exploited, never had black slaves and never had overt govertment-endorsed racism, like most of the West. Thus the very notion of racism never even existed in Russia until recently. It is your guilt that you're so ashamed of and that you want to wash away by being so anti-racist now. The Russian people have absolutely no history with the black race, whereas only some 50-60 years ago there was open, official racism in all the former Western colonial powers. Your ancestors killed, tortured, raped and traded millions of black people for several centuries. Now, all of a sudden, everyone is so enlightened, everyone is so loving and caring towards all the minorities that were oppresed for centuries. What a marvellous transformation! And I applaud Western society for realizing their mistakes and sorting themselves out. I can only envy this. But you're sorting a problem you yourselves created. And then imported into Eastern Europe. My parents and my grandparents had absolutely NO clue that the concept of racism even existed. They didn't even know that you can hate a black person because he's black. Sure, we never had many black people so most people found them strange, foreign and were naturally curious. That's a normal reaction to something you had no knowledge of. But there were tens of thousands of foreign black students studying in the Soviet Union (at the same time when black people weren't even allowed in many Western universities), many of them stayed and had families and were treated with respect. The vast majority of them have fond memories of this that they cherish. Maybe they were not assimilated and integrated fully, but no one ever abused or discriminated against them. One of Peter the Great's closest aids/advisors was black, and our greatest poet, Pushkin, was a direct descendant of a black person. We have very little history with the black race, like I said, but what little we do have, is largely positive and friendly. Furthermore, by and large, we've always lived peacefully and in a friendly neighborly manner with the thousands of nations and peoples of Russia. For centuries we've lived happily with Tatars (who are muslim, by the way; by now no one even notices if someone is Tatar or Russian, it's all mixed), thousands of Siberian tribes, just to give an example.
Now, come fall of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming social confusion, the lost generation etc. etc. - and we get what we get. It's wrong and it's ugly, but it's nothing more than a childish reaction to an imported problem. These young people that chant, they weren't born racist, we didn't teach them to be racist - not more than 20 years ago they DISCOVERED from the West that you can actually, among many other bad things, also be racist and hate black people. It's meaningless to them, they just want to hate everything. If all of a sudden it becomes cool to hate the color yellow (and the West starts defending the color yellow and every waking hour pointing their fingers at us for abusing the color yellow) - they'll hate it just as much. We do not have any kind of history of racism. We've never ever had black people on our soil (until recently), because we never had slaves, we never brought them in against their will, like you did. We're not guilty of anything so we don't have to be sorry now, we don't have to care about how they feel because we never had anything to do with them feeling bad in the first place. They're alien to us, for better or worse, so the lowlives naturally react to that in the only way they know: abuse. Again, they're angry and they're lost and they suddenly have nothing to fall back on. The continuity has been broken. For all the hate the Soviet Union gets, there was at least one good thing about it: a decent, caring, educated society that's ready to help each other and that was always open to everyone. And I mean ordinary people. Right now in Russia, there's just a total lack of respect for anything and anyone. Look, we don't even respect each other. We abuse each other much much more than these fans abused a black person. Sorry for my cynicism (just to paint a picture), but all Yaya got were monkey chants, while these same "fans" then left the stadium and probably beat some white guy with a baseball bat. It's logical that if we don't even respect each other, we won't respect black people. Sure, we have many problems actually ingrained in our culture. Corruption, for example. The tendecy to bypass/distrust written law in favor of striking a deal ("a human/personal approach"). But racism isn't one of them. It's a current social problem that's a result of a total vacuum of any kind of... social education and social maturity.
It took you centuries to go from overt oppression and exploitation to respect. We've had less than 20 years to deal with this. With living in an open multiracial, multicultural world. Give the country some time to adjust.
Again, thank you for your attention, I meant no offense. Just wanted to explain this as best as I could.
Thanks for posting that and welcome to Bluemoon.
You've made some interesting points, Racism in this country is often associated with socio-economics ( or those seeking to exploit it for their own warped ideology) ...however, there has been a long held perception of the Soviet Union being anti-semitic, which is no different in that it victimises on the basis of racial/ethnic/religious difference, in your opinion was this perception actually a true reflection? I somehow doubt that your country has an unblemished history of tolerance, I cant think of a country that has,and how do you think the Russian authorities should tackle the issue.
Skashion said:I see no problem with that statement. I see no problem with asserting that anti-racism is a superior ideal to racism. Fact is that there are countries where racism in football rears its head far more than others, and racism is contemptible and should be dealt with.Castiel said:CSKA Moscow or its fan base isn't categorically racist. The Sky commentators during the game said something to the effect of: "Perhaps UEFA needs to take a harder line stance in countries where they're not as enlightened." Isn't that in itself really offensive to Russians? The actions of some fans is now projected onto an entire country.
I don't think anybody disagrees with that, the problem is how it's dealt with which could be more of an issue, I'm all for people being held responsible for what they do in life the nobheads who think its funny or off putting to black players to make monkey noises should be arrested and brought to book(thats if its illegal in Russia I've no idea whether it is) I know if I'd traveled to Moscow and the game was called off cause of some probably pissed up retards i'd be well miffed. the only other way would be to ban all Eastern European teams all Spanish teams all Italian teams and the Greeks which doesn't leave much left could improve our chances no end though.Skashion said:I see no problem with that statement. I see no problem with asserting that anti-racism is a superior ideal to racism. Fact is that there are countries where racism in football rears its head far more than others, and racism is contemptible and should be dealt with.Castiel said:CSKA Moscow or its fan base isn't categorically racist. The Sky commentators during the game said something to the effect of: "Perhaps UEFA needs to take a harder line stance in countries where they're not as enlightened." Isn't that in itself really offensive to Russians? The actions of some fans is now projected onto an entire country.
Johnsonontheleft said:"When Manchester United play Liverpool and 10,000 United fans are saying 'you Scouse thieves', I'd like them all to be banned."
"And Liverpool fans too, when they say 'you Manc or whatever'. So where are we going to draw the line? Racism has to be zero tolerance but this is now a witch hunt."
- John Barnes
Hi Zodiak, your views on racism seem balanced and genuine but what views do you have on your homophobic government?Zodiak said:lloydie said:Zodiak said:Hello everyone!
I am from Russia. First of all, I'd like to post a sincere disclaimer: 1) I am not a CSKA fan, 2) I'd be happy if all of our clubs are banned from Europe until this is sorted. 3) Please don't take any of this personally, my writing style is bold and maybe aggressive only for the sake of clarity. 4) I am, much more than many of you, sick and tired of racism and homophobia that's gathering strenght now in Russia. But, as I'm about to elaborate, it's not a reflection of the Russian people and the Russian culture - it's a childish, primitive reaction of an angry and lost generation that's ready to hate anything and anyone. It's a social problem that's here and now, that has no history, but might have a future if nothing is done.
Every time I see something like this happen and the reaction that follows, I want to explain the true underlying reasons for this, to maybe provide a little insight into why all this is actually happening. I will not try to justify whatever happened and will happen, but rather provide a possible deeper explanation for those of you who might be interested. Since I don't have a popular blog or any other meaningful way of posting what I'm about to post, I've decided to use the Man City situation and post here. So please don't take it personally, I am as unbiased as can be about this issue.
The problem of racism is a complex issue. But when the West says that racism is ingrained deeply in the Russian culture, or that we have a backwards society in this respect, this is simply not true. Russia never had overseas colonies that it exploited, never had black slaves and never had overt govertment-endorsed racism, like most of the West. Thus the very notion of racism never even existed in Russia until recently. It is your guilt that you're so ashamed of and that you want to wash away by being so anti-racist now. The Russian people have absolutely no history with the black race, whereas only some 50-60 years ago there was open, official racism in all the former Western colonial powers. Your ancestors killed, tortured, raped and traded millions of black people for several centuries. Now, all of a sudden, everyone is so enlightened, everyone is so loving and caring towards all the minorities that were oppresed for centuries. What a marvellous transformation! And I applaud Western society for realizing their mistakes and sorting themselves out. I can only envy this. But you're sorting a problem you yourselves created. And then imported into Eastern Europe. My parents and my grandparents had absolutely NO clue that the concept of racism even existed. They didn't even know that you can hate a black person because he's black. Sure, we never had many black people so most people found them strange, foreign and were naturally curious. That's a normal reaction to something you had no knowledge of. But there were tens of thousands of foreign black students studying in the Soviet Union (at the same time when black people weren't even allowed in many Western universities), many of them stayed and had families and were treated with respect. The vast majority of them have fond memories of this that they cherish. Maybe they were not assimilated and integrated fully, but no one ever abused or discriminated against them. One of Peter the Great's closest aids/advisors was black, and our greatest poet, Pushkin, was a direct descendant of a black person. We have very little history with the black race, like I said, but what little we do have, is largely positive and friendly. Furthermore, by and large, we've always lived peacefully and in a friendly neighborly manner with the thousands of nations and peoples of Russia. For centuries we've lived happily with Tatars (who are muslim, by the way; by now no one even notices if someone is Tatar or Russian, it's all mixed), thousands of Siberian tribes, just to give an example.
Now, come fall of the Soviet Union, the overwhelming social confusion, the lost generation etc. etc. - and we get what we get. It's wrong and it's ugly, but it's nothing more than a childish reaction to an imported problem. These young people that chant, they weren't born racist, we didn't teach them to be racist - not more than 20 years ago they DISCOVERED from the West that you can actually, among many other bad things, also be racist and hate black people. It's meaningless to them, they just want to hate everything. If all of a sudden it becomes cool to hate the color yellow (and the West starts defending the color yellow and every waking hour pointing their fingers at us for abusing the color yellow) - they'll hate it just as much. We do not have any kind of history of racism. We've never ever had black people on our soil (until recently), because we never had slaves, we never brought them in against their will, like you did. We're not guilty of anything so we don't have to be sorry now, we don't have to care about how they feel because we never had anything to do with them feeling bad in the first place. They're alien to us, for better or worse, so the lowlives naturally react to that in the only way they know: abuse. Again, they're angry and they're lost and they suddenly have nothing to fall back on. The continuity has been broken. For all the hate the Soviet Union gets, there was at least one good thing about it: a decent, caring, educated society that's ready to help each other and that was always open to everyone. And I mean ordinary people. Right now in Russia, there's just a total lack of respect for anything and anyone. Look, we don't even respect each other. We abuse each other much much more than these fans abused a black person. Sorry for my cynicism (just to paint a picture), but all Yaya got were monkey chants, while these same "fans" then left the stadium and probably beat some white guy with a baseball bat. It's logical that if we don't even respect each other, we won't respect black people. Sure, we have many problems actually ingrained in our culture. Corruption, for example. The tendecy to bypass/distrust written law in favor of striking a deal ("a human/personal approach"). But racism isn't one of them. It's a current social problem that's a result of a total vacuum of any kind of... social education and social maturity.
It took you centuries to go from overt oppression and exploitation to respect. We've had less than 20 years to deal with this. With living in an open multiracial, multicultural world. Give the country some time to adjust.
Again, thank you for your attention, I meant no offense. Just wanted to explain this as best as I could.
Thanks for posting that and welcome to Bluemoon.
You've made some interesting points, Racism in this country is often associated with socio-economics ( or those seeking to exploit it for their own warped ideology) ...however, there has been a long held perception of the Soviet Union being anti-semitic, which is no different in that it victimises on the basis of racial/ethnic/religious difference, in your opinion was this perception actually a true reflection? I somehow doubt that your country has an unblemished history of tolerance, I cant think of a country that has,and how do you think the Russian authorities should tackle the issue.
I didn't want to mix all the issues together, so I specifically tried not to digress towards, in this case, anti-semitism. Racism nowadays is usually associated with discrimination of black people, and what I meant was that it's the least "Russian" of these kind of issues. As for anti-semitism, I don't want to go deep into this (these are, after all, huge topics), but the interesting fact is: for centuries, the vast majority of successful Russian people have been of clear Jewish descent. The thing to notice here is that, as opposed to, say, American Jews, Russian Jews have little to no affiliation with the Jewish religion and thus they do not count in statistics as Jews. But Russia, I would argue, has the highest number of people of Jewish descent (not of Jewish religion). Most of the time it's impossible to tell who's Russian and who's Jewish now. Overt, openly Jewish communities, yes, very sadly, have been targeted many times. But those who have long become "Russian" are the most successful ones. I guess it all boils down to the simple folk, peasants, hating Jews for being successful. This very basic thing. But, again, I wouldn't really say there's anti-Semitism in its clearest form because as far in history as I can remember (say, 250-300 years) any prominent Russian - with a 9 out of 10 chance - is actually Jewish. So Jews are such a huge part of Russia that it's a... strange problem now. I guess anti-Semitism at one point contributed to their losing their connection with the Jewish religion and becoming Russian, but now they're a huuuge part of whatever cultural, scientific and political capital that we've had and now have. And at the very least, now, in the 21st century this problem doesn't exist in Russia. Jews are the last "minority" on anyone's mind now.
http://www.mcfc.co.uk/News/Club-news/2013/October/Club-statement
Manchester City FC can confirm that it has today issued a written formal complaint to UEFA regarding the events of last night’s game against CSKA Moscow.
It follows the complaint which was raised to the UEFA delegate immediately after the conclusion of the game.
It is noted that UEFA have opened proceedings into the matter and we await the findings in due course.
Didsbury Dave said:The story has just been on the BBC news. Moscow are denying it.
nijinsky's fetlocks said:Welcome Zodiac, and congratulations on possibly the best opening post on this forum, ever.
Please stick around awhile.
If there is one thing we need on here right now, it is intelligent posters like you.