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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1958 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 18, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I'm reading through your journal at the moment. It's quite interesting, though I can't help but notice you often insert small nods and nudges that seem to say "see, it's not as bad as foreigners think!". It looks out of place for a letter to the family. Do you always write like this, even when not recounting your experiences in countries often blamed for censorship?

Re: reunification, the word itself does not hold much good vibes behind it to me. According to Russia, what it's doing right now is reunification with Ukraine, for example. Some say they wish to restore Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood, others claim that there should not be such a thing as Ukraine.

I kind of read them in the sense that this seems like your ordinary travelogue of any East Block country in the Cold War era - which would probably mean it's not as bad as the Western common view is, but of course also not as good as North Korea fanboys, such as there still are, would present it.

My audience at the time (maybe a 200 or so friends/family) consisted of plenty of skeptical people, and so the small nods were directed towards them. This is a pretty common format for people doing overseas NGO work in non-US friendly countries.

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