Healthy Nationalism Sees a Country's Wrongdoings in Its History, — Jason Stanley

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Jason Stanley is an American philosopher who is one of the world's leading left-wing intellectuals. His interests include fighting fascism, authoritarianism, anti-colonialism, propaganda, and freedom of speech. He is convinced that everyone fighting fascism should regularly visit Ukraine and see how Ukrainians are resisting fascist Russia. And he does just that. He is an Honorary Professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and comes to give lectures to Ukrainian students from time to time. He divides his salary for teaching in Ukraine between the "Come Back Alive" fund and supporting local civil society.

One of the most interesting things for him is to observe how the process of understanding who is Ukrainian and what Ukrainian identity should be is taking place in the country. By identity, he means the way people strive to organize their society and their self-awareness as a society. "If this (Russian-Ukrainian) war is only about whose folk dances are better and whose folk dances will win, then no one will be interested in it," says Stanley.

Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk talks to American philosopher about Russia's fascist and colonialist behavior, healthy nationalism, global leftists, Ukrainian student provocations, and how to explain the situation in Ukraine through the concepts of US civil rights movement theorist Du Bois.