A Reflection on Columbus Day

This Columbus Day, I learned a hard lesson. Atlanticists’ multi-jingoism and avant-trends-garde multi-tokenism are not so different from Eastern multi-populism. The difference is that, in the West, poor people have a chance to win a lottery if they connect with the right caring communities, depending on luck; whereas, in the East, all fate is distributed by those new-rich populists. I happened to be the lucky one. I realized that we don’t need to join an elite club or have a good label to foster democracy and build bridges with other like-minded communities.

I was frustrated that some avant-trends-garde journalists tried to shift the blame and spread anti-Semitic propaganda during this vulnerable time on Columbus Day! Neo-Atlanticists, especially Indo-Euro jingoists, haven’t changed at all. Back then, they divided Europe into Satem-Centum divisions, blaming the Steppe for contaminating the eastern part while mixing in Khazar conspiracy theories and xenophobic thoughts. They even invented a Sogdian Tarim as its lost “Aryan” credential.

The irony is that the “good Asian” versus “evil Asian” (with high cheekbones and beards) scenario is outdated. That “good Asian” in the old propaganda poster became a communist. Japan and the Steppe, on the other hand, are now seen as the “good inner Asia” or “trans-Eurasian.” Atlanticists never stop designing their Aryan-Dravidian scenarios, segregating people into black and white, like how they first portrayed post-Soviet Buryats as “good Eskimos” and linked western Steppe, Irkutsk natives, Uzbeks (with a focus on Khwarazmians), and many other mixed Steppe communities to those pseudoscientific esoteric lost “Aryan” cultures.

Then, right after the ongoing war, the entire Steppe is blamed alongside anti-Semitism, with only a small branch of “new Russkiy,” “Nye Russkiy,” or hardcore pro-Atlantic Steppe dissidents being favored as “good easterners.” There are also avant-trends-garde journalists who call Nevsky a traitor because Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Steppe, and Kavkaz collaborators replaced the old Vikings? If they want Nye Russkiy, then they should know that their old Viking fantasy is long gone. If they want a new Russkiy, then they have to embrace all the new communities, including African and Indian students. They need to stop asking Russia why it is not with the Atlanticists while simultaneously telling China to be on the “right side of history,” then discriminating against both dissidents who came to the west with democratic curiosity but being exploited for their chaotic identity insecurity to foster multiple hates, which only creates more problems and fails to counter Eastern multi-populism, the cause of the fallen East.

Since I was young, I have tried to draw different heroes from various perspectives indoctrinated me. I created that pencil drawing at the Door, an organization that helps underrepresented kids, when I lived in two homeless shelters. Of course, that populistic drawing was meant to motivate me to escape the shelter situation, not to hate anyone. When I restored my digital art, I masked that controversial German figure due to political sensitivity.

In the past 19 years as an exile, I have argued with my mom tons of times. I told her that even if our relationship ended up like Stalin’s and his mom’s, I would not regret what I am doing. I told her our “aesthetic” view of Stalin differs. My scattered family consists of “re-educated” ex-nobles or mixed families from different states that eventually became apolitical; that’s why they don’t bother to criticize anything anymore but focus on daily tasks and extended family connections or who is doing what apolitical things overseas.

I know Stalin was very wrong, but I read his book on “Linguistics and Marxism,” which effectively canceled Indo-Euro jingoism and created a relatively “inclusive” Russian linguistic world; however, I don’t support the communism part. I sometimes troll my mom by asking why we go through geopolitical limbo and why people have to suspect us of being North Korean when we are just mixed local Steppe people being assimilated and facing a true existential threat. Why do I have to do DNA tests and navigate all that bureaucratic process just to be recognized? If anything, we are the authentic descendants of a mixed Hunnic past; we have well-documented genetic connections with all the neighbors in the North Pacific Steppe. Our history challenges the arrogance of so-called “Aryanism” and fosters Abrahamic peace and racial pluralism.

The reason we are not communists but exist as faithful believers is due to that 0.0000005% Jewish heritage in the DNA map—God’s blessing. Of course, I was half-serious, but the idea is that you don’t need a label or a strong sense of being on the “good side” to do something decent. Back then, the Steppe communities projected a unified mentality, telling the world that we were part of the Axis union because of anti-communism measures, but we would never adopt those Aryanists’ racial ideology. Therefore, Jews, Armenians, Muslims, African students, Russian Orthodox, displaced Poles, and many others are all welcome in our communities.

Today, I want to say the same thing: I come as a dissident to express what I cannot voice in the multi-populist-occupied East, but I will never adopt this Atlantic supremacism or Indo-Euro jingoism, or whatever is associated with it!