If anyone is really serious about participating in a constructive exchange about government policies in Latvia, please begin your LOL thread “dialogue.”

This is a special place—a thread where Ambersun will tell us what she really thinks, at last. She is so misinterpreted by everyone!

Davai, Ambersun—go for it!

/P

Ambersun:

Why sudden love for Nils? Earlier you suggested no one among diaspora in California gets Nils, now suddenly you refer to him for an opinion. How come?  Is it just a convenience? You’d go to Demakova for the national identity question. To Lucas for the Russia question and to Muiznieks for the energy question? Do you have any opinions of your own?

I really want to know what YOU believe regarding Latvia’s energy policy especially as it relates to Russia. That topic hasn’t been covered here on LOL as far as I can tell. If it has, throw me a link, would you?

Also, I’d like to know what YOU believe regarding Latvia’s position on Nord Stream. What is it? Do you agree or disagree and why? And perhaps, you could shed the light why center-right government in Latvia run by ethnically Latvian parties including the Fatherlanders has been cautious in its criticism of the Russian presidential elections?

These are the Russia-related questions I’m willing to discuss because they relate to current policies we the people can still impact. Wouldn’t you agree?

Davai, shalom, un sveiks Peteris,
Maybe you can share with LOL the you you shared in this interview with Lithuanians - only if you want. (Or maybe Vidas has some extra time on his hands and could translate it.) I’m only posting as much as fits on one page but I do have the entire interview.

Peteris Cedrins. Ko lietuviams pavydi broliai latviai

2008-03-07

Praėjusios Vasario 16-osios šventės metu Latvijos prezidentui
lietuvius pavadinus broliais, dauguma girdėjusiųjų šią frazę tautiečių, regis,
pradžiugo: juk gana dažnai keliame sau klausimą, kas mus sieja su
šiauriniais kaimynais, o šie Latvijos valstybės vadovo žodžiai tarsi
suteikė dar vieną argumentą patikėti, jog su latviais iš tikrųjų esame
itin giminingos tautos. Visgi neretai girdime ar patys atrandame
priešingus argumentus – būtent, argumentus apie tai, jog trijų Baltijos
valstybių – Lietuvos, Latvijos ir Estijos vienybė tėra deklaratyvus,
turinio neturintis politikų kūrinys. Į tokią diskusiją apie Baltijos
šalių vieningumą ir tapatybę „Bernardinai.lt“ įtraukė Latvijos
visuomenės veikėją, rašytoją, vertėją Peterį Cedrinį. Jis atsakė į mūsų
klausimus apie tai,
kas sieja Baltijos valstybes, kiek artimi jaučiamės šiandien, kaip
kartu galime ieškoti vietos Europoje ir pasaulyje. Diskutuoti kviečiame
ir mūsų skaitytojus.

„Nevažiuoti į svetimos valstybės okupuotą Tėvynę...“

Gal galėtumėte iš pradžių trumpai papasakoti apie save – gyvenimą
iki atvykimo į Latviją, savo dabartinę veiklą?

Gimiau Čikagoje 1964 metais, latvių šeimoje. Amerikoje lankiau
sekmadieninę latvių mokyklą.

Kaip ir daugelis iš Latvijos pasitraukusių šeimų, mes visada
planavome grįžti į Latviją, kai tik ši bus laisva… Šią grįžimo į Latviją
viltį netgi galėčiau prilyginti žydų svajonėms įsikurti Jeruzalėje.
Visgi daugumai latvių išeivių nepavyko to sulaukti sugrįžimo. Mano
tėvai taip ir negrįžo į Latviją – tėvas mirė anksti, kai man tebuvo
vienuolika metų, o mama, nors po Latvijos Nepriklausomybės atkūrimo ji
bemaž kasmet lankydavosi Latvijoje, visgi liko gyventi Amerikoje, kur
prieš kelerius metus ji mirė.

Amerikoje gyvenantys trijų Baltijos valstybių išeiviai tarpusavyje
bendravo mažai - aš pats vos vieną ar du kartus buvau lankęsis Čikagos
lietuvių bendruomenės organizuotuose bendruose Baltijos šalių žmonių
susitikimuose. Taip pat esu lankęsis šio miesto priemiestyje
įsikūrusiuose Estijos namuose. Kartu su jais dalyvavome Pavergtų tautų minėjimo
renginiuose, taip pat kai kuriose protesto akcijose. Beje, čia galėčiau
atkreipti dėmesį į tai, kad, priešingai nei lietuviai, latviai ir
estai užsienyje niekada nesukūrė atskirų bendruomenių.

Pirmą kartą Latvijoje apsilankiau 1991 metais. Su tėvais niekada
nebuvome net lankęsi Tėvynėje, kadangi jie griežtai laikėsi nuostatos
nevažiuoti į svetimos valstybės okupuotą Latviją. O man proga apsilankyti
Latvijoje atsirado tada, kai dalį magistro studijų mokiausi Prancūzijoje
ir Vokietijoje. Būtent tada ir sumaniau pats pamatyti savo Tėvynę, apie
kurią iki tol žinojau daugiau iš spaudos.

Tada Latvijoje praleidau apie mėnesį, visą tą laiką jaučiausi tikrai
priblokštas. Rygoje esančiame Latvijos universitete man buvo pasiūlyta
dėstyti kursą apie Amerikos poeziją bei mokyti vertimo. Nuo to laiko
gyvenu Daugpilyje. Trumpai padirbėjęs Latvijos rašytojų sąjungoje aš
pradėjau dirbti laisvai samdomu vertėju - versdamas pagal įvairių
vyriausybinių ir nevyriausybinių organizacijų užsakymus, aš užsidirbu
pragyvenimui. Buvusios Latvijos prezidentės dr. Vairos Vīķes-Freibergos
kadencijos metu aš jai rašiau oficialias kalbas. Šiu metu Anglijos
žurnale „Skearsman“ publikuoju savo prozos kūrinio „Penetralium“
dalis.
[...]

Why translate it ? Peteris is right here and he started this thread.

The entire interview - for a pretty conservative Catholic publication - can be found here:

http://www.bernardinai.lt/index.php?url=articles/75332

My compliments to the article author. The Lithuanian writing is superb - she did well to capture Peteris’ somewhat multifocused style.

Back to the point Ambersun. When are you going to actually respond to the questions presented to you ? Aleks’ seem a fine start to me. I’m truly interested to hear your view on the issues and the LAtvian political condition.

Vidas

ambersun,

I thought this was a place for a real constructive dialogue, not for cutting and pasting. Besides, simply posting a link would suffice. So, you still remember the questions, or should I repeat them?

Aleksejs - 07 March 2008 11:02 AM

Ambersun:

Why sudden love for Nils? Earlier you suggested no one among diaspora in California gets Nils, now suddenly you refer to him for an opinion. How come?  Is it just a convenience? You’d go to Demakova for the national identity question. To Lucas for the Russia question and to Muiznieks for the energy question? Do you have any opinions of your own?

I really want to know what YOU believe regarding Latvia’s energy policy especially as it relates to Russia. That topic hasn’t been covered here on LOL as far as I can tell. If it has, throw me a link, would you?

Also, I’d like to know what YOU believe regarding Latvia’s position on Nord Stream. What is it? Do you agree or disagree and why? And perhaps, you could shed the light why center-right government in Latvia run by ethnically Latvian parties including the Fatherlanders has been cautious in its criticism of the Russian presidential elections?

These are the Russia-related questions I’m willing to discuss because they relate to current policies we the people can still impact. Wouldn’t you agree?

Aleksey, I think all three ( three?) questions are to Russian elites indeed. Not Latvian.

Nobody knows about energy supplies to Europe in Russia.

Nobody could not anything about Nord Stream ( even Gazprom) in Russia.

Nobody ( absolutely!) knows about who is Russian president. I am not kidding. Even Kremlin functionaries do not. And pro-Putin party United Russia don’t know who is president in Russia after March, 2.

Regards,

Juris

Aleksei’s questions are about Latvian policies—they have little to do with any Russian elite, Juri. The seminal point Aleksei has made, which Ambersun refuses to touch, is that Latvians—latvieši, ethnic Latvians—have run this country for about seventeen years. There haven’t been any Russians in the Government of the Republic of Latvia (unless you count Vladimirs Makarovs, Latvian enough to be on the Far Right). This is a free country, and we have free elections and a free press—unlike Russia. Poor, misinterpreted Ambersun’s views look to me like the views of Raivis Dzintars—this world-view gets a couple of percent of the vote. On the other side of the aisle—the “Russian” parties have been full of Latvians (latvieši, ethnic Letts) and are even occasionally led by them (us)—Jurkāns, Rubiks, et al. are latvieši.

I would ask the questions that have repeatedly been posed to Ambersun again, but it appears to be useless.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Peteris, Aleksejs, others fellow travellers isolated on the small island of Latvia:  I can only hope this signal gets through to you.  I will make it brief and succint in case my transmission is disrupted.

Russia has Latvia by the balls.

The Russians in Latvia have Latvia and Latvians by the balls.

Latvia and many Latvians refuse to accept that they no longer have any balls and simply operate without any balls. 

(“Saprotiet ?” - Peteris, Aleksejs, and other living on the island of Latvia - my “seminal” point(s) “about Latvian policies”?)

PS Peteris: Mr. Jurkans speaks openly of his Polish ancestry, not that that alone should explain his disturbed politics, but no real latvietis he.  He is one of Latvia’s post-Soviet internationalists, a shade better than the disgusting cretin Rubiks, but that’s only giving him the benefit of the doubt because he is married to - drumbeat - northern California’s own - Ilze Auzers - gung-ho Latviete in a previous life. Again, just like Nils Muiznieks (whom I don’t love, Aleksejs, merely because I directed the reader and you to Nils comments about Latvia’s non-existant energy policy made on last week’s Domburs TV show.) I think Ilzite needed Latvia more than Latvia needed her.  The charming-to-few, but dumb-and-wooden-to-most Mr. Jurkans fooled not only Ilzite but also Latvia. Why you so easily express such contempt for Raivis Dzintars (not an endorsement) and spare Rubiks and Jurkans your loathing miffs me. Must be the knee-jerk old Red (your self-id) in you still hankering for that failed romance you had with international brotherhood.

Mr. Jurkans speaks openly of his Polish ancestry, not that that alone should explain his disturbed politics, but no real latvietis he.

Excellent, Ambersun! I was so hoping that we would hear your real opinions, and here they are! May we see a family tree, too, please—or get a DNA sample?

Visu to labāko,
/P

Peteris,
No need to flip out at the fact that Mr. Jurkans has Polish ancestry.  It’s a compliment unless you have a problem with someone being Polish.  Mr. Jurkans, like Aleksejs, does not hold himself out to be a latvietis but a Latvian person of mixed ancestry in Latvia and has chosen to represent and advance internationalist politics for Latvia that I oppose and that most Poles in and out of Poland detest.

Jurkāna kungs has a shifting ethnicity, as do many Latvians. Here, for instance, he is a latvietis. Here, he is a polis. You will note, though, that—even in the latter context—he is a native Lettophone. I know you’re a Billary fan, but even the Monster would shun your approach to ethnicity and its possible implications, methinks.

By the way, Rubiks was born up the street, right here in Andreja Pumpura formerly Viļņas iela. Contempt? If I don’t like Raivītis, it’s for his using illustrations eerily reminiscent of Nazi “art” to say that “there is no Russian culture in Latvia—there is Latvian culture, Western subculture, and the Russian lack of culture.” He has since grown up, and probably has a great future ahead of him as a rightist politician, if we’re to judge by the career of Corneliu Vadim Tudor, say. He is careful to distance himself from Jew-baiting, but happy to indulge in gay-bashing.

Anybody here could tell you that I’ve expressed plenty of loathing for Messrs. Jurkāns and Rubiks—they are, however, as different as Ushakov and Zhdanok, Tsilevich and Kabanov, Kristovskis and Dobelis, or you and me. Tabūns and Gilman are closer to each other than they are to Kalniete, for instance, in my personal opinion.

I self-ID’d as a Red? Where, pray tell? But these divisions, my dear Ambersun, are so old as to be rancid. Look who won the referendum in Hungary.

Another seminal point Aleksei keeps trying to make, to no avail, is that we are in the EU. I suggested earlier that about 80% of our laws originate in Brussels. That’s pretty international, wouldn’t you say? Russia is not signing the Lisbon Treaty.

As to balls—I already gave my opinion in response to an argument about gonads. Try brains instead.

Vysu lobu,
/P

P.S. Most Poles in Latvia are Russophones.

Tomēr par pautiem—klau, I will again ask that you make yourself clear, lest you be horribly misinterpreted. How long has Russia had Latvia by the balls? Is this grip the reason we act as America’s proxy in the “near abroad”? If Russia has us by the balls—why are we in NATO? Why are we directly supporting Georgia and Moldova, countries the Kremlin is trying to subvert?

Domestically? We still require naturalization—and unlike Estonia, we don’t even allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. We amended the Satversme to make Latvian the sole official language. We implemented an education reform despite the opposition of most of the students, teachers, and parents concerned (Estonia was more pragmatic!).

We even recognized Kosovo.

So, Ambersun—what gives? If you mean that there are interests in Latvia that want to expand trade with Russia… um, Ambersun, the oligarchs in Latvia are Latvian (Šķēle, Lembergs, Šlesers—maybe you could produce their family trees for us [I hear Lembergs might be a Gypsy]).

Please describe the grip upon our balls in detail, and tell us what would happen if the hand were removed. You gonna toss “internationalists” across the Zilupe when you get here, or what?

Vysu lobu,
/P

P.S. And just how did Jurkāns “fool” Latvia? Last I checked, he abandoned his political ambitions—after saying he was treated like someone with AIDS.

Ambersun, you make Latvians sound like Nazis junior, which they are not.

Your opinions with regards to ethnic non-Latvians resemble that of the Nazi Germany with regard to race. Being a pure ethnic Latvian and having an ausweis to prove it, for you, takes priority over anything else. Why the hell does it matter whether Jurkans is a Pole? Does it somehow negate his opinions? Is an opinion of an ethnic Latvian superior than an opinion of a non-Latvian? And if so, what do you do with Latvian Rubiks?

The EU was created after the World War II in an effort to prevent any future ethnocentric wars. Your opinions, which I see more coming from America, which loss comparatively less lives than Europeans, work against everything that the European Union stands for and the very reason why it was formed. Your opinions, shared by less than 2 per cent of electorate, are marginal in the present-day Latvian society.

You say that Russia has Latvia by the balls, but you don’t explain why nor offer any examples. How can the free democratic nation of Latvia where ethnic Latvians form governments, hold majority in the Saeima in the last 17 years could allow Russia to hold them by the balls? Why Latvia allowed it while Estonia didn’t? Perhaps it’s the notorious complex again. You cannot fathom that ethnic Latvians are capable of selling their country to Russia.

Peteris, labrit, labdien, labvakar!  Loading LOL with your “incites” as always.  Why you can’t provide us with good examples of “Latvian balls” when you do all that you-tubing and web-surfing I can only guess.  It would be nice to have a fellow traveller normal-nationalist Latvian helping me find links to brave-Balt-against-the-Russian-Bear information but I did find the following in our Estonian/nordic friend Justin’s “Itching for Eestimaa” blog.  As much as you hate the cut-and-paste avenue to enlightenment, I just can’t resist the appropriate assistance of male-gender luminaries like the Estonian President Ilves when he illustrates the meaning of “Baltic ballsy” way beyond what I could.  In partial answer to your barrage of “incites:”

BBC News (23 Feb 2008)

Estonia’s view of Kremlin ‘meddling’
By Tim Whewell

I was irritated by his three-piece suit. I was irritated by his floppy bow tie.

But if I am honest, what really irritated me about Toomas Ilves was the fact that he and I had started off in almost the same job and I had become “our own correspondent” while he had become a head of state.

Do not get me wrong, I love what I do.

But arriving at the pad he occupies as president of Estonia - a charming little salmon-and-cream-cheese-coloured mansion in a park built for Peter the Great - I could not help feeling a twinge of envy.

It was not the kind of home either of us could have imagined in the late 1980s when I was a talks writer in the Russian section of the BBC World Service, and he was something similar in the Estonian section of Radio Free Europe.

And it was not the kind of house I ever got.

So when I had nodded at - and been ignored by - the white-gloved ceremonial guards on my way in, I am afraid I was a little less courteous to him than he was to me.

Why, I asked, did he not speak Russian?

It seemed a reasonable question because Russian is the language of more than a quarter of Estonia’s population.

But for President Ilves it was not reasonable at all.

Speaking Russian, he said firmly, would mean accepting 50 years of Soviet brutalisation because most Russian-speakers settled in Estonia only after it was occupied by the USSR towards the end of World War II.
[...]

Peteris asks: I self-ID’d as a Red? Where, pray tell?
You asked, you answer - in “Marginalia.” (13 February, 2008 06:20)

Pēteris Cedriņš said…
Thanks for the comment. I was raised to be wary of the American left more than I was of the Latvian. My parents voted Republican, but my father was no lover of Ulmanis and subscribed to Brīvība [the sociķu newsletter]—I think, though, that his main thing was to draw lines between the pink and the red, something Letts have found problematic since the dawn of the left; the question over how “national” 1905 was, or if it was “national” at all, is still open, for example. The sociķi relentlessly try to paint themselves as more “national” than they were (I’m not referring to the 1917 LSD, which definitely wasn’t “national” but Bolshevik—I’m referring to where they stood on 18 November 1918), and the right tries to paint them red. You can see this in one person—Rainis, who is used and abused as both a nationalist and an internationalist.

I was schooled rightishly, on Saturdays (we even celebrated the 15th of May, coup day)—but that only lasted so long; two summers in Sweden and one in Münster cured me. Adolescence arrived, and by age fifteen I was a raving Red. After that, the faux Churchillian dictum set in to a degree, I guess: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.” (He never said that.)

When I got here at the end of 1991, the needle on my political compass went wild. As I’ve said elsewhere time and again, a right/left division in (post-1991) Latvia has always been rather useless (it may not be useful anywhere outside the Third World). Diena published its cross graph, marking economic positions and positions on “national questions”; some of the most “nationalistic” parties were economically statist, etc. These days, SC includes many biznismeny and the Red dinosaurs, whose views would seemingly be totally incompatible, whilst the formerly “liberal” (in the “classical” sense) LC has joined the Priests. JL struck “conservative” from its self-description. The Greens are part of a motley crew I won’t suffer to describe.

Part of the reason for the insanity, of course, is the fact that none of the parties have grass-roots (except perhaps the Fatherlanders, and they’ve done as brill a job of ignoring their base as anybody). One of the things Lejiņš is saying is talking about is involving “the people,” basically—let’s say the tauta as narod, then.
[...]

Aleksejs, you really need to get off that Kremlin-inspired name-calling of everything you don’t like or agree with “Nazi.” I would like to redirect your failed Putin-propaganda back home to Putin’s Russia where “nationalist Nazis” among young Russians is an out-of-control problem.  I would suggest it would be far more helpful to you and the Russians in Latvia (and Russia) to do some soul-searching about the Russian historic embrace of deadly authoritarianism and a national character that can’t admit any wrong.  In this case, do think of the Germans who own up to their Nazi past and where the current generation is still paying reparations, unlike the Russians who either deny occupation - and more importantly even, like you, deny its residual harm to the Latvian psyche and character - and just can’t think of one among themselves who was a either a Soviet or an Occupant.  Redirect some of your outrage to the Russian Nazi-NAShI - and the undeniable toxic mixture brewing in Russia that has dire consequences to near-neighbor vulnerable Latvia, of xenophobia, racist nationalism, authoritarianism, self-righteous and nostalgic longing for the Soviet and Stalinist past, violent homophobia, brutal corruption, etc.  It’s time for all Russians to do the really difficult and brave thing: to finally take that scary look in the mirror.  Stop flailing at old demons with old Soviet propaganda while being unable to address the new and important ones in your own ethnic backyard.