An old Armenian, on his death bed in Russia, calls for his sons. When they are all assembled, he tells them: "my sons, take care of the Jews, once they are done with them, they would get to us."There is another paraphrased saying : "in every joke there is a grain of joke (originally truth)".
After hearing the reports how Georgians are treated in Russia at these days, I cannot but to be reminded of this joke. The vicious hunt and discrimination the Georgians are facing nowadays in Russia, alarmingly, remind of the situation the Jews were facing in the Nazi Germany at 1935.
7 comments:
Good point. Unfortunately, no state really cares. : (
There is nothing surprising about this. Georgians have been living in fear for a long time.
One of my friends is a Georgian (not the "trader" or "mafia" type, but a cultured, intelligent man) has told me that his family, alongside other "black" families, never leave their homes on the 20th of April, because neo-Nazis - who are present in abundance - are celebrating the birthday of Hitler.
Jews cannot be easily recognized, while "blacks", well, are black (not in the American sense of the word).
It is true, however, that many (if not most) Georgians are illegal immigrants, and obviously the problem has to be dealt with (in a civilized manner, of course).
Deborah: Much of what you say is true... except many Jews CAN be easily recognized, and have been attacked in the past.
Irina, nobody cares since, everybody knows that it would do little good, and nobody wants to spoil relationship with Russia, which beside being big and armed with tons of nuclear weapons, is also a major fossil fuel exporter.
Moreover, knowing that Georgia isn't much better itself, you cannot accuse just Russia, you must equally accuse Georgia. Now Georgia is a promising ally of US in the region, and I don't think that G.W.B. would want to spoil his relations with Georgia too.
Meanwhile the people would suffer.
Deborah, I'm not surprised. That joke is REALLY old.
Civilized and lawful are foreign words in Russia today.
BTW, for non Russian speakers, the exact common "name" for all the dark skinned people in Russia, is "chernojopie", which literally means "black asses". Just to emphasize the attitude for foreigners in Russia.
The fact that Georgia does some... unethical things doesn't mean that Russia gets a pass for ethnic cleansing (which is exactly what's happening right now). At least, Georgia is trying to be democratic, despite corruption and other problems. In Russia, there's no such effort; on the contrary, it's getting progressively worse.
"Some unethical things" that Georgia does, fall exactly into the definition of ethnic cleansing. About democracy in Georgia, I have a few, not so nice things to say, too.
I do, however, agree that it doesn't give Russia the right to do all those things.
You should write a separate post about that!
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