student safety/Western agendas

[Michele A. Berdy]

No, I'm not talking about folks like Prokhanov or scare quotes. I'm talking 
about people who are well-educated, well-spoken, and generally liberal, but 
who feel comfortable uttering racist or ethnic slurs. I can't find it right 
now, but a Danish? Finnish? (can't remember) researcher has been tracking 
this and noticed that ethnic/racist slurs have entered the realm of "polite 
discourse."

I also wanted to comment on the notion of "Western interference" mentioned 
in several posts. I have worked with several Russian NGOs, including in 
human rights, and it really, really, truly, cross my heart is not a case of 
naglye (or deluded do-gooder) Westerners popping in and force-feeding our 
inappropriate agenda. They seek us. Let me say that again, even louder: They 
come to Western organizations for funding and to some extent assistance. It 
is their agenda. It is their need. It is their desire to change something. 
They want our help. And they want our funds, because an NGO tracking hate 
crimes or one advocating for gay rights or one monitoring elections is not 
likely to find financing in Russia.

There are a few cases of Russian NGOs that appeared at the bidding of 
funders in the 90s and have turned into full-fledged Russian organizations, 
who now get funding from a variety of sources, including Russian business 
and government.  Talking off the top of my head, I think the NGOs -- like 
for health care reform -- that didn't have a popular/political/social base 
pretty much died out.  But the ones that served a real need have stuck 
around.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alina Israeli" <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2009 6:35 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] student safety in St Petersburg


Liberal commentators on Ekho Moskvy are prone to using invisible
quotation marks: http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/572176-echo/
Or Не услышал он кавычек в «никто не знал». http://www.echo.msk.ru/
programs/personalno/635502-echo/

BTW, there are also non-liberal commentators on Ekho Moskvy,
Prokhanov, for example. By Venektov's own definition he is an
imperialist.

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