Profesors Kirhenšteins wrote:

<The parallels [betw. Dvinsk and the Sudetenland] send shivers up the spine…>

Am I missing something, or are you shivering because the Rooskies are behaving like Nazis in calling the Lalaluluboggwoggistanis Nazis?

ar cieņu,

Tarmo the Nordic {sic} a.k.a. Gelge W. Twigg {sic} a.k.a. El Subcommandante {sic} a.k.a. You Heathen Rabbi {sic} a.k.a. Latvian Trimdie at Natick Mall {sic} a.k.a. Your Parrot {sic} a.k.a. RegionalMook {sic} a.k.a. Yuriy Gagarin {sic} a.k.a. Exlalaluluboggwoggistani Animalized Muttsie {sic} a.k.a. Wasted Bandwidth {sic} a.k.a. Long Dong Silver {sic} a.k.a. They All {sic} a.k.a. The Imaginer {sic} a.k.a. Turbo Tarmac

For educational purpose to further along the discussion:

LONDON: Going by the newest league table, potential migrants to Europe should head for Sweden and avoid Latvia like the plague.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Migrating_to_Europe_Avoid_Latvia_like_the_plague/articleshow/2461336.cms

Sveiki!

Pēteris wrote: „And at least 40% of your post was off topic! ”

Apparently, it seems that way to you, yet I continue to be bothered that within political discourses we seem to have two separate standards for measuring politicians and their parties – one for those that we like, and another for those we don’t, which invariably includes minority politicians.  If instead of Klementjevs, it were Kristovskis who had a brother convicted of buying votes, would there be a call for Kristovskis to step down from a prominent post?  Wouldn’t the emphasis be on the principle that in a democracy no one is his brother’s keeper? 

I think it’s dangerous that we don’t have a single standard that applies to all politicians and parties.  That comes too close to undermining the foundation of our democracy, and it’s one of the ways that the divide is deepened and the two-community nation is bolstered.  For that matter, it’s pretty ludicrous that legislation proposed by the minority parties is automatically voted down.  Especially in those instances when a few weeks later the identical legislation is proposed by a Latvian party – and then there’s a vote to enact it.

Unlike you, I don’t dislike SC more than I dislike TP, LPP/LC, et al, at least in part because SC is unlikely in the near future to gain control of the premier post and the all important finance portfolio, much less gain control of citizenship or education/language legislation.  Undeniably, their pre-election program clearly indicated that they wouldn’t have a clue how to form a budget.  But, how well has the ‘professional command’ of TP done?  It was not quite 3 years ago that VVF asked why inflation was higher in LV than in Lithuania and Estonia.  To date, has TP actually come up with a solid anti-inflation plan?

I do realize that Latvians are expected to have a knee-jerk reaction and agree that SC is a pro-Russia party that’s fulfilling the Kremlin’s agenda.  But does anyone remember that more than half of the deputies from the ruling coalition (31) either voted against the resolution to support Estonia during their monument crisis last May or abstained from voting – which effectively was the same as voting against it?  Whose agenda were they fulfilling?  It seems as though we may not need to look so far afield to find questionable loyalties among the deputies. 

„<In fairness, you had your own questions.  But if the answers from A Klementjevs were (or are) forthcoming, would they ever be published in a Latvian language medium? >

Just what is that supposed to mean? In which language do you prefer your media?“

I’m at a huge disadvantage because I don’t speak or read Russian, and thus don’t know what’s being published in their news.  But, after the Russophone school reform coverage in 2004, I’m keenly aware that the Latvian language community is not getting the full story about minority issues from their news sources.  (An example from that time – I saw nothing printed in Latvian papers about perfectly reasonable Russophone parents being upset by there being no transition planned for switching to Latvian language instruction for the hard sciences, which had been taught in Russian as part of IZM’s *intentional* policy since 1998.  This only came out on e-forums, and was confirmed by an independent study - http://www.politika.lv/index.php?id=6120 - a few months prior to the reform’s onset.)  It would not surprise me if there were more information about Klementjevs’ & Urbanovičs’ reactions that hasn’t made it into the Latvian press; though perhaps it’s accurate, I simply wouldn’t know. 

Visu labu,

Elizabete

But we inherently don’t have the same standards for those we like and those we don’t. And not only the politicians. We’re eager for forgive someone whom we like as a person, or in this context, as a politician. But we won’t do that for an enemy of the state, or those whose opinions were anti-democratic and anti-Latvian. Thus is the human nature.

Sveika, Elizabete!

I don’t see Diena as applying different standards—they’ve been quite critical of every party in the past. Whether it’s perfectly balanced coverage—probably not, but why would it be? Raudseps’ piece was an editorial, after all. Diena tends to give space to opposing views with regularity (it even gives a blog to Pliner, where this topic is being discussed just now…).

I don’t think it’s “knee-jerk” to sideline an opposition that includes enemies of the state—but even if it were, it’s not at all unusual to exclude parties on principle (consider the treatment Austria got after it included Haider’s party). One would expect mainstream politicians to distance themselves from figures like Rubiks, not embrace him. 

Vysu lobu,
/P

El Subcommandante [sic] asked:

Am I missing something, or are you shivering because the Rooskies are behaving like Nazis in calling the Lalaluluboggwoggistanis Nazis?

Yes, but there are many more reasons to shiver. The reaction to Russia’s constant barrage of prop and to its threatening behavior is not what might have been hoped for. There’s Rene van der Linden. There was the slow response to what happened after the riots in Estonia. There’s Nashi...

Vysu lobu,
/P

P.S. Check out this letter to Dubya—think he read it?

The letter is not to Dubya, but to H.W., as a fellow WWII veteran “who didn’t learn about the war from books.”  It references his son as a worthy spokesman for preseving memorials to the fallen soldiers.

ak

Latvian, “Feel Yourself More Confident”

Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Window on Eurasia: UPDATE on Moscow’s Efforts to Organize ‘Compatriots’

Paul Goble

Vienna, October 2 – A Russian-language newspaper on Cyprus provides some important additional details on the September 21-23 Prague meeting – described in yesterday’s Window – at which senior Russian officials sought to organize their “compatriots” in Western Europe.
Russkiyi Kipr reported that the session drew “compatriots” of various kinds from 30 countries as well as a large collection of senior Russian officials who are leading the Moscow effort to set up umbrella-like coordinating councils in seven regions of the world (http://narodru.ru/smi13373.html).

...
By the end of the three-day session, “Russkiy Kipr” suggested, the participants could feel “that relations of Russia with the Russian diasporas of Europe, which today number six million people are gradually becoming ever more diverse and multi-dimensional.”
And that, the Russkiy Kipr journalist implies, fully justifies the title she selected for her article about this meeting about Russians abroad: “Feel Yourselves More Confident.”[bold mine]
Today also brought news that the Russian government is helping some Russian compatriots in the post-Soviet states to make appeals to the European Human Rights Court concerning efforts by some of these states to modify Russian names to conform to the national languages of these states (http://www.nr2.ru/society/142860.html).
This problem is widespread, the report said, in Ukraine and Latvia[bold mine], but in all the discussion of the difficulties these Russian compatriots face, there is no mention of the violence done to the spelling of the names of non-Russians in Soviet times – or to the fact that even now Russians refuse to spell Tallinn with two Ns as the Estonians always have.[italics mine] 

Sveiki!

I wrote:

„I do realize that Latvians are expected to have a knee-jerk reaction and agree that SC is a pro-Russia party that’s fulfilling the Kremlin’s agenda.  But does anyone remember that more than half of the deputies from the ruling coalition (31) either voted against the resolution to support Estonia during their monument crisis last May or abstained from voting – which effectively was the same as voting against it?  Whose agenda were they fulfilling?  It seems as though we may not need to look so far afield to find questionable loyalties among the deputies.”

Pēteris responded:

„I don’t think it’s “knee-jerk” to sideline an opposition that includes enemies of the state—but even if it were, it’s not at all unusual to exclude parties on principle (consider the treatment Austria got after it included Haider’s party). One would expect mainstream politicians to distance themselves from figures like Rubiks, not embrace him.”

Out of curiosity:  precisely which party in Saeima is mainstream?  TP, which holds the premier’s post, and arguably since at least September 25th has set in motion a course of action that leads away from western values that are firmly based on the rule of law?  Or is it TB/LNNK, a coalition party whose 8 votes may well determine on Thursday whether Loskutovs, the head of the anti-corruption agency, will be fired by the parliament so that the oligarchs controlling the LV government’s decisions have a free hand to do as they will? 

I certainly hope that Loskutovs stays in his role as head of KNAB, and proceeds to prosecute those parties which violated the election expenditure law last autumn – which many believe is the reason his job is now at risk.  But, if Saeima axes him, then whose interests does this serve?  The ‘mainstream’ parties that vote for his dismissal?  Does that include the voters whom they represent?

One of my original questions was about the so-called mainstream parties (i.e., TP, LPP/LC, ZZS and TB/LNNK) comprising the coalition government.  I repeat:  whose agenda were they fulfilling last May when they voted *not* to support Estonia?  And now, in light of the current turn of events: whose agenda will they be supporting if Loskutovs is fired?  Pēteri, I would find it enlightening to hear how ‘enemies of the state’ is being defined in the autumn of 2007 on the ground in Latvia. 

Aleks, I agree: human nature is what it is.  However, I can’t seem to find any recognizable democratic principles governing not just the decisions made by the ruling coalition, but the reactions to these bizarre decisions by citizens and/or voters whose interests these public servants ostensibly represent.

Once again:  how is a mainstream party in Latvia defined in the later part of 2007?  What values does it exemplify that reflect the electorate’s concerns?

Visu labu,

Elizabete

Sveiki!

Saying that I believe SC and PCTVL shouldn’t be in Government doesn’t imply that I have any love for the coalition parties. From Diena, a year ago (24.X.):

Urbanovičs vaļsirdīgi atzīst, ka SC un PCTVL mērķi esot “ļoti līdzīgi”, un “mēs izpildām vienu dziesmu — viņi paņem pāris nošu augstāk, mēs — zemāk”, taču abiem kopā “muzikālā kompozīcija” sanākot tikai labāka. Šī dziesma ir labi zināma — divkopienu valsts un “krievvalodīgie” kā Maskavas politikas instruments. Atliek saprast, kurš un kam skaidros, kāpēc šāda “kompozīcija” Latvijai nav pieņemama. Premjerministrs Aigars Kalvītis Krievijas prezidentam Vladimiram Putinam, ar ko pēdējā laikā regulāri tiekas? TP “ierindas biedrs” Andris Šķēle un kriminālnoziegumos apsūdzētais ZZS “premjerministra kandidāts” Aivars Lembergs saviem “biznesa” partneriem?

Vysu lobu,
/P