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coledavis
Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838
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 Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:39 pm Post subject: |
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| I'll have to take your word for the former. Not sure about the logic of the latter, but for the sake of peace I'll drop out of this discussion. |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| coledavis wrote: |
| So if you're poor at languages, and some of us are, even if you try hard you deserve to be a stateless person? |
Jeez, what's so difficult in learning a language from a country you have been living in for the past 30 years or so? They are just too nationalistic to do that, that's all. |
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coledavis
Joined: 21 Jun 2003
Posts: 1838
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| Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Well K, have you as an adult tried to learn a language? I have learned Russian for years now and I'm still rubbish. I try hard. And I'm rubbish. I'm just so glad I haven't got to battle with bureaucrats about whether or not I should have rights based upon my ability to stick the right endings on. (em, ov, om, whatever.) |
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GF
Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 238
Location: Tallinn
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:35 am Post subject: |
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| I am learning Estonian at a leasurely pace and am managing to pick it up well enough. At this point I can handle street situations, shops and can have basic conversations (though admittedly short ones at the moment) and I am 45 years old. If I HAD to do it, I know I could progress much faster - so I know that others can too. Many don't bother to try and K is right: it often boils down to nationalism. |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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If you're lame, don't enter the race and cry about discrimination if you don't win. No language-no citizenship. Not happy- go home.
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jonniboy
Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 9:41 am Post subject: |
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| Kootvela wrote: |
| If you're lame, don't enter the race and cry about discrimination if you don't win. No language-no citizenship. Not happy- go home. |
Go home where? If someone is born in a country to parents born in the same country then where should they "go home" to? |
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GF
Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 238
Location: Tallinn
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:07 am Post subject: |
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| To the colonial power that put their families there in the first place: Russia. Plus, didn't Putin say on numerous occasions how he wanted to bring the Russian diaspora home? |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:33 am Post subject: |
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| GF wrote: |
| To the colonial power that put their families there in the first place: Russia. Plus, didn't Putin say on numerous occasions how he wanted to bring the Russian diaspora home? |
Exactly. |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 11:35 am Post subject: |
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| jonniboy wrote: |
Go home where? If someone is born in a country to parents born in the same country then where should they "go home" to? |
To a place which is better because it does not require to learn a language-Russia, in this case.. Elementary, Watson. |
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jonniboy
Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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| GF wrote: |
| To the colonial power that put their families there in the first place: Russia. Plus, didn't Putin say on numerous occasions how he wanted to bring the Russian diaspora home? |
All of which happened nearly 70 years ago so punishing people for the acts of a long defunct government which none of them ever voted for seems totally inhumane. Would it be fair for example to punish you for something that your great grandfather did? You say the Russians are being nationalistic and actually I agree but the flip side is that the governments of the Baltic states are showing a petty streak of vindictiveness and nationalism of their own.
Furthermore what's the difference between what you say and the words of certain far right politicians in the west who also want to send "coloured" people "home" to lands in Africa or Asia which none of them have ever set foot in? |
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jonniboy
Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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| jonniboy wrote: |
| You say the Russians are being nationalistic and actually I agree but the flip side is that the governments of the Baltic states are showing a petty streak of vindictiveness and nationalism of their own. |
With so many people deported to Siberia by the Soviet regime to work/death camps, we have every right to be nationalistic, don't you think?
Last edited by Kootvela on Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:55 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Kootvela
Joined: 22 Oct 2007
Posts: 513
Location: Lithuania
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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| jonniboy wrote: |
Why is it okay for ethnic Latvians or Lithuanians to have dual nationality even though many of them will be born in Ireland but not okay for ethnic Russians to do the same?
Isn't this clear double standards? |
So WHAT? That's our politics. Double standards or not, this is OUR politics. Cry about that if you want to. Why don't you see refusing to learn the language of the country one has been born into for the third generation as double standards: want a citizenship but don't want to learn the language? THAT is double standards, too! |
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GF
Joined: 08 Jun 2003
Posts: 238
Location: Tallinn
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject: |
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| jonniboy wrote: |
| GF wrote: |
| To the colonial power that put their families there in the first place: Russia. Plus, didn't Putin say on numerous occasions how he wanted to bring the Russian diaspora home? |
All of which happened nearly 70 years ago so punishing people for the acts of a long defunct government which none of them ever voted for seems totally inhumane. Would it be fair for example to punish you for something that your great grandfather did? You say the Russians are being nationalistic and actually I agree but the flip side is that the governments of the Baltic states are showing a petty streak of vindictiveness and nationalism of their own.
Furthermore what's the difference between what you say and the words of certain far right politicians in the west who also want to send "coloured" people "home" to lands in Africa or Asia which none of them have ever set foot in? |
All of which happened 17 years ago. That is when Estonia regained its independence. As late as 1991, the KGB was still very active in Estonia arresting dissidents, beaches were still mined and off limits to the locals to prevent defections and the locals were being discriminated against linguistically and culturally in their own country (If your academic Russian skills were not high enough, no university for you in your own country.). Not to mention that areas of the country were sealed off to Estonians because they had industries that were considered strategic and thus only Russians could live and work in them. All of this is VERY fresh in people's minds because it ended less than a generation ago.
I bet you wouldn't dare to tell blacks in America to get over slavery and all of the discrimination and humiliations they suffered up until the 1960s because now they have all the rights and privilages that whites do. |
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jonniboy
Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 5:21 pm Post subject: |
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| GF wrote: |
| I bet you wouldn't dare to tell blacks in America to get over slavery and all of the discrimination and humiliations they suffered up until the 1960s because now they have all the rights and privilages that whites do. |
If it extended to discriminating against white people or telling them to "go back home" to places that they'd never even set foot in then yes I would as I've done very similar in my hometown of Belfast. I had four of my family murdered during the conflict there - two by the British army and my great gran and cousin burnt to a crisp in their beds purely for living in the wrong area, not to mention the endless harassment I had to put up with from the British army for walking about in my own area and all of this was a bit less than 17 years ago. But do I go banging on about the past or telling the protestants that they should "go back home" or learn Irish? Nope as I believe that blaming ordinary people for the misdeeds of governments many decades ago and dwelling in the past doesn't solve anything but only achieves the opposite = continued resentment. Didn't your gran ever tell you that two wrongs don't make a right? |
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