EP. 15: How Love Breaks Colonial Narratives with Mariam Naiem

Luzia Tschirky: Welcome to the podcast, Yak Ty? – Ukraine Live. Yak Ty means How are you in Ukrainian. I'm your host, Luzia Tschirky, a former correspondent, now a book author and a freelancer. Today's guest on the show is Mariam Naiem. Mariam is a Ukrainian author of Afghan origin. She holds a degree in cultural studies. Mariam writes, speaks and teaches on cultural issues with a focus on how imperial narratives have shaped and continue to distort perceptions of Ukraine. Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Mariam has dedicated her work to helping people outside of Ukraine understand the cultural and historical context of the war. Her goal is to decolonize discourse around Ukraine by centering Ukrainian voices and challenging long-standing imperialist narratives. Drawing on her own experience of living between Ukrainian and Western cultures, Mariam sees herself as a bridge, bringing context, nuance and Ukrainian perspectives to a foreign audience. Thank you so much for joining me here today, Mariam.

Mariam Naiem: Thank you for having me.

Luzia Tschirky: Luzia Tschirky: Before I ask my first question, I want to say a few words. In preparing for this podcast, I came across something you wrote that when foreigners ask you this, it sometimes brings tears and the urge to scream. So I want you to know that this space is your space and please feel free to answer however you need.

Mariam Naiem: Thank you.

Luzia Tschirky: You're welcome. Mariam, yak ty zaras? How are you right now?

Mariam Naiem: Somehow after the first year of war you start to understand that one year of war is very long time and somehow it's incredibly how time perception is changing. It always depends on your position in life and where you are at that moment. And I remember after the first year I was thinking, okay, it's not possible to have one more year like that. It felt like everyone is so tired and like one year was like, I don't know, 20 years or something like that. After the second year you just stopped believing that it's actually happening. But I felt like after third year, unfortunately, I think we are adapted in a way. So now basically this is a question that I'm asking myself and question that we are discussing with my friends. It's kind of hard to imagine our identity. I'm not saying Ukrainian identity, I'm just saying our identity as a human being without war. Because this is basically my 24-7 job in a way and I just feel like I'm adapted to this reality and I think with some psychological help I feel a bit better but I think that third year is the year when you need to face the reality and withdrawal effect after all of the adrenaline work that you have done years before. So now you're kind of facing the consequences that your body is like, okay, we need to discuss that. So I guess this will be the most honest answer to the question “Yak ty?”.

Luzia Tschirky: We are recording this episode a few days after the Ukrainian capital was attacked by Russian drones and missiles for nearly nine hours. The number of confirmed deaths is now 30, with 172 people wounded. You wrote a post on social media and I quote now: “While you scrolled, Ukraine burned. The world thinks the situation is getting better. Reality, civilian deaths are up 50 % this year. Every day of silence makes Putin bolder. When war deaths become background static, dictators win." end of quote. Are you afraid that the Russian army and the Russian president are going to win this war?

Mariam Naiem: I think that I'm more afraid that if that happened nobody would care. So I think with this amount of injustice that we're facing right now it's just harder to believe in any narrative that we believed since childhood. I mean, you know… When you are a child, always read these fairy tales with your parents. And the whole concept of Western fairy tales is the idea of the cycle, but also the idea that there is beginning and the very understandable consequences with justice and the end. So the idea that there is just in the world, think it's very rooted into Western identity. When I'm saying Western identity, it's not like I'm saying that some other part of the world is not there, it's more about that I know that about Western perception of the world. I think it's one of the reasons why people are jumping like so fast into the victim blaming because the idea that something bad could happen with the good people it's something that basically shaking the reality. So it's much easier just to imagine that everything that happens happened with the reason and in the end there will be justice so I think that keeping that in mind and when you're kind of growing you kind of realize okay it's not true. This is the reason why we call it fairy tales and the world of fantasies. There's real life with the injustice all the time. And I'm not talking about war, think that there is a lot of different personal losses that people can face all the time. But I guess that war is kind of very concentrated level of injustice. And also war is constant metaphorical and literal scream. And when you see that world is not reacting the way how you think they should, that kind of makes it even worse. So I think that fear is not as scary as feeling of hopelessness. And I think that this is what we are feeling right now. I'm not saying that we don't have any hope anymore, but I think that our resources to being hopeful kind of became low. So I am more scared of that. And I remember one of my friends, but she told me that two years ago, she's very scared that at some point, even if Russia uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine nobody will react. Nobody reacts. And this is something that I think is very very disturbing because coming from the point of... It's hard to imagine how you should be so… Let's put it that way, so sad about the world that you basically don't believe that anyone will react to this kind of injustice. So I'm more afraid of that. I'm afraid that the world won't react fast enough. And you know, right now when we're reading the history books, we're reading and thinking, oh my god, it was so obvious. Society should have reacted faster. And I just don't want to be that Ukraine will be that line in the history books in the future.

Luzia Tschirky: Listening to your answer, a feeling came to my mind that maybe to describe the feeling, you know, you also wrote about in your post that it's more a feeling of the fear of being left alone with fighting against Russia. Would that be more accurate? 

Mariam Naiem: I think so, but it also... I think it would be rather better to explain it through the... for the example of small talks, you know, when I go outside of Ukraine… Sometimes even from my friends I hear something like, okay, but it's better right now in Ukraine. And I kind of realized that first of all, I'm not angry with those kind of questions because I don't feel like it's people's fault that they are not keeping up with everything. But it's also important to understand that, with this amount of news that we have every day from all around the world, globalization gave us the possibility of absorbing a lot of information. And if you're in the news feed 24x7 is not very good for your mental health as well. So I completely understand why people are not constantly in the reality of Ukraine. But what is important for me is that I think that people assume in Ukraine is something better or the situation is a bit better because there is not enough media coverage. Because again, if you don't hear about something for a long time, you kind of assume that it's kind of getting better. I don't know if I can give you a metaphor. It's like, you know, when people have some problematic situation, their household, and if you're not complaining about it all the time, people can assume that, okay, everything is kind of better. So for me, it was kind of obvious that, some fact that for example as Russia killed I don't know just as example 20 civilians three years ago would have been main article in the newspaper but right now okay it's just an everyday news and we have the habit of war routine of war which I think is pretty sad and this is also something that makes a few more left alone, like we are alone here. Of course we can talk about the political situation and of course with the Trump election it's not making it easier. But I think overall the idea that we don't have as much attention as before, kind of for me like something very illogical because with everyday Russia kills more and more people and somehow like you know when you think about it's kind of rational or ethical you think that okay the more people someone kills the more coverage it should have or like people should talk about this more but it's not how news works. And I think that overall kind of highlighting the main problem that we right now have with the with social media also social media but media itself. I think it was in the work of Susan Sontag, but I'm also trying to write about this, that I feel like the media, also consumers, kind of focus on war porn rather than people itself. We are the deliverers of war porn and it should be interesting, entertaining, and new. The more blood, the better it sells. I don't think it's only about Ukraine. We can see that in different conflicts right now. And I think somehow it's very sad. I think if we're not talking specifically about Ukraine, let's say something about other societies that right now, okay, it's not enough just to hear about that, you know, some crazy, inhumane behavior killed, I don't know, thousands of civilians. It should also be advertised in such a way that it could catch attention and it should be, I don't know, appealing, sexy, that's why I call it war porn. So yeah, I think overall that just sad for us as Ukrainians, but as a person who just study culture, I think that also saying something about us, and this is kind of a new era in the way of maybe our empathy shaped in different way, I think we kind of have a thicker skin, but not thicker skin because we have more experience with the world. I think it's thicker skin because we just saw so many things and with the AI and with the highly realistic video games, everything is just basically kind of looks the same. Blood there, blood there, it's kind of the same it's much harder to understand where the reality is and where the basically hyper-realistic unreal world is. So yeah, I'm just thinking that for sure both two factors making us feel more left alone and lonely basically.

Luzia Tschirky: Before I would like to talk about the roots of the war against Ukraine, I'd like to ask you about your family background and upbringing. You describe yourself as a Ukrainian of Afghan origin, the daughter of a Ukrainian mother, Valentina Kolechko, and of Afghan father, Mohammad Naim. Your father was the former Minister of Education in Afghanistan. How did your parents meet?

Mariam Naiem: I remember when it was in the, I think, yes, in the New York Times, they wrote about that he was minister and I said that he was a vice minister. And they told me, it's not so important, but for me it is important. So he was vice minister of education, but nevertheless. So, yeah, he was basically in charge of creating new schools in Afghanistan at that time. After war, when war with the Soviet Union started. It was kind of obvious from my father that he could not stay in Afghanistan since he was not supporting religious groups for sure and he was not communist as well. He decided to - and his wife died after giving birth to my second brother - and he decided that it would be better for him to leave the country and it would be more safe since… There were not a lot of options, one of the easiest way for him, since he also wanted to continue his education, and Soviet education was not one of the worst in the world, let's put it that way. So he decided to do the PhD in child psychology in Moscow, and so he could be a better father for his kids that were left without a mother. And my mom was there also doing her PhD in child psychology and this is how they met in Moscow when they were I think 33, 30, yeah the same age as me, 34, something like that. Yeah, so, but my mom, she's from Kyiv and she always liked Kyiv and she never wanted to stay in Moscow. So it was kind of obvious that the moment they would finish their thesis, they would go to Ukraine together. And this is what happened. My father took my brothers to Ukraine after that and in a couple of years I appeared to this world.

Luzia Tschirky: Looking back, how has your family background shaped your view on questions of identity in Ukraine?

Mariam Naiem: I think like most people who are like... I don't know, by culture, it's always understandable that identity is something that you can shape and that you can acquire and that you can build, basically. It's not something that you have since birth.I think maybe it kind of gives you a better understanding of the value of the theorem. Also the idea that there are different identities and they are also changing. I think the most natural thing in nature is change, are changes. So it's also kind of completely understandable to acknowledge that identity you and your identity could change with time. And also like the idea of identity of each country for sure changing with time. So I think for sure that gave me the possibility to maybe in all the time when I was not ready mentally for that, teenagers, I already kind of were forced to think about the identity and like who am I? The question of identity is basically a very, very easy question. Who am I? What am I? Why I am Mariam? Why I am not Maria? And the more Ukrainian world and so on. Or for example, I remember if you read Ukrainian literature, the most common Ukrainian beauty standard is black eyes and brown eyebrows. But somehow I knew that I don't look Ukrainian and it also was kind of confusing for me. So I think the idea that identity is something that you kind of build and create, and this is a value, first of all. It's not something that you can, it's not a heritage. It's something that you need to acquire.

Luzia Tschirky: How did your lived experience challenge, also like the Western stereotypes of what Ukrainian is? Can you describe moments where you really challenge the perspective people in Western countries have about Ukrainians.

Mariam Naiem: I, to be honest, I really don't know because I see sometimes that people are surprised that, you know, like, I don't look Ukrainian, I don't have Ukrainian name, but people don't say it out loud. They don't say: Oh, I didn't think you look Ukrainian. It's more like if it's some acquaintance on the street, they will say something like, I thought you're from India or something like that. But if it's like a deeper discussion, nobody will ever say to you that, you know, you don't look Ukrainian. This is one of the challenges that a lot of immigrants or people who just change the country are facing all the time. At some point when you are connecting or communicating with people outside of your country, you became a representative of the culture and wherever your identity is, they will assume that this is a Ukrainian thing. So for example, I know that at some point my colleagues were assuming that all Ukrainians are very, very, very straightforward. I don't know if it's true or not, but this is what they assumed because… because I am that way. And I was trying to say, I cannot say that this is true for sure. Or, you I cannot deny it as well, but this is also interesting. And we discussed that also with my Indian friend. He also feels always this pressure. He tries to be extra polite, extra nice, because he knows that everyone will think that this is the way Indian people behave. So I think about what I'm trying to do and what I… kind of trying to work on. I am less categorical, I think. Like I'm trying to be more polite. In more honest words, I'm censoring myself and I'm trying also… I know that if you want people to listen to you, you should not scream. In other words, they will hear you but not listen to you. And I want people to listen. So that's why I need to scream somewhere else. And it's also kind of important to find the safe place to scream.

Luzia Tschirky: The example you just mentioned about people approaching you and asking you: Are you from India? I read that in former times when you were asked in Ukraine, where are you from? You actually said at some point that you're from India. Is that correct? And can you tell us why?

Mariam Naiem: In Ukraine, for example, people who were serving as a part of Soviet army in Afghanistan after war, they were called Afghans. So just imagine you are seven years old and you go to school and somehow you hear someone saying, my father is Afghan. And you're like, my father is also Afghan. And you're like, oh. Okay, it's different. So to have Afghan identity, it's not the identity that it's very nice to have, like it was not very nice. Still, you know, it's not very easy. I remember one journalist asked me where I'm from. said I'm half Ukrainian, half Afghani. And he was like, okay, these are two very, very cool identities right now. And… Because, okay, it was not beneficial identity, let's put it that way. So it was easier for me to say that I am from India since in the Soviet Union because of anti-capitalist propaganda, they didn't have Bollywood movies, but they bought a lot of Bollywood movies. So people had the perception of India of something nice, something music, something beautiful. Like say even now in a lot of course in Russia, in Ukraine and in most post-soviet countries a lot of women who are like, know 60, 70 they are still in the fanbase of Indian famous Bollywood actors. So because of this nice image of India because of Bollywood I was like, okay, just easier to say that I am from India because to explain everything about Afghanistan it's too much. And also, you know again when I was a teenager every time after 9-11 for a lot of people who look brown, the problem of identity kind of changed a lot. So, of course even before Afghanistan had a lot of problems, after 9-11 it was kind of obvious that first thing they will say that you're a terrorist or something like that. But again we're talking about kids, kids are not famous for being very ethical. So I kind of figured out that it's better to say that you're Indian, because people will assume something like sari and nice food rather than okay in Afghanistan there is not a lot of nice stuff. So this was the one of the reason. And it was pretty painful to understand why I was doing that. But at some point I was like, okay, I need to acknowledge that. But to be honest, I do not look typical of Afghani. They look a bit lighter, the contrast between eyebrows, eyes and hair is a bit lighter. I have actually roots from Kashmir and my father looked more Indian. This is true, but it doesn't make it better because in many ways I was lying about my identity to make it easier. Let's put it that way.

Luzia Tschirky: The situation you just described about, you know, other children in school saying that, my father is an Afghan. Would you, looking back, would you say this is your first experience or one of your first experience of actually colonialism in your life?

Mariam Naiem: I think, no. I think the first experience of colonialism, I think, is withlanguage. Like I think it's moments when I realized, there are people speaking in my house in Russian. My father speaks with an enormous accent. And when I was four or five, I think I was four, I had the book. Sorry, I don't remember that in English, but basically the book when you're studying the alphabet like you kind of start to know what letters are and I remember that I opened that book and it was in Ukrainian. And I was like, okay, this is different from Russian, some sounds are different. And in the kindergarten, even though all the teachers were speaking in Russian, we were still doing all the reading exercises in Ukrainian. So you're like, okay, this is a bit confusing, but you know, everyone... I think this is one part of being a social creature. If everyone is doing that, you're doing the same and you're kind of playing the game that this is normal. And the biggest kind of shock for me was when I was seven and I think 10 days old, my mom took me. I was still in kindergarten because I needed to go to school like the autumn of that year. And my mom brought me to the art school for painting. And I was there since I think until 10 years old, yes. And my teacher, she was a Ukrainian speaking person, the first Ukrainian speaking person that I met in my life. And I remember how she was talking in Ukrainian to me and I was completely shocked because she was using the word so softly, so nice and it was the first time when somebody said to me daughter in Ukrainian, not in Russian and when she was describing colors she was doing that so yeah, magnifically. Like, it was so beautiful in Ukrainian and I kind of realized, okay, Ukrainian sounds very, very, very nice. And of course, like, my teacher was great and I think she's still great, but it was my first time when I saw that you can... It's not for everyone that you speak Russian at home and you in school, you're speaking Ukrainian. There are people who actually speak one language at home and in institutions. So I think for me it was the first example of if we're talking about the personal experience, because I don't think for a long time I actually realized what was happening in Afghanistan from the political point of view, because to be very honest, I think the situation in Afghanistan, because also because of the civil wars that happened after that, because of religious and also the idea that, you know, US were giving money, USSR were giving like all of that thing, it was not as simple as... I don't want to say that this is simple now, but you know what I mean, like there is always levels and in some situations those levels are much deeper and so for a long time I was not aware what exactly happened in Afghanistan. So for me it was just easier to acknowledge that my first connection with consequences of colonialism was for sure connected to language because I'm still, yes, I'm bilingual, but my mother tongue is Russian, which is ironic for sure. I'm not speaking Russian for like for a long time, but nevertheless, if you will wake up, wake me up in the middle of the night and will ask my phone number, I will say it in Russian.

Luzia Tschirky: Looking back to my own time in school, when I heard the terms, know, colonies, colonialism, it was always related to former centuries, European countries, the British Empire, France, Germany, invading countries, having colonies on several continents of this world. But in no time of my education, for example, during high school, the Russian Empire was named a colony ever. What are the reasons the Russian Empire has not been seen through this lens of colonialism for such a long time?

Mariam Naiem: Let's put it that way. First of all, there is overseas colonialism and there is also settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is basically when you are, when you try to just spread borders of your land by swallowing countries, entities, societies next to you. And with overseas colonialism, you basically go somewhere and kind of a... But you also can do something else. You can also just use someone else's for resources, or you can use those land to basically to live there, that people from your empire will kind of start to live there, settle there. So with Russian imperialism, with Russian colonialism, it was more about settlers. So it was kind of spreading what we can call Russian, the Russian identity. And for sure, yes, when Russia was an empire, of course, for sure, people were acknowledging that this is an empire. But with the Soviet Union, it's something a bit more complicated since with the communist ideology imperialism was one of the last stages of capitalism and for sure communist regime were for a long time criticizing western imperialism. Moreover, they were helping a lot of countries who were suffering from western colonialism by giving them money, weapons, military support, political support, resources and so on. So for a lot of countries who actually were also subjugated for a long time, Soviet Union was an example of a country that was kind of helping to fight western imperialism. And that situation kind of created a blind spot to Soviet imperialism itself, since in the Soviet regime inside of the Soviet Union there were a lot of subjugation, racial problems, gulags and so on. Where actually the Soviet regime saw Russian culture as a main culture and everything else, every kind of nationalism, every patriotism were perceived as a separatist movement and were killed for that. So I think this is the reason why it's so complicated for a lot of people who had the, let's put it that way, critical left theory approach to the post-colonial theory, which is connected of course to Marxism… It is so complicated to acknowledge, okay, there were actually problems of imperialist ideology in the Soviet Union itself, because again, they actually helped a lot of countries. And again, when you know... Right now when Ukrainians are trying to describe that during the revolution of dignity we were fighting for western values. For a lot of people western values mean rape, killing, murder, subjugation and using resources. So I think this is one of the reasons why. And also, colonialism is very deeply connected to racism of people. It's kind of obvious that to be in their relationship between colony and empire you need to have a racial factor, but we can see that with Ireland for example that it's not always the case. But for sure yes with the racial factor it is more complicated, or even if we can say that, because there is an additional problem to the power structure itself. I don't know if I answered the question.

Luzia Tschirky: You answered the question absolutely. So what will you say? What makes Russia, the Imperial force and Ukraine, its colony? You know, what made that actually up?

Mariam Naiem: One of the things is that Russia is trying to, on a very basic level, they try to erase their identity, Ukrainian identity, and by firstly trying to erase the separation between Russian identity and Ukrainian identity. They're trying to say that this is the same, that these are brother nations, that languages are the same, or that Ukrainian language is not the real language, because again in the Ukrainian situation the language is basically the only marker, the main marker, that can say okay this is Ukrainian, this is Russian. You know that this is a Ukrainian or Russian person when they open their mouth. So this is the reason why Ukrainian language is much more important for Ukrainian identity than for some other post-Soviet countries, for example when we talk about the Kazakh situation. For sure languages are very important, but they have the moment, the factor, the racial factor, and for them it's much harder to erase. Their identity because of the facial differences and also because Russians, don't want to call not white people Russians, they want to call only white people Russians and that's why people from Belarus and Ukraine are perfect targets for that. It's important, like empires are always in the state of spreading, otherwise they're basically kind of dying, would dry out, let's put it that way. So the main thing that Russia is trying to do is to erase and try to say that first of all Ukraine was never a country, people in Ukraine can never be independent, we don't know what is how like we're too savage to be part of the to have a separate independence, that our culture is not true, that everything is basically constructed by someone else and it's not real and so on and so on. So by denying the existence of course, we're talking right now on the cultural level because first of all, I'm a cultural studies person. But yeah, there are, of course, economical situations, and there are a lot of political moments there. For sure the puppet government that we had in Ukraine also worked for Russia for a long time. So I think for the last 20-30 years Russia was trying to apply neocolonialism to Ukraine, but right now they're kind of going back to the classic colonialism when they just tried to kill everyone. Because for a long time it was much easier for Axe empires just to implement neocolonialism by creating some kind of separatist movement, some kind of conflicts inside of the country that would kind of play the beneficial role for their empires. And again, it's easier because your people are not dying in those wars. This is what Russia was trying to do, but right now they're kind of going back to the classic imperialism and classic colonialism by just going and killing people with their own hands, with their own people. Yeah, because on a very, very basic level, if anyone will ask you… By asking questions why Russia is doing that, why Putin is doing that, there is no rational answer to that. Because imperialism is not about rationality, it's about mythology and those countries, they're striving on mythology because there is actually... There is no true value in an imperialistic culture rather than subjugation. So it's much harder to actually explain why a country is so great if you remove this element of killing others.

Luzia Tschirky: What would you say, are some key elements of Russia's imperial narrative about Ukraine? You mentioned a few when you talked about your Ukrainian teacher or the first teacher that spoke in Ukrainian with you. What would you say, are some key elements one can recognize this Russian imperial narrative? Yeah.

Mariam Naiem: In English it will be people are saying in “the” Ukraine that for sure the first marker. You can also hear that in the Russian language because they're also using kind of a wording that is kind of okay showing that they don't perceive Ukraine as... They're not using Ukrainian words and Ukrainian names in the right way. But for sure it's language. First thing is language, like denying the language, denying that this is a separate language and that it is not like a small sub-language of Russian. This is the first thing. Second thing, denying that Russia was implementing imperialism and Russia is an imperialist state. When I'm trying to say imperialism, you can feel it from the perspective of… I'm trying to say that imperialism is very hard to feel when you're not in those circles of the relationship because it feels like passive-aggressive behavior. Again, in the couple it's much harder to say to some of your friends, know, my partner is passive-aggressive because your friend can say, I was there and it didn't look like that, but you know that because you are in those relationships. I think this is a very very thin line and it's much harder to explain exactly, but this is what I'm trying to show sometimes, that it's actually very very like a thin level of narrative that you can feel. You always feel it as a Ukrainian, but when you are not Ukrainian you always need to decode it. Like the perception that Russian culture is better. The idea itself that there is more better culture and worse culture, it's actually like nonsense, there is no such thing. The idea that everyone for sure wants to be part of Russian culture, like if you don't want to be part of Russian culture, then you are crazy and then you're barbaric and then we will civilize you, aka kill you, because there is no other option. So the perception that your culture, the chauvinist idea that your culture is the main culture, I think this is the the first way how you can know that you speak with an imperialistic person and kind of a top-down view on Ukrainian culture, like, you know, yeah, yeah, sure, but there is no Dostoevsky and so on. I think it's important to understand it's not only when we talk about Ukraine and Russia, but… With a lot of different cultures that if we know about some cultures and we know less about others it is not because some cultures are greater and some cultures are more worth but it is because some culture had more money more influence than others because again from the perspective of culture studies there is no such a thing as a better culture and worse culture because we are kind of all together. Of course, they are more aggressive and less, but this is a separate topic. So it's kind of important to keep in mind that if you don't hear about someone, it means that you hear about someone else too much, or maybe the forces are not equal.

Luzia Tschirky: Where do you still see imperial narratives in Western media coverage, for example, of Ukraine? Where do you see it still?

Mariam Naiem: To be honest, very often it is... Again, as a passive-aggressive behavior, it is with the tone, like, know, Ukrainians are too emotional, or like... This is something that I can feel from the perspective of describing Ukrainians, like, they are too aggressive, too emotional, they want too much. I think (Franz) Fanon wrote that a person from a colony is perceived as a teenager, an emotionally aggressive teenager. And this is something that for sure I felt like people are talking about Ukrainians are using those words a lot. another way, my God, this is my favorite, the historical accuracy, like the idea that Crimea was Russia or Ukraine was part of Russia. This idea, when people's using those arguments, I know for sure that is Russian propaganda, you know, someone cooked here. Russian propaganda was there and some work was done there. Also, the interesting part, when people are sometimes saying something like okay you know but Putin is actually nice to their own people. This is exactly a problem. I think it also was Michel Foucault or Amy Cesare that were talking about it, that there's also a thing called imperialistic boomerang, that imperialistic governments, are for sure they are subjugating people in colonies, but at some point they're implementing the same thing on their own people. So it's not nice to live in empires. For sure, we're not saying that this is even near the same as with colonies, but the idea that Putin is nice to Russian people is not true. And this is, also consequences of imperialist propaganda, the idea to see Putin as an almighty father who will take care of everyone. And what he's for sure is not doing, and Lukashenko is also not doing that. So I think, trying to rationalize evil. I think for me this is when I know that something is happening there, trying to explain why that person is behaving badly. I think this could be important from some analysis, but for the media coverage I don't think it's necessary, because I don't think that we are putting enough of the... We don't emphasize enough of what we need to do to stop it. So for me this is the.. And I think Crimea as well, like when people start talking about that, you know, people in Crimea wanted something, I think this is also one of the signs that we have different perception of imperialism here.

Luzia Tschirky: And this is still, even though the full-scale invasion is now going on for more than three years, a topic sometimes that also in public discussions, you mentioned that this is a very problematic tendency, trying to balance Ukrainian and Russian voices. Can you explain a little bit why from your Ukrainian perspective this is so problematic?

Mariam Naiem: I think that in the relationship of again, empire and colony, is not equal, it's power dynamic. There was always someone who had more power, more coverage, more culture somehow, and so on. So, if we're, for example, taking an example of Slavic studies, for all of those here, Slavic studies were most predominantly Russian studies. And again, if we talk about Slavic culture, there are a lot of different cultures, not only Russian, but somehow it was predominantly Russian. And if you wanted to study Slavic culture, people will advise you, okay, you better focus on Russian language, because first of all, there is more sources, there is more information, there is more, like, researches that made about that like focus on that it will be easier and this is how this is how imperialism works like somehow information about one culture became just easier to get. think one of the problems here is to understand that subconsciously people in some societies and I think predominantly not I don't want to say only in the west but for some people since they could have a lot some sense sentiment and positive sentiment towards Russian culture subconsciously would like to hear more from Russian side, because again this is something that you kind of hear more about and you know for some cultures there were imperialistic in past, it's just easier to connect to to Russian imperialistic culture. But we are not equal, this is not the war of two equal entities that just are fighting over some apple, it's not like it's not something that Trump is trying to portray as two kids fighting over a toy. This is for sure a power dynamic with a huge nuclear country attacking a smaller non-nuclear country that actually it should defend by the agreement, the Budapest Memorandum. And therefore, when we are trying to say, we need to hear the Russian side and Ukrainian side, we kind of completely forget that these are not equal entities and this is not an equal conflict. This is a power dynamic conflict. This is a moment when there is a very obvious aggressor and there is a side that tries to defend its borders by trying to put them on the same level, kind of erasing all ethical requirements here. We kind of try to say, okay, yeah, wherever, that's just reality, we will just forget about that and let's talk about this, how we can basically make it done or finish that. And here we can just circle when we start to talk. And again, here we talk about justice. Because when we're talking about ending the war, yes, there are no other people who want to end this war more than Ukrainians, but we want to have justice. Because we will be the one who will live with this injustice, and we will need to recover the country and also grieve with all the losses that we have right now and presumably will have in the future. So I think that it is important to understand that by trying to put Ukrainian and Russian on the same level, we are kind of denying the idea of justice in the world itself. And it could be easier from the practical point of view, but I'm not sure that people actually want to live in that kind of world.

Luzia Tschirky: I cannot imagine how it really feels, but from the outside, I imagine it's kind of traumatizing, right? So to put someone with you on a panel at the same time and assuming that you're okay with it while in the country, although the person's origin is invading your country and killing people on a daily basis, right? I'm not a psychologist, I'm not an expert in this field, but I assume it kind of...Sounds very traumatic to me.

Mariam Naiem: I mean, I just think that this for sure depends on the very person that is facing that, because again, there are people who can just imagine the dialogue with some active Russian opposition or leaders. I can imagine that there are people like that. There are also Ukrainians who are triggered just by your Russian language on the streets. I myself just think that right now this is not the time for the Russian liberal opposition to talk. This is their time to listen and ask questions. So, but to be honest, I don't see personally that there is a willingness to listen and to ask questions. I see that there is a willingness from their side to victimize themselves. But this is again, this is a different problem and this is also a little bit connected to the Russian idea of their imperialistic image, that they are the victim of the world and everyone is jealous of them. That's why they are like, you know, if you are a victim, you can never attack anyone, you cannot be aggressive. This is like a logical mistake that they are making. So I think that from my perspective, if there is any Russian person who tried to have a discussion, I'm always saying that this is time for you to listen, because you actually had a lot of time to talk. So maybe there is also homework that they need to do, and that homework is very painful. And in those moments, I'm very, very happy that I'm not Russian. I'm not jealous of that, because to be able to reflect on what I am, what I am part of and what is me and my identity and to acknowledge that you were shaped by the aggressive policies and culture that is based on killing others, I think it's super complicated and it's not very pleasant work. But it should be done, because otherwise I do not believe that Russia will exist, because all empires are falling. This is not forever. But this is again, this is my personal, not as a representation, a representative of Ukrainians, but more of like my own opinion is that they just need to listen right now instead of talking.

Luzia Tschirky: Talking about self-reflection, decolonization is not only about how others see, like in our case, Ukraine, it's also about how Ukrainians see themselves. What would you say, what internalized imperial narratives are still present within you, yourself, and maybe within Ukraine in the society more generally?

Mariam Naiem: I think there are a lot of... I think first of all… There is a very nice work of Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Decolonization of the Mind. First of all, Decolonization starts with you and with your work on yourself. This is exactly the last book that I worked on. I was trying to describe seven stages of Decolonization that all of us were feeling right now, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes not. First of all, I think it's self-value, but self-value not because someone else attacked us, just because of the self-value. Again, I'm always trying to create those metaphors through people's relationships, because I think it's easier. It's when you want to, I don't know, lose weight because someone else, I don't know, broke up with you, and you just want to prove that you are cool. And this is completely different with the idea that you just want to do sport, that… because you want to feel better after this relationship. The idea that your vector of your active actions, vector of your action is not created by someone else, it comes from the self-worth. And this is, think, something that we need to work on, and I know that it will take a lot of decades for us, because this is something that Russia was raising for a long time, and we need to build it ourselves. The idea that, okay, we are valued, we are important. One of the examples that I kind of like a lot, there is Ukrainian artist, Maria Primochenko.And when the BBC, even the Ukrainian service of the BBC, was writing about her in the title they wrote:  “The artist who inspired Picasso: Ukrainian painter”. So instead of saying Ukrainian Maria Primochenko painter, we're describing her, kind of giving her value from the perspective of Picasso. we call it like, this is self-deprecating perception or like we call for a long time when you open the articles about Ukrainian cities, one of the biggest compliments to the city will be the small Paris or Ukrainian Paris. Where I remember, and I wrote about that in the book, it was 12 years ago. I was in the Carpathian Mountains and there was a small tour to the Carpathian, a beautiful site of the Carpathian Mountains. And the name of the tour was “Ukrainian Switzerland”. And I was looking at that and thinking, is it? Is there anything in Switzerland called you like “Ukrainian Carpathians”? Like, it's just, this is how you understand, okay, something is wrong or, you know, like I remember also one of my friends, she posted something from Paris and someone else wrote, you look like a Parisian girl. Like those kinds of things. I think we need to work on that. But again, I don't think it's our fault. What was done to us, but this is our responsibility, what we're going to do with that. So right now we just need to focus on our value and basically we need to create a very, very, very strong state. By saying strong state, I do not mean only the military for sure, but it should be self-sustainable and also not be dependent on others for sure. This is something that we need to have.

Luzia Tschirky: Talking about Ukrainians beginning to confront or unlearn some of these narratives. What can a person living in Ukraine or now living abroaddue to the war, what can one do, to unlearn these narratives?

Mariam Naiem: Self-reflection helps a lot. First of all, language, the easiest way, the easiest way is just to read some Ukrainian books. Because again, right now, language is, despite the whole tendency of the world, of leaning towards, you know, electronic books. In Ukraine publishing is just basically blooming because again we have this renaissance of Ukrainian language and Ukrainian books right now. So the easiest way is just to read more Ukrainian books and that's for sure that's enough. Again because decolonization it's something that requires resources. You cannot do it as a hobby, it's something that you need to put some effort into. Because decolonization is the creation of a new man. Again, it's not me, I'm not so smart to say that, but this is something that Frantz Fanon said for a long time. And when we're talking about creation, some part could be about killing, or you need to erase something from yourself. I'm not saying, again, Frantz Fanon is very violent here, I'm not saying that you need to push it away or deny that it is there, but it's important to not cultivate it. So again the example that I was making for a long time, the street where I was raised was called Artema, named after the Soviet factory. But right now the name of the street is Sichovyh Streltsiv Street, which is completely different name, and for a long time it was very hard for me to understand that the road, the street, my street, actually I don't know anything about this new name and I actually to know this name. I know everything about the previous name and I know everything about Artema street but not about this new identity, new street. And instead of pushing idea of no, no, we should not rename it, we should make it as before, I acknowledge, okay, that street and that history will just remain in my head because right now we cannot build a new Ukraine with old symbols and this is normal, that we need to be prepared for something new. And that's… That means that we need to kind of in a nice way say goodbye to something that was in the past. So for sure I think that reading in Ukrainian language, listening to or consuming Ukrainian products for sure that works. Also understand that it's okay to have a to understand, acknowledge that you have a Russian or Russian connected past. But also just remember that decolonization is firstly about love. And basically for me this is the main idea because you want to decolonize yourself not because you hate Russia, not because you are thinking about Europe, you want to decolonize yourself because you want your friends to be alive, your family be alive and your home to be there and this comes from the point of love so I think that's also enough.

Luzia Tschirky: What gives you strength? To continue this self-reflection for yourself and to spread the word about it. What gives you strength? Mariam.

Mariam Naiem: I do not feel like I have a choice, to be very, very, very honest. Yeah, I don't think that... Maybe just when the war started it was kind of an obvious question what I am going to do. I know that I am not courageous enough to go to the frontline. I am okay with that. I can acknowledge that. I do not need to say to myself that it is not a place for me. I think war is not a place for anyone. And I realized, I need to do something that can help my brother to not be injured to not die. Basically I started to do what I think I can do the most, which is talking. So funny. I remember when my brother was injured I was thinking: Okay, am I stopping now or not? And I realized: Okay, I think I will decide to continue. I think that strength comes from love. Because again.. I think you have a choice when you have the privilege to choose. When you do not have a privilege, you do not think… I think it was Brené Brown who said: The option to not talk about something is a position of privilege, when you do not have the privilege you will talk about it no matter what. I think this is the answer. 

Luzia Tschirky: Thank you so much for sharing these insights with us and for taking so much time for this podcast. Thank you so much, Mariam.

Mariam Naiem: Thank you.