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How do we deprogram Europeans on Ukraine’s “independence” struggle (hexbear.net)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/askchapo@hexbear.net
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Anyone living in (Western) Europe will know that European “support for Ukraine’s independence” is being used as an excuse for mass austerity and militarisation. Talk about this with the average European though, and they will repeat a bunch of false information about Ukraine and the war:

  • They frame Ukrainian nationalism as a liberation movement instead of the fascist movement that it is at its core and inception
  • Russia is called irrational and unwilling to negotiate, so military domination is the only way out
  • diplomatic solutions are said to have failed because of Russia’s unwillingness, not because of EU/US/UK unwillingness to settle
  • Russia is described as a threat to European “independence”

The EU is spending a lot of money to keep this facade alive, so any internet search engine will direct any critical questions to EU sponsored websites and research to “combat misinformation”.

There is a growing anti war movement that challenges the need for austerity and militarisation, but it still struggles to gain popular support because there have not yet been any successful attempts to challenge the views that I wrote above.

I recognise that any successful funnel to challenge these beliefs will be met with aggressive attempts to be disarmed through accusations of being Russian propaganda, but I still want to pose the question on what you people think are good sources to start deprogramming the European working class on this issue. I know that there are many good sources on the actual situation on the ground, but due to the slander that most of those people and organisations have faced so far it is difficult to convince the average European that they are not Russian paid propagandists. So ideally there would be some place that really take someone by the hand to very carefully dissect what they have been lied about, in a similar way that the website www.decolonizepalestine.com does for Palestine.

Also I wonder if people are aware of any (diaspora) Ukrainian initiatives to challenge the misguided view that most Europeans have about Ukraine?

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[–] 13 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

I think it's pessimistic to take the view that it's impossible, but it's hard.

In my personal experience in the UK, media has successfully drilled into peoples' heads that Russia wants to invade all of Europe and eat our babies, and that Ukraine, more than anything, is a useful bulwark.

This explains why libs don't care about the morality. They don't care about Ukrainians being thrown in the blender. Or about Nazis in Ukraine. Or 8 years of mass civilian murder in the DPR and LPR. Or the preceding years of legal Russophobic oppression. They don't care about NATO being evil or how deliberately the west provoked this war. They only care that "thing that scares me" (scary foreign russia) is being fought and theoretically weakened.

To successfully change someone's mind, I think the first and real challenge has to be to stop viewing Russia as some sort of imminent, existential threat, instead of just another shitty country. Only after that realisation is the Ukraine war is free to be viewed in a much more fact-based way.

But to be honest.. I've never reached that step with anyone I've talked to. Overcoming the fear of the scary foreigner is the challenge of this age, it's an unfalsifiable fear that can never be sated - Anything peaceful is viewed as duplicity, and any frustration is seen as hostility.

To fight fire with fire, I'm tempted by the other comments here about how Ukraine effectively is due to become the new fascist and terrorist to Europe. Countering racist fear with somewhat more justified fear? I guess that sort of works?

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