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Another reason to love livejournal
Oct. 6th, 2006 09:59 pmI'm entirely in love with the Russian section of my friendslist right now (*).
Russia is currently having a tiff with Georgia. The Georgian government arrested four alleged Russian spies (possibly as a way to look good before today's local elections); Russia responded by cutting off air, rail, postal links with Georgia. Now Russia has moved into the overtly racist stage: Moscow police have been turning up at Georgian-owned businesses, looking for minor legal infringements that would justify closing them down. A Georgian arm-wrestling champion, of all people, has been murdered in Moscow. Georgian refugees are being ordered to report to the police, etc, etc, etc... In short, the anti-Georgian prejudice that has long existed in Russia is being fanned by the Russian government into something potentially far more dangerous.
With all this going on in the mainstream, I look at livejournal. What I see is Russians making a point of going to Georgian restaurants, making "I am Georgian" badges and "I love Georgia banners", arranging an anti-racism protest on Sunday, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Makes me feel good.
Now, I'm going to head out and see what I can make of a Hungarian industrial/synthpop mix. But I'm going to do it a lot more happily having looked at Livejournal :)
Edit: Neeka at Global Voices has a summary and translation of some of what's going on. Bed now, since it's 5am.
(*) This being essentially a few of the nicer (and some less nice) A-list Russian political bloggers, all of whom use Livejournal. In other words, I read them, they don't read me, and it's all a lot less like my English LJ and more like reading blogs.
Russia is currently having a tiff with Georgia. The Georgian government arrested four alleged Russian spies (possibly as a way to look good before today's local elections); Russia responded by cutting off air, rail, postal links with Georgia. Now Russia has moved into the overtly racist stage: Moscow police have been turning up at Georgian-owned businesses, looking for minor legal infringements that would justify closing them down. A Georgian arm-wrestling champion, of all people, has been murdered in Moscow. Georgian refugees are being ordered to report to the police, etc, etc, etc... In short, the anti-Georgian prejudice that has long existed in Russia is being fanned by the Russian government into something potentially far more dangerous.
With all this going on in the mainstream, I look at livejournal. What I see is Russians making a point of going to Georgian restaurants, making "I am Georgian" badges and "I love Georgia banners", arranging an anti-racism protest on Sunday, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Makes me feel good.
Now, I'm going to head out and see what I can make of a Hungarian industrial/synthpop mix. But I'm going to do it a lot more happily having looked at Livejournal :)
Edit: Neeka at Global Voices has a summary and translation of some of what's going on. Bed now, since it's 5am.
(*) This being essentially a few of the nicer (and some less nice) A-list Russian political bloggers, all of whom use Livejournal. In other words, I read them, they don't read me, and it's all a lot less like my English LJ and more like reading blogs.
