Posted on 03/27/2005 10:41:36 PM PST by jb6
In a park in the Latvian capital Riga, a small group of protesters gathers, all Russian, some wearing paper hats inscribed with the word "Alien". Latvian police carry out a small, bureaucratic piece of harassment. With a tape, and much officiousness, they measure the distance between the demonstrators and the nearest public building, a school on the other side of the road.
The protest is two metres too close, so the police move it a little further down the path.
The protesters don't mind. They are there to object to a much greater injustice.
More than 450,000 Russians and native Russian-speakers - out of a total Latvian population of 2.3m - are classed as "non-citizens" because they have failed (or refused) to take a test in Latvian language and history, which would allow them to have citizenship.
This was local election day, and they were protesting about the fact that as "aliens", despite having lived in Latvia all their lives, they had no right to take part in the elections - whereas citizens of other EU countries could vote if they had lived there for a mere six months.
"I was born here," said one young man. "I pay the same taxes as Latvians. Yet I'm not allowed to vote for the politicians who spend those taxes."
"I'm here to protest against the government's policy of dividing society along ethnic lines," said another.
The fate of the non-citizens - who account for 20% of the entire population of Latvia - is a complex one.
Soviet migrants
When Latvia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it granted automatic citizenship to those who had lived in the first independent Latvian state - between 1918 and 1940 - but not to those who immigrated here after the war, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union.
Latvia suffered hugely under Soviet rule.
Thousands were arrested and sent to Siberian labour camps, or executed, during the Stalin years.
MEP Tatjana Zdanoka uses her position to highlight the issue Later, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians flooded into the republic under a deliberate policy of Russification. The Latvian language was squeezed out of official use.
Latvians were resentful citizens of the USSR. By 1991, they comprised only half of the population of their own country, while in Riga only a third were Latvian.
Even today, Russian is heard as commonly as Latvian on the streets of Riga.
But the government is determined to revive the Latvian identity. It says its policy towards Russians who immigrated here during the Soviet period is aimed not at punishing them for the sins of the Soviet regime (as some suspect) but at ensuring that they learn Latvian and integrate fully into society.
In order to naturalise, Russians must take a test in Latvian, and pass an exam about Latvian history - in which they must "correctly" answer that the country was occupied and colonised, not liberated, by the Soviet Union in 1945.
Many of the Russians at the demonstration on election day said they found that psychologically difficult. They said they wanted to integrate (and many could speak Latvian), but they found the idea of applying for citizenship humiliating.
"I lived here - same as them - and I was a citizen of the USSR," said a middle-aged woman. "They deprived me of my citizenship, and now I must apply to become one! I just won't do it."
Separate, but together
Tatjana Zdanoka is Latvia's only Russian member of the European Parliament and uses her position to publicise the position of the Russian minority.
She says her mother, who has lived in Latvia for 60 years and worked here for 45 years as a schoolteacher, has no right to vote.
"She is 83 and has bad eyes. Of course she's not capable of taking any kind of exam."
Facts about Latvia Latvia was independent from 1918 to 1939 After World War II it was a part of the USSR It regained independence in 1991 700,000 Soviet-time migrants and their children became non-citizens By the time Latvia joined the EU in 2004, this figure had dropped to around 450,000 Latvia's total population is 2,3m (including non-citizens)
Igor Vatolin, a journalist on the newspaper Chas and a Russian rights activist, said the Latvian Popular Front, which led the fight for independence at the end of the 1980s, promised citizenship to everyone living in the republic.
"But they reneged on that - even though thousands of Russians voted with them in favour of independence in the referendum of 1991," he said.
There is no ethnic strife in the streets of Latvia. The two peoples live peacefully together. But politicians on both sides, and in Russia itself, stir things up.
Moscow rarely misses a chance to complain at international meetings of Latvia's "human rights abuses", while the head of the Latvian parliament's foreign affairs committee, Aleksandrs Kirsteins, has described the non-citizens as "civilian occupiers".
He called for an agreement with the Russian government under which all the unwanted foreigners would be herded on to trains and shipped back to their "ethnic homeland" - with a brass band playing on the platform to see them off.
Latvia's two communities deserve credit for by and large ignoring such provocative statements. Despite the bitterness and insecurity on both sides, they have succeeded in forging a peaceful co-existence - somewhat separate, but together.
That is what this comes down to. One group in Latvia had the political power to deny another group the benefits of citizenship based on racial and ethnic reasons, nothing more.
The Soviets settled Russians there to destroy the Latvian culture just as you said. Now their genocidal "diverse" empire is over and its time for them to take their "anchor babies" and go home where their true loyalties lie if they refuse to assimilate.
Yes. They now had the power to kick out the invaders who had been degrading and destroying their nation and culture. That's what happens when nations enslaved by "multicultural" alien-loving Communism are freed from tyrannical slavery. They take the fate of their nation in their own hands. There are no more Commisars of "political correctness" to tell them what to do.
This is exactly what the minorities were promised if they would vote for independence. Of course they were back stabbed ASAP after independence. Interesting that all those Latvians living in Russia, and Lithuanians, Estonians, etc, are not denied their Russian citizenship. Nor the million Georgians who migrated to Russia in the past 13 years (note the majority of these guys were the ones protesting for independence. As soon as they figured out what an economic mess they made for themselves they abandoned ship.)
This has nothing to do with multiculturalism/diversity. This has to do with a group of people who were moved to Latvia by the Soviet regime. They are not responsible for the Politburo's actions. To punish them by denying them citizenship is obscene.
The Soviets settled Russians there to destroy the Latvian culture just as you said
Sure. And the Russians who ended up at Latvia were sent there by the Soviet government. They were as much victims as the native Latvians.
Now their genocidal "diverse" empire is over and its time for them to take their "anchor babies" and go home where their true loyalties lie if they refuse to assimilate.
They have assimilated. They've lived in Latvia their entire lives. The new government has no right to demand that one group pass a citizenship test while not requiring the same of others. Maybe if the Latvian government had required this test of everyone in Latvia, I would have agreed with them. However, this is like if the US government decided to demand that everyone of Hispanic origin in the US pass a citizenship and language test. Bigotry, plain and simple.
Are you going to lead the white sheet march here in the US to get rid of the hispanics who were born in America? I've heard the exact same thing said down here in the south about Hispanics, Blacks, Irish, etc. You'd fit in with the white sheet crowd. Your racism just can't stop from spilling out.
By the way, do you feel the same way about the Russians in America? I can't see why you shouldn't, after all, to you they are all evil and subhuman, your posts prove it every time.
Your bigotry towards Russians is well-known. The Russians forced into Latvia are no more invaders than the Russians sent to gulags in Siberia are degraders and destroyers of Siberian culture.
That's what happens when nations enslaved by "multicultural" alien-loving Communism are freed from tyrannical slavery.
Bigotry and retribution towards innocent people?
They take the fate of their nation in their own hands.
Whether you like it or not, the Latvians of Russian origin are just as much a part of the new nation of Latvia as that country's other inhabitants.
There are no more Commisars of "political correctness" to tell them what to do.
In this case, the Latvians have learned well from their former Soviet masters when it comes to setting up a system where some animals are more equal than others. Stalin would be proud.
Wrong! That's what you don't get. Free nations have exactly that right.
It's not the Latvians fault that the Soviets settled Russians in their country, who REFUSE to take Latvian language tests. Now that the Latvians are free, it would be obscene for them to punish themselves by continuing imperial Soviet Russian policy.
You say the Russian who were given stolen Latvian land were as much victims of Communism? Not at all! they were the beneficiaries of a bloodthirsty and expansive genocidal RUSSIAN empire which "ethnically cleansed" and raped the Baltics and the rest of Eastern Europe. They think they can destroy other nations with rape and genetic imperialism, but their reign of terror is over!
Do I hear a dog barking?
Those who don't are called Communists.
"The Cold War is not over as long as there are comrades of yours in Russia fantasizing about the "near abroad." "
Exactly.
The people with the guns and political power have the ability to treat certain citizens worse than others, but that does not make their actions right.
It's not the Latvians fault that the Soviets settled Russians in their country, who REFUSE to take Latvian language tests.
Why should one ethnic group be subjected to certain tests and burdens that are not required of other ethnic groups?
You say the Russian who were given stolen Latvian land were as much victims of Communism?
Sure. They were relocated (under the implied threat of violence if they refused) from their homes in Russia to a distant land as part of Soviet policy. Nobody consulted them. Nobody asked them if they wanted to be uprooted from their homes and families. They were as much pawns of the Soviet regime (which included apparatchiks from every ethnic group in the USSR, by the way) as the Latvians.
They think they can destroy other nations with rape and genetic imperialism, but their reign of terror is over!
Who are "they?" The Russian peasants and factory-workers forcefully relocated at gunpoint? Or are you just making a more generally bigoted statement towards the Russian people?
Some people believe in freedom, equality and governments treating every citizen the same. Others believe in racial purity and are opposed to giving undermensch anything more than second-class citizen status.
What group do you fall into?
So if we were invaded and conquered by a foreign nation and they settled millions here, and then we regained our freedom, we'd have to grant citizenship to all them because it would only be fair and we are shaking in our boots that some bootlicking Soviet apologist commissar will call us racist?
Think again.
Why aren't you kicking the immigrants out of America? Where is your so called conviction?
Tailgunner Joe believes in such things as "Racial Purity" and the existence of ubermen. In an earlier age, he would have been railing against Italians, Irish and any other non-Western European immigrants coming to this country.
He probably believes that Germany was misunderstood during WWII.
I seem to recall similar tests of language comprehension and basic understanding of history were traditionally applauded by American conservatives. What is right in America surely is also right in Latvia. Assimilation is not an unreasonable demand.
Ivan
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.