I'm so fucking tired of the "nostalgia" narrative. Any positive mention of past governments in post-communist states is framed this way, which only serves to invalidate those ideas, reduce them to rose-tinted glasses.
Instead of bringing freedom and prosperity, the regime change brought unimaginable suffering, caused millions of excess deaths, largest peacetime life expectancy drop, a gigantic proportion of population reduced to abject poverty, a country of 300 million thrust from first to thirld world overnight with entirely predictable human cost.
Outside of post-soviet states, nobody who's people went through this kind of trauma and loss is asked "awww, are you nostalgic for the times before millions died in vain? are you nostalgic for the times before widespread child prostitution, homelessness, ethnic tensions, fratricidal wars, hyperinflation, crippling unemployment?"
Not a single person from a post-communist state gets to bring up the immense human cost of capitalism without someone chiming in to bring the word "nostalgia" into the discussion, because people are so conditioned to frame those discussions this way it's like an itch they have to scratch. And this is no matter whether the discussion happens in a post-communist state or in the West, both sides have been equally conditioned.
I'm so fucking tired of the "nostalgia" narrative. Any positive mention of past governments in post-communist states is framed this way, which only serves to invalidate those ideas, reduce them to rose-tinted glasses.
Instead of bringing freedom and prosperity, the regime change brought unimaginable suffering, caused millions of excess deaths, largest peacetime life expectancy drop, a gigantic proportion of population reduced to abject poverty, a country of 300 million thrust from first to thirld world overnight with entirely predictable human cost.
Outside of post-soviet states, nobody who's people went through this kind of trauma and loss is asked "awww, are you nostalgic for the times before millions died in vain? are you nostalgic for the times before widespread child prostitution, homelessness, ethnic tensions, fratricidal wars, hyperinflation, crippling unemployment?"
Not a single person from a post-communist state gets to bring up the immense human cost of capitalism without someone chiming in to bring the word "nostalgia" into the discussion, because people are so conditioned to frame those discussions this way it's like an itch they have to scratch. And this is no matter whether the discussion happens in a post-communist state or in the West, both sides have been equally conditioned.
And I'm just so. fucking. tired of this shit.