Tuesday, August 23, 2011

On violence..and futility


I am reviving something I was writing in Latvian for a closed reading list. It started with looking at the government and ruling elite as an unknown creature from which we try to elicit some kind of response. First we make sounds at the creature. Nothing happens. Then we flash colored lights at the creature (this is getting to be like the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Finally, (and this is not to be tried lightly with a real alien or unknown beastie), we poke the thing (a minor act of violence) and it finally responds.
It seems to have been the same with the Latvian government. Peaceful public protests were dismissed as “yapping” by angry little dogs by the government of Aigars Kalvītis. The protests involved both audible (chanted slogans) and visual (signs and placards) cues. There was no response. On January 13, 2009, a mob “poked” the creature of government by stoning the parliament (Saeima) and other buildings, trashing some storefronts, fighting the police and overturning some of their vehicles.
Boy did that get a response! Ivars Godmanis, prime minister at the time, appeared on national television the next morning, stone-faced and speaking in a voice almost from beyond the grave. “We have awoken in another Latvia”, he intoned. Well, good fucking morning, as if this shit hadn't happened in other countries, in some, like Greece, just weeks before!. Right after that, then president Valdis Zatlers also gave the Saeima an ultimatum – to pass amendments to the Latvian constitution allowing popular initiatives to dismiss the Saeima, to change the election laws to prevent powerful candidates or “locomotives” from running in more than one electoral district as well as other measures by March 31 of the year. Some of what Zatlers requested actually got done and he never acted on that ultimatum.
The quick and simple, maybe oversimplified conclusion is – a bit of violence is the only communication that elicits a response from the ruling elite in Latvia. Paving stones and smashed glass are “heard”, words and protests, ignored.
But that is about the end of it. There was needless and senseless collateral damage from January 13, such as the stoning of a library building near the Saeima, the ransacking of a liquor store and serious injuries to a teenager hit in the eye by a rubber bullet. It also became clear that the “political” stone throwers were joined by a rabble out for the thrill of destruction and looting.
Even the political stone throwers represented no one beyond themselves and their personal anger with politics and politicians. Even their violence was “senseless” because it had no agenda and no organizational back-up in society. In other words, these guys were not the vanguard or fighting unit of a well-organized and defined revolutionary movement.
I started writing this before the rioting in the UK, which puts a different angle on things. Those events gave an entirely new meaning to the idea of politically (and economically)senseless violence. One may be able to better examine things once data are collected on the more than 1600 persons arrested in the wake of the UK disorders, but it now looks like what happened was an outbreak of theft, violence and destruction by the British equivalent of what are called urlas in Latvia. These are uneducated, unemployed (though not always) purposeless, substance-abusing, petty criminal rabble. They are apolitical except to the extent that some commentators on events try to interpret the formation of the UK lumpenproletariat in political terms. It is likely that the Brit-urlas have no political agenda and little or no political consciousness.
Before anyone starts drawing conclusions from what I have written so far, I am not building up to advocating terrorism in Latvia. Suffice it to say that in earlier times, somewhat better organized Latvians did turn to anarchism and/or revolutionary violence, such as in the uprising in 1905. Terrorism is merely the other side of extremely poor and often oppressive governance, it is a reaction to the action or inaction of the state – at least in simple terms, discounting the terrorist movements based on shared misperceptions of reality and bizarre ideologies.
One can safely say that there is little basis for domestic terrorism in Latvia, mainly because those dissatisfied with the state of affairs have taken the much easier step of emigrating and see no sense in staying behind to fight a political battle. Latvia's citizens have seen all to often that when “political battles” (elections) are won, the spoils are divided among some of the winners at the expense of taxpayers, or, at best, literally despoiled and wasted in attempts at governance by incompetent fools. Electing a few “good people” merely thickens the brake linings on some wheels of a what has been a runaway train of corruption, incompetence, cluelessness and folly that has characterized much of Latvian politics over the past 20 years. That is what the reform movements of recent years have accomplished, thickened the brake linings without stopping and just slightly slowing the train. I refer to the Jaunais Laiks (New Era) experiment, the re-try of the same formula with Vienotība, the work of “good people” (no irony intended) such as Valdis Dombrovskis, the “new kids in the Saeima” or the former exile Latvians and some of their allies.
Tax resistance?
Maybe I am misinterpreting some socio-economic phenomena too optimistically or politically, but some parts of the population have reacted to this pattern of failure of governance by simply withdrawing from economic engagement with the state. That is another way of saying – not paying taxes. Again, at the risk of overpoliticizing what is happening and projecting a consciousness into this behavior that isn't there, I would argue that this form of effective “secession from the state” is, at least, a minimally effective form of resistance.
Undeniably, the lack of tax revenues is (and we have heard this song before) deprives pensioners, the health system, the police, the schools, the roads etc. of funding that would have made these government services better. But it also says, from the de-facto tax-refusers' point of view – that I am also depriving one of the world's most expensive bridges of my money. I am not paying for borderline-poor medical services so that characters like Mr. Golden Hands (New Era's first Minister of Health Āris Auders), the surgeon, can take my money that was earmarked for his treatment of patients, and then hit these patients again for a hefty envelope payment.
In what may be an idealistic fantasy, I think that at least a few Latvian businesses are paying in envelopes not to enrich the boss at the expense of depriving the state of tax revenues, but simply because envelope payments instead of withholding social tax are actually a form of direct-action social welfare. An example I often use is that if a small business has monthly labor costs of say, LVL 10 000, the owner takes some LVL 3000 or whatever the social tax rate is, and pays it to the state. Month after month, those LVL 3000 have no visible impact on the miserable looking pensioners, the beggars (at least those who are not professionals), the local hospital about to close with its “fat-years” MRI unit that gets used twice a month, etc. etc.
Now take those LVL 3000 and pad the envelopes of employees that one knows personally – Jānis, who looks after his infirm mother, Anna, who is paying for her daughter's university, Sergejs, who can now afford a private day-care center for his son and needs elective surgery himself. The extra money, taken away from the rathole of paying the state with a negative return on taxation now becomes a tangible, here and now (or in the foreseeable future) benefit for a small circle of people who need it and use it wisely.
It is, of course, pure political science fiction to imagine that, having experienced a degree of state failure for 20 years (minus the attributes of real failed states, gunmen in the streets, three hours of electricity, the whole Somalia scene), Latvian society would self-organize into communities of resistance as it did, to some extent, when forming the Peoples' Front (Tautas Fronte) in the late 1980s. Having exhausted the possibilities of getting a response from the present political system, such communities of resistance could at least improvise local solutions to problems the state is unable to solve.
Electronic civil disobedience?
For example – shutting down a hospital to cut costs (after deranged, shambolic spending on health during the “fat years”)? The community simply occupies it, organizes that some work is done voluntarily in exchange for care, local business puts in some funds to benefit the town's citizens, the MRI units services are offered, on the internet, to patients across the country (or even from abroad).
Elsewhere, people can take non-violent, disciplined direct action against the state –occupying ministries or government buildings, at least for a short, symbolic period, or organizing electronic political actions, including the limited “hacking” (a note on a home page – this agency is run by thieving or wastrel fools). Such actions would involve technically illegal behavior and would require backing by legal defense and public relations teams, to do everything to hinder (by legal means) the prosecution of persons involved in resistance activities, and to explain to society and the media (with social media, everyone is media) the reason that activists were being made, in effect, political prisoners.
Back to Gewalt gegen Sachen?
At some point, there would have to be symbolic violence against the state, targeted trashing of state property, but if this was done against the background of a mass civil resistance and direct-action movement, it would be a small price to pay for finally breaking the grip of a political ruling elite that has, by the “experiment” described above, shown that violence is the only language that it hears.
Having said that, I have to emphasize that this is an impossible scenario and there are no signs that anyone is trying to execute it. The human capital needed for something like that has been dispersed abroad by the consequences of 20 years of the political elite's behavior. Those who remain are too disorganized, drawn to crackpot ideologies, übermother political movements or simply given up on the whole mess, often based on a rational assessment of the situation. I think I can count myself among the latter.
We will have yet another election, triggered by good intentions to throw the bastards out, but I suspect the result, at best will be another deceptively bright false dawn, and, more likely, a typically Latvian political bardaks where the sleazy but untainted-by-being-in-government Harmony Center (Saskaņas Centrs/SC) will be the biggest winner. Then, no one among the “good guys” will want to play with them. So they may end up with a “worser” if not worst case scenario of SC aligning with the Green and Farmers' Union (Zaļo un Zemnieku Savienībā/ZZS) to put one of the oligarchs (and a popular one among the large ignorant and populist-manipulated part of the electorate), Aivars Lembergs, in de-facto control of the state.
More nothing special..
So the coming election battle, triggered by the drama of dismissing the Saeima and the subsequent referendum, may yet again amount to nothing – nothing special. The referendum showed that almost 95% of the electorate rejecting the present political elite and the antics of the parliament up to now. One could almost say it was a reflexive vote against two decades of state underperformance, if not what I call state failure light. But that is it. There will be no second Awakening/Atmoda. There will be no powerful popular movement of resistance and direct action, no one is there to lead it, and the very few, probably too few good people able to change much of anything, are running again for what I call the Big Monkey House (disrespectful? Check those referendum results again).
Maybe, just maybe, the 2020s may be a time when the last hard-core homo postsovieticus retires from political life or dies off, and then the 1,6 or 1,8 million left in a marginal, stagnant little European country may, at last perk up and find that they can at least adequately govern themselves. But is there any point for someone like me, of advanced youth but with a few good years left (working and writing)to linger here and wait to see where the chips fall in ten or fifteen years?


6 comments:

zagarins said...

O Koronel! You die so pretilly!

Davis said...

Interesting, this.

You know there might be a peculiar side effect of people taking over and running public services, such as health care, by themselves. Employees in other parts of society might become interested in running their workplaces by themselves too, since they are really the ones doing all the work but the bosses and board members are taking all the money (especially since management structures in many major corporations have an awful smell of Soviet-style command economies, and executives have a tendency to "lick upwards (the asses of upper management) and kick downwards (at blue & white collar workers, and consumers)").
The probability of this (the taking over of not only public services, but private business by employees) happening would be greatly increased if it happened against the background of a mass civil resistance and direct-action movement of the kiund that you described. It is the inevitable logic of things.

How will it be made sure that private property stays in the hands of it's owners?
Well, that's why we have the State. To beat, teargas, watercannon, shoot and bomb people back in line. This is of course basic knowledge. But the issue of the state - the repressive part of the state - is actualised by the other thing you were talking about. The mass movement of civil resistance, that should throw out the political elite by violent means if necessary.

But if you throw out the government and the 100 members of the Saeima, you still have the un-electable mass of bureaucrats and administrators left. The ones who are really in charge of the state. The "excecutive" branch, as opposed to the "legislative" one. And, once again, you have the bringers of batons, teargas and guns..

So basically, if you are going to have people taking over and running their workplaces, at the same time as you have a movement that tries to kick out the political elite by force, you're dealing with a revolution. And dealing with revolutions requires dealing with the issue of the State (as in both the repressive parts of it, and the mass of un-elected administrators). Dealing with the State means you have to either back off and surrender, or you have to have an idea on how to defeat the State.

So, anyway, got a bit carried away there, but it would be interesting to hear your views on this.

Juris Kaža said...

Dāvi,
I sort of see what you are driving at, but I believe that, given the promises that are made by mass-based socialist movements, these promises cannot be implemented without a command economy. Even if a fair part of the economy were employee-owned and employee managed (by delegation), you would still have to coordinate the actions of these enterprises in the economy by market mechanisms. That is absolutely at odds with socialist and planned economy doctrine. Enterprises would seek profit and they would seek capital by being efficient and profitable. Otherwise, who would capitalize them? Under socialism, there can, by definition, be no capital markets, only the allocation of resources by the state central planning ministries. There can be no market pricing because prices of huge parts of the economy (housing, food- the Soviet bread as pig fodder paradox--and other services) would have their prices set by command and not based on actual cost.
Market socialism has been tried, but it is not "real" socialism. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

Anonymous said...

Tax evaders undermine taxpayer’s contribution to maintaining healthcare, social benefits, infrastructure and state run programs inland and foreign. Public order disobedience will lead to anarchy and further loss of moral standards within society through virtue of temptation to disobey in form of riots and looting. Such can hardly be tackled on any mass scale in LV due budget shortage related to, but not solely resulted from, tax evasion. Strange to admit but such "poking" of the state indeed appears to be the only way to turn politicians mind down to earth again in this tiny country.
Juri, whatever words you'll find to describe yet another aspect of decay in LV politics and public moral, those will not substitute the essence of missing element which prevents making Latvia a better place. Yes, you guessed it right again - it's called WORK. Without ambitious posing, without excuses, without expectations of immediate and disproportionate remuneration, without brown envelopes outside fiscal policies, just work. 9-to-5, Monday to Friday, creating value-added product against adequately hard-earned & fairly taxed dosh. This idea is very unpopular amongst large part of LV dwellers, as they traditionally prefer other methods of increasing personal welfare. Arguably, tendency show popularity of WORK as method of improving personal welfare decreases along the way up the social/political hierarchy. Hard to blame poor citizens and those undecided - we're talking here about the country where meaning of "public" and "mine" as well as "loan" and "gift" are way too often misplaced. Particularly within Vecriga's perimeter. Am I repeating after someone here :-)
Should they all wake up tomorrow and decide "let's work hard today!" I'm sure there won't be any need of puzzle-solving exercise about coming elections. Ideally, of course, would be excellent to have everyone to resolve as well to more civilised way in treating individuals around them with due respect and dignity. Hey, but that'd be Sweden then, not Latvia.
PEACE
Aris Kruvevers

Juris Kaža said...

Hello Anonymous Āris,

The thing Latvians need to do is to WORK SMART, not just physically exert themselves or push papers all day. They also, as you say, need to change their attitude toward each other -- managers have to lead, not command by fear, and organizations with smart workers have to be pretty flat (no unnecessary hierarchies). A lot of companies also have very little IT resources and a basically run as a "bardaks" that seems to work .

Anonymous said...

Interesting blog Juris, but I suspect you are baying at the moon. The "bardak" is permanent, for reasons you yourself pointed out. Those that should care are gone, are not coming back. Those that remain, with a very few exceptions, are part of the problem. The kleptocrats will continue to rule until someone literally puts a gun to their heads. To believe that Latvians (as with Lithuanians) will do that is a fairy tale - and the kleptocrats know it. These folks have lost the link to the price of freedom - they are all show and no go. Suggest the right to bear arms and you had better watch your backside at the very least. Suggest financial insurgency and you get the expected admonitions from the leeches posing as citizens, most of whom are waiting for their next "savior" bearing promises of a handout. Best wishes on your noble effort, but I fear it is wasted in a public forum.

Vitalijus