Eggs, Shit… and Holy Water
Shit comes in many forms. In Riga, this weekend, shit came wrapped in a plastic bag from those who profess to be defenders of family values. And it was holy.
One major Latvian newspaper reports this morning a girl from Estonia suffered from the egg-and-shit raid by the Russian-speaking teenagers outside an Anglican church, where gay and lesbian activists attended the Saturday morning worship service. An irony, which those teens won’t appreciate, she wasn’t even participating in the pride events.
“This is unbelievable,” she told Diena. “I love Riga and Latvia… I didn’t want to cause harm to anyone, and look, what an attitude!”
The service itself had to be moved one hour earlier for fear of attack.
Some men blocked an exit of the church until the worship service finished, one eyewitness told the newspaper. When the group rushed for another exit, the men began shouting and throwing bags of excrement at the participants.
Eggs also landed on an AFP correspondent, who was covering the gathering at the Reval Hotel Latvia. A woman named Olga — who came to the hotel to visit her relatives from Ukraine — also befell the victim of the egg attack. Two reporters for the Diena newspaper received a hefty portion of the “holy water” poured in their faces.
All for the good cause: preservation of marriage in the society.
The $64,000 questions for immediate future are these: Does the government have the ability and the strength to maintain the order? And who should be held responsible when the police seem inept?
When the U.S. President George W. Bush visited Riga last May, the police and the U.S. Secret Service blocked the City Center to the public, so that the president could lay flowers in peace and quiet. It inconvenienced everyone, but most were understanding. Rather than throwing waste, Latvians resorted to the creative form of protests to make their point.
Last year, when a few people walked the city streets during the Rigas Praids 2005, the police prevented several accidents that were bound to happen. Yes, there was shouting, anger, same emotions on display as this year, but nothing happened.
Or, take the marches and demonstrations from some Russians in the lead up to the education reform of 2004. They protested again and again. With few incidents.
So it’s not surprising that Latvian police is now known for handling demonstrations by organizations representating extreme views in the city. They could have exported it to other countries.
But, what happened this weekend?
Two policemen were on duty at the time of the assault near the Anglican church. The Interior Minister Dzintars Jaundžeikars told the newspaper he didn’t know the time for worship had changed. One could have bought this lie, if it hadn’t been for the total apathy of the police elsewhere in the city.
Ubernationalist groups from the Russian and the Latvian side united under the banner of fascism — figurately speaking — chanted “Thank you police,” according to an account by the Diena columnist. They’re thankful that the police allowed to finally express their views the way they wanted with impunity.
Last year’s events seem to have been handled better.
A former special minister for intergration, Nils Muižnieks said “This year almost nothing has changed,” he said. “Still the same policemen and staff. The only thing that’s different, we have a new inferior minister.”
The Prime Minister ordered an investigation what went wrong this weekend. The President said she would draw the conclusions when she returns to Riga from her trip to Austria.
Jaundžeikars himself said he wouldn’t resign. “I already cautioned against such a march,” he told Diena.
And if the shit flows from the top to the bottom, Jaundžeikars should be held responsible for any disorder this weekend.
Unlike my stiff ramblings, Juris Kaza, a U.S.-Latvian journalist for Dienas Bizness, posted a much more amusing account of what had happened.
Used to be, you could kill a Commie for Christ (say that in a John Wayne voice to get my drift), but there aren’t enough left. So what happened in Riga as I was told at the disco waiting to become a conference, was that Christians tossed bags of shit at churches, clergymen (my old Latvian camp counselor Juris Calitis), worshipers, and even an Estonian tourist (never mind the tourists at the Reval Latvija who, mistaken for possible gays, were abused in an incomprehensible language and had eggs thrown at them.) The Estonian tourist was a large young woman in a plain t-shirt, short dark hair, slacks, either just at the wrong place at the wrong time, or fitting someone’s hallucination of what a lesbian might look like. «Real women» in Latvia apparently, are blond near-anorexic Barbies (at least until they have a couple of kids, as God ordered). Oddly, Ms I am about to speak at the hotel nearly fit that bill, though she also looked intelligence (Barbie lets Ken do that) and had apparently eaten during the last month. Anyway, Latvia can now patent the latest form of Christian fundamentalist protest, tossing shit at a church for Jesus.
He also points out that the opponents of Rigas Praids, the fraction No Pride was the only one with any kind of sexual display in public. They wore T-Shirts with a road sign with two stick men engaged in one form of homosexual activity. The passive one, Kaza points out, “has a stick penis to make the point.”
July 24th, 2006 at 20.51
That is what EU shuld understand. Latvia belongs to Latvians.
July 25th, 2006 at 5.49
The following, taken most likely from Swedish paper Diena, is false: “Two policemen were on duty at the time of the assault near the Anglican church.â€
Check out, for example, what seems to be the preacher of homosexuality Maris Sants himself at comments to Diena’s article
Those were private guards hired by Mozaika.
“The Interior Minister Dzintars Jaundžeikars told the newspaper he didn’t know the time for worship had changed. One could have bought this lie, if it hadn’t been for the total apathy of the police elsewhere in the city.â€
The total apathy may pass as a subjective evaluation, but the minister told LNT that police was given a schedule according to which the pride service was supposed to be on Sunday, not Saturday
Who is lying remains to be found out, but I tend to distrust Mozaika because of their extensive and very public record of lying and distorting the truth.
Swedish paper Diena has long ceased to be a neutral, reliable and respectable news source…
Only a joker would seriously see something sexual in that logo
July 25th, 2006 at 8.56
I guess I have to say a couple of things:
1. Calling a newspaper Swedish, in my mind, doesn’t discredit it any more so than Finnish banks are better than Latvians ones. True, economic interests often guide media coverage in Latvia, but you’d be pressed to convinced me that Diena, which is indeed owned by a Swedish company, has economic interest in the whole no pride saga.
2. A total apathy is indeed a subjective evaluation. It’s my own. It’s not Diena’s. I don’t claim to be an impartial source of information. I drew that conclusion based on the information presented in the media. This is why I suspect that the minister is not exactly being honest in his statement. In fact, because the police stood by idly they’re now held up as heroes by the shit-throwers at the hotel. Why else would nopride begin collecting signatures in support of Dzintars Jaundžeikars, the interior minister?
As it was last year, I suspect the worship service with gay and lesbian activists would take place at the time of the march, which is Saturday. It was only a question of what time.
And it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out where you stand on the issue. So, did those people deserve to assaulted with shit and eggs?