RE: Toying with AI art and mixing it
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Things why Finns are more concerned when Russia attacks Europe: the largest Foreign-language speakers here are Russians so living near Russia is not just being the neighboring country but seeing and hearing what Russian speakers think about the leaders of Russia before all this an now is very much like what Finns think about Russian leaders: not good for anyone.
Putin has stated multiple times to Finnish leaders that "there will be consequences if you even think of joining NATO" which, until now has not been taken that seriously but is seen in a completely new light. The fact that most Finns have not wanted to join NATO, perhaps because the biggest members are US an UK and we do not always agree with their decisions but as we do not want to be told what to do by anyone, the thought of joining NATO has grown bigger just because we now perhaps take the sayings of Putin as a threat and even though it might not be good for us, we want to do the opposite than what Putin demands us to do. <-- That last bit is perhaps more a personal opinion than a fact.
Ukrainians are part of Europe and look more like Europeans and that mentality just makes me sick. It's just, well, let's call it what it is, racism. The lives of European looking seem to matter more. We definitely should help Ukrainians but why the heck those people who help so much now have until this day been so silent of all the other victims of wars all over the world. And people who have been attacked by Russia in other parts of the world. For the last two weeks there's almost nothing else from the news here than the Ukraine war. The overall mentality, more or less when common people talk about helping refugees is that this is something that has never ever happened before and that's just... It's horrible how people can't see how different their reaction is now compared to the fact when people for instance from Syria or Somalia have tried to come here or who now live here. And the thing that some people do not understand how different things are if someone flees from a country at war when there's one enemy everyone can understand easily (Russians) compared to a situation when there's more like a civil war and multiple war lords kidnapping children and young men to fight in a war no-one can explain easily to anyone.
So in Finland it's not just the history with Russia, it's also the current situation with Putin. But still, what about all the refugees before this all? The saddest meme I think from those 10 memes I posted is the one with the labyrinth.
I clicked my notification for this comment and thought I'd landed on a post! 🤣
And now I've just learnt a lot more about Finland that I didn't know. It's prompted me to look at the map and I didn't realise you share such a large border with Russia. I guess I always imagined the border to be along the bottom of the outcrop that I picture as Scandinavia. Your language being so different to the Slavic languages probably also makes me separate the country more in my mind than the former USSR countries.
After reading this I can see why it speaks to you with regards the war situations more now. I have to admit that I tend to switch off from a lot of new reports on refugee situations, due to the bias that comes with it. One of the things I like about Australia is that we have so many immigrants and refugees I can often hear directly from them.
When the original fighting started in the Ukraine my daughter did rhythmic gymnastics with a Ukrainian coach. There were other Ukrainian parents there too, so I heard conversions on the war. What was interesting was that there were both Eastern and Western Ukrainians and their opinions differed. The West wanted to connect with Europe more while the East wanted to keep ties to Russia. It certainly opened my eyes to there being more complex issues than one side verses the other. I find myself comparing it to the Ireland situation, which ended up being divided in order to try and resolve things peacefully.
Yeah, I write too much. It compensates the times when I don't write anything even though I perhaps should.
It's totally understandable that in countries near bigger countries which have either occupied or invaded the smaller country before, or influenced the country so that there is a kind of a fear mentality around so people want to either avoid war or not be taken to prison because of criticizing the bigger country or it's leaders to maintain the status quo, not perhaps ideal but everyone's alive, so they might even start hating the people who do criticize the oppressing country because it's easier to hate the criticizers, not the actual wrong doers. And I get it, there are plenty of people too who actually do not believe a word the western media or independent media says but believe everything Putin says. This is not just Putins war but then again there thankfully are plenty of Russians who do not agree with Putin and think this actually is a war, not a rescue attempt by Russia.