Day 96: Latvia

[they don't love you like i love you]

http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/lg.html

Discuss.

[WMS]

Has an interesting tendency to give Russia the finger.

[ag]

You could also say that Russia has an even more interesting tendency of taking any move by Latvia for a finger . Though, to be fair, on the minority rights (or lack thereoff) they have indeed gone far beyond anything that might be considered decent or, for that matter, wise.

[WMS]

You could also say that Russia has an even more interesting tendency of taking any move by Latvia for a finger . Though, to be fair, on the minority rights (or lack thereoff) they have indeed gone far beyond anything that might be considered decent or, for that matter, wise.

Which they are you referring to here? While the Latvians are suspicious of the Russians living there...they might be correct in being suspicious of their loyalties...

[ag]

You could also say that Russia has an even more interesting tendency of taking any move by Latvia for a finger . Though, to be fair, on the minority rights (or lack thereoff) they have indeed gone far beyond anything that might be considered decent or, for that matter, wise.

Which they are you referring to here? While the Latvians are suspicious of the Russians living there...they might be correct in being suspicious of their loyalties...

Well, let's face it, there is no reason for those guys to be loyal - they've been summarily denied citizenship at independence, whatever their loyalties or length of time in the country (thrid-generation migrants included). Lithuanians decided not to do this and never had any problems. It is true, Latvian migrant populatoin was proportionally larger, but whatever the criterion you take Latvians went overboard. In fact, there was a sizeable chunk of the "migrant" population (once again, these "migrants" included those whose parents or, for some children, even garndparents had been born in the country) that in the late 1980s was fairly well-disposed to Latvia regaining its independence (some of Latvian Russian-language papers were among the most "pro-democracy" media in the former USSR), but still did not get the citizenship. In fact, this was the case even w/ some early independence movement activists!

Latvian government took the legalistic view: everybody, whose ancestors were not citizens in 1940 are illegal migrants, period. Why consistent with the principle of reestablishing the Latvian state, under which everything that happened between 1940 and 1991 was illegal, this was neither decent, nor smart.

The problem here is, that you were talking of some 40% of the country's population (in the US it would have been something like 120 mln. people!), and even now over 20% of the population is "non-citizen" (of the rest, some left, some found a way to get naturalized). The vast majority of these people didn't migrate there voluntarily, but rather were sent there by the government many decades previous, many were born there, many had no family or links to anywhere else in the world.

There was nothing that prevented the reconstituted parliament from granting citizenship to at least some of these people (at least those that had been born in the country and hadn't been involved in any communist crimes, as long as they were to swear allegiance to Latvia).  Neither did Latvian independence require adopting a severely restrictive naturalization law, under which it would take something like 100 years for all these people to be naturalized.  Nor was the popular post-independence slogan "Suitcase, Station, Russia", when addressed to people who have, at best, only a distant familiar relation to that other country, very conductive to making them very loyal to the new regime.

It is true that pre-independence a large chunk of the non-native population never learned Lettish - they never had to, and people tend not to do things they don't have to. But it is hardly a reasonable solution to the problem to institute a language test for them that few native speakers would have been able to pass had they been forced to do so. But this is exactly what was done.

I happen to know this, since I have some family in the country. They are not ethnic Letts (nor are they Russians), but their citizenship was never in question, since the family had lived there since times immemorial (actually, I am wrong: the wife of one of them did have some problems - notwithstanding that she had been born in the country, lived there for over 30 years, was married to a citizen and spoke the language; I believe that she, at least, has been able to get naturalized eventually). The old man spoke Lettish and German better than he spoke Russian (he had grown in independent Latvia and his Russian was always heavily accented).  His son, likewise, was fluent in Lettish since childhood, but attended a Russian-language school, since at the time being able to communicate well in Russian seemed to open more opportunities in the greater Soviet Union (eg, going to a university in Moscow). Because he was not a grad of a Lettish-language school, being fairly high up in some factory, at independence he had to take a language test to keep his job, which he had a great trouble passing. Interestingly enough, the fact that his father wrote Russian w/ errors never really harmed his own carreer, so the new authorities clearly went beyond the Soviets here.

To sum up, I can easily understand the worries of ethnic Letts about the non-Lettish residents. But at independence these were 45% of the population.  Denying most of them (all those whose families couldn't be traced to 1940 as local) all political rights resulted in large areas w/ overwhelming majorities of non-citizens.  These people were given no reason to be loyal to the restored state, even when they had shown willingness to be loyal citizens pre-independence. 

Lithuanians opted to give citizenship to everyone.  Estonians, at least, allowed the non-citizens to vote in municipal elections (otherwise, in many factory towns the eligible voter population would be well under 5% of the voting-age population). Latvians refused any compromise. Long-term this is a problem, since as these people gradually and slowly manage to filter through the system and acquire rights it turns out that they have been radicalized and marginalized as a group. In addition, it has allowed Russia to play the "minority" card much more effectively than it could have ever hoped otherwise. As I said, what Latvian government did here was legal, but indecent and stupid.

[WMS]

To sum up, I can easily understand the worries of ethnic Letts about the non-Lettish residents. But at independence these were 45% of the population.  Denying most of them (all those whose families couldn't be traced to 1940 as local) all political rights resulted in large areas w/ overwhelming majorities of non-citizens.  These people were given no reason to be loyal to the restored state, even when they had shown willingness to be loyal citizens pre-independence. 

Lithuanians opted to give citizenship to everyone.  Estonians, at least, allowed the non-citizens to vote in municipal elections (otherwise, in many factory towns the eligible voter population would be well under 5% of the voting-age population). Latvians refused any compromise. Long-term this is a problem, since as these people gradually and slowly manage to filter through the system and acquire rights it turns out that they have been radicalized and marginalized as a group. In addition, it has allowed Russia to play the "minority" card much more effectively than it could have ever hoped otherwise. As I said, what Latvian government did here was legal, but indecent and stupid.

This all does sum it up, but I suspect that everything that happened simply boils down to the fact that the native Latvians really resented what Russia did to them from 1940 onwards and that impacted everything that followed at independence...not very nice at all, but not too surprising...

[ag]

To sum up, I can easily understand the worries of ethnic Letts about the non-Lettish residents. But at independence these were 45% of the population.  Denying most of them (all those whose families couldn't be traced to 1940 as local) all political rights resulted in large areas w/ overwhelming majorities of non-citizens.  These people were given no reason to be loyal to the restored state, even when they had shown willingness to be loyal citizens pre-independence. 

Lithuanians opted to give citizenship to everyone.  Estonians, at least, allowed the non-citizens to vote in municipal elections (otherwise, in many factory towns the eligible voter population would be well under 5% of the voting-age population). Latvians refused any compromise. Long-term this is a problem, since as these people gradually and slowly manage to filter through the system and acquire rights it turns out that they have been radicalized and marginalized as a group. In addition, it has allowed Russia to play the "minority" card much more effectively than it could have ever hoped otherwise. As I said, what Latvian government did here was legal, but indecent and stupid.

This all does sum it up, but I suspect that everything that happened simply boils down to the fact that the native Latvians really resented what Russia did to them from 1940 onwards and that impacted everything that followed at independence...not very nice at all, but not too surprising...

No doubt of that, and I can spend hours denouncing all the Soviet atrocities in general and in Latvia in particular. I've always been a hardcore supporter of Latvian independence and, in general, I find Russia's position towards its neighbors distasteful and extremely dangerous. Nonentheless, the fact remains that Latvia's position towards its "non-citizen" population is indefensible except on the most narrow legalistic grounds.

[WMS]

To sum up, I can easily understand the worries of ethnic Letts about the non-Lettish residents. But at independence these were 45% of the population.  Denying most of them (all those whose families couldn't be traced to 1940 as local) all political rights resulted in large areas w/ overwhelming majorities of non-citizens.  These people were given no reason to be loyal to the restored state, even when they had shown willingness to be loyal citizens pre-independence. 

Lithuanians opted to give citizenship to everyone.  Estonians, at least, allowed the non-citizens to vote in municipal elections (otherwise, in many factory towns the eligible voter population would be well under 5% of the voting-age population). Latvians refused any compromise. Long-term this is a problem, since as these people gradually and slowly manage to filter through the system and acquire rights it turns out that they have been radicalized and marginalized as a group. In addition, it has allowed Russia to play the "minority" card much more effectively than it could have ever hoped otherwise. As I said, what Latvian government did here was legal, but indecent and stupid.

This all does sum it up, but I suspect that everything that happened simply boils down to the fact that the native Latvians really resented what Russia did to them from 1940 onwards and that impacted everything that followed at independence...not very nice at all, but not too surprising...

No doubt of that, and I can spend hours denouncing all the Soviet atrocities in general and in Latvia in particular. I've always been a hardcore supporter of Latvian independence and, in general, I find Russia's position towards its neighbors distasteful and extremely dangerous. Nonentheless, the fact remains that Latvia's position towards its "non-citizen" population is indefensible except on the most narrow legalistic grounds.

Yep. It's all very Balkan.