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.
234 posted on 03/29/2005 12:24:18 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 231 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Still waiting for you to prove this lie. This is one of your classics, almost as good as the one about not believing in a free press. Classics.
Btw, I am still waiting for my own TTS style "chart." Did you forget about me?
Really ? Felix always used to be a citizen of Russia/Soviet Russia/Soviet Union. He still has many monuments in your fatherland.
I started putting one togather but then decided you were more an irritant and the effort wasn't worth it. The best part about you, as opposed to TTS, is you tend to self destruct a lot more.
Yeah, I knew you'd back down.
From what? You? Hardly. You're to fun to poke holes in. Rather entertaining, especially when you crack and your inner hatred comes flowing out. I could write a psychology white paper on you.
TTS spills BS and then splits, rarely sticking around, that's why a table is needed, you stick around and become swiss cheese.
You can't prove any of your lies about me and you are backing down, just like you always do. punk.
Don't forget the fine city of Dzerzhinsk on the Oka River named after "Iron Feliks". This is another city - along with Kaliningrad - that should be renamed at once.
Actually there are many Russians in Latvia and especially in Estonia who lived there for centuries. Estonia was part of Russia since the beginning since Estonians were one of the four founding tribes of Russia (with the fifth being the Rus - Swedish Vikings who gave the name to the country).
Soviet did not paid much respect to the real ethnic borders and for example they GAVE Polish Wilno (Vilnius) to the Lituanians. Lituanians in a very nasty way are pushing and suppressing Poles so they became a minority in the land they inhabited for centuries.
Latvians were very eager supporters of the Bolsheviks and helped them to established genocidal tyranny over the whole Russia. Now they claim the victim status.
Poles in Lituania are being gradually supressed.
You're the one who doesn't know your Cajun history. Yes, they were kicked out of Acadie, today's Nova Scotia - many went back to France, found it undesireable, and then settled in Louisiana, which was then under the protection of the Spanish crown. It was a conscious choice to go there.
Ivan
Yeah, but it is only in the very artificial legal sense in which Germany did not exist until she was united by Prussia in XIX (while Austria lost the same attempt).
Same way, Greek nation came into existance in XIX c. The fact is that Silesia was part of Poland in middle ages for a short time and that Slavic Silesians became Germanized by the spontaneous cultural process. And before they were as Polish as they were Czech.
Nationality and states are obviously different matters. As we all know Germany and Italy didn't exist as states before mid XIX century but of course German and Italian nations (as a cultural commonwealths, NOT in the sense of "modern" nationalism linked to the concept of blood bonds) existed hundreds of years before that happened. Having said that by no means Silesia can be considered German since the XIII century in any other sense than lingustic, because many of its inhabitants (Austrians, Poles, Czechs, Dutch, Scots) used it as their first language.
They may quite easily get Polish citizenship If they don't like Lithuanian.
What about the Kurds in Turkey?
I see. You do not side with Kurds, you do not side even with the Poles. You are just against Russia even if it is not in Polish interest. Strange.
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