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[sjm9876]

Riot wise, there haven't been any full scale riots reported that I'm aware of. There have been protests in London and Cardiff - 200 people in Cardiff, with various numbers from a few hundred to a couple of thousand quoted for the London ones. There were a few scuffles at the London protests, and a dozen arrests or so.

[Owlbread]

Riot wise, there haven't been any full scale riots reported that I'm aware of. There have been protests in London and Cardiff - 200 people in Cardiff, with various numbers from a few hundred to a couple of thousand quoted for the London ones. There were a few scuffles at the London protests, and a dozen arrests or so.

I think Charlotte Church was out in the Cardiff one with a placard or something. I have to say, though many deride her I have warmed to her upon discovering her politics and apparent support for Welsh independence.

[Guardian G.I.]

In other other news, there were clashes between heavily-armed Albanian nationalists and Macedonian police in Kumanovo, Macedonia.

[smjjames]

What are Albanian nationalists doing in Macedonia (not to be confused with the Greek Macedonia)?

Edit: Oh, suppressed/oppressed minority looks like. Not to sound callous or anything.

[Sergarr]

According to some news, they've "come from the other side of a border". The closest countries to the place in question are Kosovo and Serbia. Last month, about 40 ethic Albanians from Kosovo briefly took over a Macedonian police station in the village of Gosince near the border, demanding the creation of an Albanian state in Macedonia.

I wonder when the ethnic cleansing will start in that region again...

[smjjames]

According to some news, they've "come from the other side of a border". The closest countries to the place in question are Kosovo and Serbia. Last month, about 40 ethic Albanians from Kosovo briefly took over a Macedonian police station in the village of Gosince near the border, demanding the creation of an Albanian state in Macedonia.

I wonder when the ethnic cleansing will start in that region again...

Because it's happened before or because you want it? I'm thinking the first one though.

There's a reason why the Balkans are called a powder keg and Balkanization is a thing.

[Sergarr]

Because it has happened before. Obviously. Why would I want ethnic cleansing, it's fucking mass murder of people based on superficial outside qualities.

[redwallzyl]

if they want a state so much why cant they drive an hour west and live in Albania? its not like there anything stopping them from going there instead of Macedonia.

[penguinofhonor]

I think they've always lived in that area. If my brief Wikipedia skimming is correct, when Albania was formed the borders were drawn pretty poorly and excluded a lot of Albanians. Seems like some of them got cut off and stuck in countries where they became a hated minority.

[GreatJustice]

Macedonia? Might you fine folks be actually discussing the FYROM?

[BlindKitty]

You totally can. Languages, cultures, history -- they die every year in droves. It's more troublesome (both from a logistic and moral standpoint) to induce that sort of loss, but it's also fairly trivial -- just get the kids and keep them from learning about the history and culture in question. Keep that up for one, two generations and it'd be dead. A nation without people to remember it and live in its ways is nothing.

That's... Not as easy as you seem to think. Morality-wise, well, Germans tried to do that multiple times, Russians as well, so you can usually find someone willing, but logistically... That's a freaking nightmare worse than conducting land war in Asia. You either have to physically remove virtually all children of a given culture from all adults of the same culture, permanently... OK, there is no second option. You have to physically create life-long concentration camps with unparalleled security measures and keep them up for about two generations.

You see, both Germany and Russia were trying to do kill Polish culture and language for about 123 years. And yet here we are.

Than again, I'm positive that there are more languages dying than being born, but:
a) I think it is a good thing (less foreign languages to learn, and still more than enough to study for a lifetime),
b) None of them are actually wide-spread in any sense of the word, as far as I know, and if I'm mistaken in that, please provide examples.

=====================================

In other news, we have had presidential elections in Poland yesterday, on 10th of May, Sunday. There will be second turn in two weeks for sure (we have the system where if there is no-one with 50%+ votes in the first turn, we have second one with two high-runners), but so far results are certainly interesting.
First place: Andrzej Duda, our major counter-candidate. About 35 - 40 %.
Second place: Bronisław Komorowski, our current president. About 30 - 35%.
Third place: Paweł Kukiz, our well-known rock singer. Yeah, rock singer. With very anti-system approach, he gathered a bit over 20% votes.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Third place: Paweł Kukiz, our well-known rock singer. Yeah, rock singer. With very anti-system approach, he gathered a bit over 20% votes.

Either you had a very low turnout (like 40%) or something is very wrong

[Descan]

BlindKitty, there's some evidence that cognition and mindsets are, in some way, influenced by the language you speak. The way your language prioritizes certain words or phrases, noun-verb or verb-noun is another example, and so forth.

So by losing languages, we are perhaps losing forever certain ways of thinking about the world that may only come from that language or group of languages. So... Not really a fan of that idea, myself. :v

[smjjames]

Third place: Paweł Kukiz, our well-known rock singer. Yeah, rock singer. With very anti-system approach, he gathered a bit over 20% votes.

Either you had a very low turnout (like 40%) or something is very wrong

i don't see much of a problem with him being a rockstar, after all, Reagan was a Hollywood actor before he went into politics.

Unless I'm missing the point of your concern.

[Owlbread]

BlindKitty, there's some evidence that cognition and mindsets are, in some way, influenced by the language you speak. The way your language prioritizes certain words or phrases, noun-verb or verb-noun is another example, and so forth.

So by losing languages, we are perhaps losing forever certain ways of thinking about the world that may only come from that language or group of languages. So... Not really a fan of that idea, myself. :v

This. Every language lost is a tragedy in itself.

I think they've always lived in that area. If my brief Wikipedia skimming is correct, when Albania was formed the borders were drawn pretty poorly and excluded a lot of Albanians. Seems like some of them got cut off and stuck in countries where they became a hated minority.

The philosophy of most post-Yugoslavs was to pretend the majority-Albanian territories didn't exist. In Serbia they still talk about Kosovo as the cradle of the nation despite there having been Albanians living there for about 500 years. The Serbs, Macedonians are dealing with the effects of Ottoman colonialism though as in many cases Albanians moved to these districts in Ottoman times. Irredentist nationalist movements generally haven't worked out how to overcome stuff like this - in the North of Ireland most Irish nationalists want to just ignore the Ulster Protestant minority created by British colonialism but you will find undoing 400 years of colonialism difficult.

Until now the general approach taken by such ethnic nationalist movements towards remedying the post-colonial problem has been the brutal extermination of the minorities, as with the Serbs unto the Bosnians - a nation created by the Ottomans.

That's what makes it so hilarious when Serbian ultranationalists go to East Ukraine to fight for the Russian minority - the situation with Russians living in a formerly ethnic Ukrainian region demanding unification with Russia is exactly the same as the Kosovar situation apart from the fact that the Russians have been in East Ukraine for about 300 years less than the Albanians in Kosovo. Serb ultranationalists are strangers to logic however.