RSSLanguage Wars
Apr 13
RIGA – “Where do I go sign up to protect the Russian schools,” a distraught voice of a teacher-friend of mine blasted into my ear. “Latvians now want to close all our schools. We want to protest.”
The All for Latvia party has spearheaded the effort to collect the first batch of signatures to amend the constitution, allowing state money to pay for education in Latvian only. The campaign took some convincing, particularly in the eastern region of Latvia. In 15 months, it had taken the party to collect more than 10,000 signatures required, only 91 came from Latgale.
It’s reminiscent of the 2004 school reform protests when thousands of Russian students flooded the streets in protest of the government’s decision to switch the language of instruction to Latvian for high school students. It was the largest minority demonstration in the country’s new history.
An ongoing push to amend the constitution effectively closing schools with a minority language of instruction resemble more of a badly written play on a political theater stage than any serious initiative that aims to boost the prestige of the Latvian language among the Russian-speaking minority and – most importantly – improves the quality of education in this country.
10,140 signatures has been collected at the Museum of the Occupation, countryside, schools and public places. The number of signatures gives the supporters access to public funding, but narrowing down the time limit whereby they have to collect signatures from the 10 percent of the voters. It’ll be a big surprise if the group succeeds getting more than 153,000 signatures required to submit the legislation to the parliament.
Public outrage over the language issues seems to outweigh the outrage over the fact that more than 10,000 students between ages 5 and 18 are not registered in any of learning institutions. Some may have immigrated with their parents. Others simply quit the mandatory education. We don’t worry about our country’s economic competitiveness, our country’s wealth, instead we worry about the language of instruction.
The proposed amendment violates even the spirit of the 1918 republic, in a country where historically, schools in minority languages have been funded by the state. The move resonates more with the 1934 anti-democratic coup, which paved the way to a wide-shouldered Ossetian to take over Latvia in 1940.
The constitutional amendment is not the aim of this enterprise. It’s public relations. Having no substance on economics and job creation, the party has this one issue it aims to keep in the public light. The evil russkies. A recent diatribe by the notorious Dr. Slucis (in English), who called from his comfy Minnesota job on Latvians to build a wall on the Russian border, prompted a counter-reaction.
Two extremist groups – the Osipov Party (the link is in Russian), led by the young struggling-to-speak-Latvian Evgeny Osipov and the January 13 movement, led by the Russian deportee Vladimir Ilych Linderman, a former member of the National Bolshevik Party, began collecting signatures and funding for a counterattack: to introduce Russian as a second state language.
Organizations on both sides of the issue are taking hostage the future generations of Latvians, whose education’s quality is somehow lost in the never-ending battle over languages.
gaetan lizotte
Apr 15, 2011 @ 03:44:11
well it is very simple, RUSSIAN PEOPLE MUST NOT PAY ANY TAX RELATED TO SCHOOL TO LATVIAN GOVERNMENT SINCE THERE WONT BE ANY RUSSIAN SCHOOL SERVICE FOR THEM, HOPE LATVIAN PEOPLE AGREE WITH ME THE FRENCH CANADIAN.
GOOD BYE MY DEAR
Aleks
Apr 16, 2011 @ 12:10:31
Then you’d have Russian-speaker taxes paying for Russian schools while Latvian taxes pay for Latvian schools. It would further encourage segregation. And we don’t have special school taxes.
Jānis
Apr 17, 2011 @ 06:09:39
As an ethnic Latvian (yes, a person whose native language is Russian can be Latvian as well, as per the “latvietis vs. latvijietis” discourse, of course our “revered” linguists feel that it is more important to approve that “tviteris” will be the legally binding, official name of Twitter in Latvian (haha, as if they have any jurisdiction over a registered trademark) than to promote valuable, conceptually distinguishing terms like “latvijietis”)
Back to the point – they are going to see my signature when the hell freezes over! (i.e. never)
It really never ceases to amaze me (or does it?) how pathetic they can get. Or maybe the saddest thing is how pathetic those 10K signers are to whom this fear-mongering is appealing, say, “I maybe am a failure in all respects, economy, free speech, etc., but at least I will defend my [something] against the evil Russians! (who cares what that [something] is!? just the idea makes my ape brain feel accomplished!)”
Andrea Branta
May 01, 2011 @ 15:51:00
I’m so tired of hearing of all of this… it makes me sad and angry. Latvia is Latvia. Russia is Russia… If you don’t proclaim yourself to be first and foremost a citizen of the country you have chosen to live in, contribute to, take from, breed in etc, etc, etc – then just leave and go home!!!
As a Canadian, (first gen) I see the Latvian community here, but you have to know how to find them. The flag they wave is the Canada Flag, The language they speak is English. Their children are educated in English schools and the Latvians fund their own secondary language lessons to preserve any ancestral ties. They love our country, they love our flag, and mourn for the state of the country of Latvia.
‘Russians’ – go home to Moscow if you want to wave your flags. You’re a Latvian now. If you like it, great … embrace it! If not… just leave, for good.
Say what you like to me about the way I feel… the whole history of Latvia has been one tragedy after another, a country stolen, abused, raped, and misguided. Give it a break, and allow it it’s independence. Allow those who want their own identity to grow and rebuild what was taken… at the very least in spirit.
IMHO… Andrea.
Asehpe
May 01, 2011 @ 23:40:17
I agree with your main point, Aleks, that it would be wonderful if people paid more attention to how well (or badly) the education system is working, to how many children are now totally outside of it, rather than to the language of instruction. Insisting on it against the context of a system with important structural (and funding!) problems is childish, and suggests that things will only get worse.
Having said this… Latvians did suffer seeing their country become another colony of the Homo sovieticus, seeing themselves almost become a minority in their own homeland (as are now other groups in their republics in the Russian Federation — the Mari in Mari El, the Komi in Komi Mu…). It’s understandable that they want to revert this; it’s understandable that they feel threatened (given their history); it’s understandable that they react angrily to their ‘russkie’ neighbors (because people love to overgeneralize and project, etc. etc. etc.).
‘Understandable’, of course, doesn’t mean ‘right’. I wished they would worry more about how actually to get more Russians interested in the language and culture of the Latvia where they live, so that their attitudes become more positive. (It seems the Estonians are doing a better job — maybe the Latvians should talk to them?)
I can understand how hearing Russian all the time on the streets may get on the nerves of many Latvians. (A cyber-friend of mine was complaining the other day about how difficult it was to try to live as a Latvian speaker in Daugavpils. Russian is everywhere there, it seems.) But you are right in that the current measures seem to do little more than intensify the angry feelings of both communities. Which is not going to be good for the future of Latvia.