August 23, 2024

The More Things Change

The More They Stay The Same

“A well known bishop once said to me ‘Every bishop in the Church of England has a drawer in which they keep the stories that they don’t want to get out.’ Every one of those hidden stories represents a victim…sometimes many victims.” Andrew Graystone

Yesterday, I saw a tragic story shared by Tatarigami_UA on Twitter of young Altai woman in Russia who committed suicide after experiencing relentless bullying based on her national and ethnic identity:

Russia often touts itself as a multicultural country where ethnic minorities are equal. This narrative is particularly promoted in Africa and Asia for political gain. Yet, the 17-year-old Ksenia Cheponova, an Altai woman took her own life after bullying over her Asian appearance:

In her death note, posted on Telegram, she wrote: “I don’t understand what my fault was. Was it because I was born with narrow eyes or because my skin is dark? I never felt ashamed of my ethnicity until some people started turning it into a joke"

In an interview with local media, her friends revealed that she was relentlessly bullied, with the ringleader being the coach’s daughter. They taunted her with "slant-eyed” slurs. While it's true that bullying among teenagers is a common problem, we need to look at systemic and institutional problems rather than just saying that it's another teenager's case. The victim’s relative statements illustrate how this incident might reflect broader issues: "We are Altai people, indigenous Siberians. Outside our republic, we are treated as though we don’t belong. If you’re not Slavic, it’s possible to be insulted or attacked". She also mentioned that the police refused to open the criminal case.

If I would have read this a year ago, I would have felt sadness and sorrow and maybe a little anger toward the bullies, but more than likely, I would have quickly forgotten about the story and moved on with my life. A lot has changed since. Yes, this essay’s title alludes to the fact that often the more things change, the more they stay the same. I am speaking of the bullying and torment many Soviet and RF students are forced to experience, and more often than not, this systemic abuse is aimed at many ethnic minorities across the vast lands of the Russian empire. What changed since last year, is myself, my knowledge and understanding of myself, and for that I had to go through a pretty serious mental health breakdown, and then gradually start to introspectively look into my own past, my own traumas, and to have a much better and much more clear grasp of who I am. It's hasn't been easy.

I am still on that journey of self-discovery and self-realization, but one benefit of my focus on understanding myself was my newfound ability to recollect and properly process many a trauma that I have buried deeply within and repressed to the point of not even remembering much about it. There are moments of weakness when I feel that maybe it was better when I kept it all repressed and forgotten, when I didn't even know what were the emotions I felt when remembering and processing because I never got a chance to develop a proper emotional intelligence during the childhood and teens and often kept finding myself feeling like a thirteen year old regardless of my actual age gradually creeping closer to fifty.

The story of Ksenia Cheponova reminded me of my own experiences in the Soviet secondary education system. I survived, physically. Emotionally I am still struggling.

The year was 1981 and an incredibly scrawny six-year ol, (at least a full year younger than everyone else, me with a pretty awesome jewfro went into the first grade of one of the elite schools in St. Petersburg (back then of course it was still Leningrad). I remained the shortest or second shortest in my grade until well into the high school. During the three years of the elementary school, I was the only non-Slavic, non-Caucasian kid in my class. If not for a curly redheaded boy who was just slightly taller than me, I probably would have been the only target of abuse and torment. It did not help that I was an exemplary student who came off as a know-it-all-teacher-pet-wanna-be as well as the most stereotypical idealist believing in all of the righteous bullshit shoved down our throats by the late-Soviet education system.

The elementary school years were not all that bad, all things considered. A few shoves and pushes, a few times being spat into the back of the head, an “accidental” trip in the hallway… nothing out of the ordinary and really no explicit anti-semitism or ethno-fascism. Perhaps, the kids were too young or (as many adults at the time did) thought that I was a “dirty Georgian” rather than Jewish. The passage into middle school brought on a drastic change.

My health threw a major curveball and I’ve spent roughly 50% of the next five academic years either in hospitals or at home sick. My academic achievements remained on the same stellar level of near-perfection in class, plus leading multiple school’s teams to wins in many academic Olympics. My righteousness, did not seize or even decrease, I demanded to go to the Field of Mars in the middle of winter, with outside temperatures nearing negative 30°C and my fever spiking to about 38-40°C, because I could not fathom missing the ceremony of being accepted into the Young Pioneers organization - not because I actually believed in the indoctrination, but because it was the right thing to do and the right example to set.

Yeah, none of that endeared me with the rest of the kids. While my own class was mostly a bunch of passive bystanders, the older kids somehow learned that:

• I was Jewish.

• I was incredibly flexible.

• I was too proud to complain or go to teachers.

What followed was five years of on and off again torture whenever I would actually attend school. My nickname at the time became “гутаперчивый мальчик” loosely translated as “rubber boy” but really implying the superpowers of the Elastigirl. It became a challenge, a competition to see what kind of a human pretzel I could be twisted into and held, who would be most creative and how long they can keep it up in dark corners under the staircases or behind the rows of winter coats in the communal lockers. All of that accompanied by verbal abuse of course. I think the worst part of that experience was that I had to pretend to actually enjoy it, because then they would lose interest more quickly as opposed to when I would try to fight back or struggle or cry out.

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There is no way I can defend my 13 year old self running into a classroom and attempting to throw a brick at the head of one of my tormentors. I didn't make it, thanks goodness, the brick was too heavy for my scrawny arse to throw across the room, but you can only push a person so much before they no longer accept the inhuman treatment and conditions.

Things did actually get better in high school. Partially because I actually went to school almost every day and socialized, for the first time actually making friends. Partially, it was a different time - fall of the Soviet Union and perhaps for a few years the only time that godforsaken country had a hope of freedom and democracy. Partially, it was an experimental elite school and the atmosphere and culture (for the most part) was quite different. Partially, it was the fact that now my class was only about 50% ethnic Russians with a couple other Jews, two Armenians, one Finn, one Estonian, a few Ukrainians, etc. Does it mean that bullying and abuse and ethnic persecution seized? No. But there was no more physical abuse. Most of the kids generally were better than in middle schoolers and while some ethnic (or homophobic for example) slurs would be dropped from time to time, it was less targeted and more mundane and matter-of-factly. C'est la vie.

Some of the teachers, though, were a completely different matter, but that’s a story for another time.

I survived and in 1991, after graduating valedictorian of my class I was whisked away by my parents to move to the Land of the Free.

Tatarigami is correct writing that “it’s unlikely this thread offered any new, eye-opening information. However, it serves as a stark reminder of why Ukrainians resist becoming part of an empire that not only denies their rights but also refuses to acknowledge their nationhood and history.” Nothing has changed in the three decades since I left the crumbling empire, and I have read and heard stories much, MUCH worse than my own or Ksenia’s. This is not about them, but rather people who in response to framing of Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 as inherently Russian imperial action write things like this:

“One of the tragedies of the Russia-Ukraine war is the proliferation on social media of ethnonationalist stereotypes and simplistically determinist historical narratives, dressed up in the progressive jargon of decolonisation. By fixating on an essentialist 'Russian mindset,' by presenting a monolithic, undifferentiated Russian culture as the problem, this discourse mirrors Kremlin propaganda and exonerates the perpetrators of Putin's genocidal war.”

It was and it is and it does not exonerate a single person who in any way support, promotes or enables Russian ethnofascism, which is practically the entire nation there and at least a third of the nation here.

I’ll quote Tatarigami one last time, because the “evidence of this problem being institutional is that, while ethnic Russians make up the majority of deaths in Ukraine in absolute terms, non-Slavic minorities and indigenous peoples are overrepresented among the casualties relative to their population share.”

Truly, the more things change, the more they stay the same… whether it’s the Western academics who fail to understand or Russian people who are incapable of breaking thousand-year long culture of ethnic oppression, racism, and chauvinism.

Is it too much to ask to see the "project" of the Russian empire, annexing nations and territories and "saving" entire states without even asking, after few centuries finally go off the rails.

Maybe?

Before we see the rise of adult bullying take over the rest of the world too…