Paul Goble
Staunton, July 20 – Vladimir Putin ever more often insists that Russian speakers must be in a single state, but a Russian-speaking Urals woman says that not only is that argument absurd but that the history of the demise of empire shows that many countries which have emerged from that process but speak the same language as each other are far better off.
In an article for the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal, she points to case after case in human history where language communities that were once part of a single state or empire have emerged as independent countries, with positive results not only for them but for the former imperial centers and the world (region.expert/many-states/).
Writing anonymously because of the risk of repression, she points to the examples of the German states, Greece and Cyprus, the English-speaking countries that have emerged from the demise of the British Empire, and the 21 Arab-speaking countries that emerged with the demise of the Ottoman Empire.
There is no reason to think that the future of a post-Muscovite region in which there could be many states, she continues, and argues that “a common Russian-language culture does not require a single political body” as Putin thinks and that having a multitude of such countries can help all of them to develop.
“In the independent states of the post-Russian space it will also be necessary to develop ciic nations where representatives of every ethnos, independently of its origin, will feel themselves to be full-fledged citizens as that is the key to peaceful coexistence and stability under conditions of multi-culturalism,” the Urals writer says.
And she concludes: “the time of empires has passed and with it has passed the myth that to be successful everyone must be kept under one roof. A time of change has arrived and all of us must decide how these changes will take place, peacefully or with conflicts. But in any case, it is necessary to believe in the future” and not constantly look to the past.
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