tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post2588468515152425364..comments2023-03-31T19:51:32.705+03:00Comments on Failed State Latvia?: 20 years of freedom and they put you on the sh*t listJuris Kažahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-42961215222465525952010-12-11T13:06:21.226+02:002010-12-11T13:06:21.226+02:00Juris,
All of what I've read is on the 'n...Juris,<br /><br />All of what I've read is on the 'negative'. With all your 20/20 wisdom, how about aiming at the 'postive' instead. I don't mean by 'guilding the lilly', but by expressing positive ways / suggestions forward .. to help Latvia climb out of the shit, regardless of how it got there. Help Latvia forward, in lieu of denegrating it.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00635949501791208628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-43522943700100861232010-08-01T18:51:08.141+03:002010-08-01T18:51:08.141+03:00Gaaaaaaa!!!!! Hilarious crap! I was reading your p...Gaaaaaaa!!!!! Hilarious crap! I was reading your piece and waiting when u r going to blame Soviet Union" legacy for the economic and social problems Latvia is going through. I laughed when the tired and cliched moaning about Soviet past started in earnest. U r becoming too predictable and boring. How is this for a reason. Latvian politicians elected by Latvians themselves have run the country into the ground by their incompetence, corruption and hatred towards Russia and everything remotly related to Russia. They divided the nation, destroyed industry and agriculture, decimated social services and education and drove tens of thousands into emigration. So-called "Soviet legacy" had nothing to do with the idiotic policies pursued by Latvians in the last 20 years. Do you think people who put them in their offices didn't know about their Communist Party past. Damn right, they do! Ansip in Estonia was a CP member as well but he is extremely popular among the natives (non-Russians) for his Russophobia. Latvians will keep reelecting the same politicians who ran the country into the ground just because they don't want any Russian speakers to share the power. Can you name me at least 1 Russian-speaking minister in the gvernment. So if Latvians want to know who is responsible for their problems all they have to do is look in the mirror.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-42232759528626896622010-06-11T11:13:16.220+03:002010-06-11T11:13:16.220+03:00Dear Juris, I beg to differ in one respect . You c...Dear Juris, I beg to differ in one respect . You contend that The "face" of Riga has changed and it looks like almost any European city.<br /><br />I don't share this impression. Not of Tallinn and not of Riga. While there are great parks and great restaurants in Riga, and I love Latvia - I really do, because of the great similarity between Estonia and Latvia, and because of my Latvian friends, etc., I have an impression of a city that was once great, then got despoiled, neglected and almost ruined, that is similar in many respects to Tallinn. Eclectic and with a scarred face. The modern architecture is sometimes good, often it sucks or is just banal. But it has been plopped down rather gratuitously and brutally into a landscape that still yells "Soviet Soviet Soviet". Both cities, depending on where you go, have that heavy gritty smack of the USSR, and not even Central and Eastern Europe to them. Interspersed of course with elements of charm and greatness.<br /><br />Charm is a thing that the Balts still don't fully have the hang of. They want tourists, but they don't do old, charm and stylishness very well. Not in terms of the big combined picture.<br /><br />The cities of the West are many and some of them are also blighted to a greater or lesser extent, but the Soviet blight carries its own signature. Tallinn, in any event, looks exactly like post-soviet Tallinn and not a Western city. We are somewhere in between, and the rough unevenness of the "eclecticness" rather saddens me in comparison to architecturally much more harmonious cities in the West. Stockholm for example bears the elements of postwar brutalism in a more integrated way - regardless - than these Baltic hodgepodges that have been through much more. The cities certainly are layered, and he or she who knows can see how the layers of good times and bad times have been laid down.<br /><br />Simon and Garfunkel: <br /><br />"In the clearing stands a boxer <br />And a fighter by his trade <br />And he carries the reminders <br />Of ev'ry glove that layed him down <br />Or cut him till he cried out <br />In his anger and his shame <br />"I am leaving, I am leaving" <br />But the fighter still remains." <br /><br />Juri Estam in EstoniaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-8804534974057616832010-05-25T09:02:06.867+03:002010-05-25T09:02:06.867+03:00Alehin,
One thing is true -- that in the political...Alehin,<br />One thing is true -- that in the political exile world of Latvians until the late 1980s, the occupation and totalitarian regime in Latvia were closely linked to Russia and Russians (and Russian migration to Latvia was seen as, and probably was, deliberate Russification). However, there was serious debate about whether the occupation was to be seen as simply a Communist regime, or whether the Communist regime was just the latest manifestation of Russian imperialism. In other words -- who was the enemy? Was the Latvian exile community engaged in a purely anti-Communist political struggle or was it against Russian imperialism and the inevitable, if simplistic links to Russians per se, who represented, often, both faces of the adversary -- the Communist authorities and the ethnic occupier.<br />I don't think anybody wanted the new Latvian state, in 1991, to start ethnic cleansing, but there was a time when many Russian immigrants to Latvia seriously thought of leaving because they were not sure of what would happen. If the Latvian government had said nothing (but also done nothing to "push" anyone), there might have been a significant "return" of Russians to Russia or some other former Soviet territory. Instead, the Latvian government and political leaders signaled the Russian community that there was no reason to leave, but at the same time, the whole complicated citizenship and language debate started. It left a significant part of the Russian population subjectively aggrieved as "non-citizens". Maybe things would have been different if a significant part of the then-future "non-citizens" had left Latvia peacefully in 1990 -1992. But the clock cannot be turned back. <br />I guess the short answer is that "anti-Russian" attitudes, not without reason, were part of the exile Latvian way of thinking, sort of like the combination of anti-Nazi/anti-German sentiment among Jews and other victims of the German occupations during World War II.Juris Kažahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-88814625442232173872010-05-22T18:54:23.373+03:002010-05-22T18:54:23.373+03:00Juri, I didn't mean you said something exactly...Juri, I didn't mean you said something exactly against whatever you understand under "Russians" or the word you used (and explained) in this same post. And of course you are right about western Latvians being active in some NGOs or employed managing foreign funds for the third sector. I know that, too, have worked together with some years ago. <br /><br />I am talking about western Latvians having democratic values in their luggage when returning home. Did they know Latvia had almost half of its population by 1990 non-Latvian speaking? Yes. Were they ready to accept it or did they really hope someone would whip them up in freight cars and throw out of Latvia? What perception did they have about this half of the country’s population, how were they going to treat that half, how much respect to this half did they have in their luggage?<br /><br />Well, I am sure many locals wouldn't be very surprised if the state would have really thrown some tens or hundreds of thousand out on the basis of their “registered” ethnicity. Psychologically, we all were prepared to ferocity under the totalitarian rule. Didn’t the Soviets repress people for belonging to specific ethnic groups? So it didn't come as a surprise that a number of Latvian political parties did call for forcing non-citizens out of the country. <br /><br />Fine, I have no idea whether western Latvians expected the new Latvian state to exercise an ethnic cleansing. But I am not sure either whether they were ready to speak up against this would-be violence. Just as they didn't on the account of the non-citizenship, a practical expression of the state ferocity. Something cruel had to happen, if not a pogrom, then at least proclaiming them as not-really-citizens. <br /><br />What I'm trying to say is that the democratic values, wisdom, knowledge, the experience from living in a democratic society should have come in the returnees. Now that 20 years have passed, Latvia is still a post-Soviet, non-western society. Not because the western Latvians didn't do their job. But they could have made some difference.Alehinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15457979342235779684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-80793743599503339132010-05-22T17:02:46.924+03:002010-05-22T17:02:46.924+03:00Alehins,
I am afraid that you have misread my blog...Alehins,<br />I am afraid that you have misread my blogs. I do not recall ever writing anything against Russians, if that is what you mean by speakers of other languages. As far as caring and tolerance, I think former diaspora Latvians have done their part by involvement in NGOs in Latvia and even by taking part in the Riga Pride marches as heterosexual, traditional family people who support tolerance and human rights. The local post-soviet screaming mutants were the ones expressing hatred, intolerance and certainly not caring for others who are different.Juris Kažahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-12765748248045122662010-05-20T23:51:51.224+03:002010-05-20T23:51:51.224+03:00When I look at myself in search for a Soviet, whic...When I look at myself in search for a Soviet, which I strongly believe I'm not, I realise what's remained in us since those times. This is my hidden knowledge that the only one I can rely on and count with is myself, because eveyone else is your current or potential but quite natural enemy. <br /><br />This difference between the old Soviet world and the Western world still remains tremendous and I think it has only grown bigger since the fall of the communism. <br /><br />The notion of competition is ever present in all modern and archaic societies. In a modern society, people don't need to fight for survival, which we in the post-Soviet still do. Those not fit for fight seem doomed.<br /><br />I guess if we want to get rid of this humiliating legacy, get rid of the Soviet in ourselves, we could consider starting to care for each other, maybe stopping seeing enemies in each other. In that sense, I'm afraid western Latvians returning home from the trimda did little to introduce the values of caring and tolerance in the post-Soviet Latvia. Instead, many of them appeared even more xenophobic against a differently speaking part of the society than the local Latvians themselves who personally experienced the totalitarianism. This is what I read in your blogs Juri. With all respect.<br /><br />--------<br />Audrius, <br /><br />why are people different? There is no definite answer. You can come up with yours and that will be just as good as anyone else's. Latvians are different.Alehinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15457979342235779684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-87157815463865944062010-05-20T19:49:01.256+03:002010-05-20T19:49:01.256+03:00Hello,
My name is Audrius Vedluga, 21, and I'...Hello,<br /><br />My name is Audrius Vedluga, 21, and I'm lithuanian and I study law in Bordeaux.I don't understand why there is so much pesimism in Latvia about it's independance. In Lithuania we do have much the same problems : economic crisis, hight unemployement rate, corruption, emmigration, communism's legacy and Seimas is occupied by a bunch of self-centred idiots that nobody thrust. Yet many people have come to 20th anniversary of independance on march 11(as much for military parade as for patriotic concert late that night). Many peope (not everyone) feel optimistic, and I am one of those, about futurre of Lithuania.<br />So what's so different in Latvia?Audriushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09632005868647621234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-79783925793985251412010-05-15T05:48:27.102+03:002010-05-15T05:48:27.102+03:00This is pretty depressing (but accurate notheless)...This is pretty depressing (but accurate notheless)reading but you can se the same thing in other EU countries and the CIS. The 3B's rose quickly after independance but fell even quicker. But as some Latvian politician noted recently after the Greek fiscal fiasco emerged into the harsh light of day, "we are no longer last!" perfectly illustrating why Latvia should contract out the running of the country so that the rats and vermin can be dealt with and some sructure established. I'm sure you'll see the western hand of Goldman Sachs and other players not currently well known revealed.<br /><br />But it won't happen and Latvia has lost it's chance. Just a labor pool now.TRexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02018204726663523430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-60354537295658452812010-05-04T23:46:23.546+03:002010-05-04T23:46:23.546+03:00Since I am foregin living in Latvia and learning t...Since I am foregin living in Latvia and learning the language, your blog is helpful to understand what is going on. I am curious: Would you agree Walhberg's opinions too? "But worse yet is the outright theft carried out in broad daylight by Western banks, whose academic friends were hired to write the Latvias' tax codes and who provided easy euro-denominated credit, so when the crunch came, they could move in and take whatever was left. Why invade such countries as Greece or Latvia with armies when you have bankers?" in Eric Wlhberg's http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18144vikandahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00134566448582202803noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-4523429410630689162010-05-04T20:51:05.976+03:002010-05-04T20:51:05.976+03:00Anonymous,
Theoretically -- working in Sweden. Not...Anonymous,<br />Theoretically -- working in Sweden. Nothing definite.Juris Kažahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10052208772017734513noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7590025.post-50853037982953252272010-05-04T20:40:52.874+03:002010-05-04T20:40:52.874+03:00What's the plan B?What's the plan B?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com