And, Ojar, if you think that they are not organised in LV, you have not been here every year when Praids comes up. Organised and capable of driving good people away, sometimes right out of the country.

I can agree with those who’ve pointed out that the Internet can get ugly anywhere (I even suggested Yahoo politics chat to my students so that they could get a first-hand impression of the lowest common denominator in the polarization of the US between “libtards” and “repukes”...). The trouble, though, is where bigotry seeps into the mainstream, which happens in Latvia rather too often for comfort. When the Fatherlanders, a party that has been in many a government, runs ethnopolitical ads (for Christmas!) that can best be described as… dubious? When a retired admiral makes the “KKK” conflation. When Mr. Slice talks about the shapes of noses in his companies. When Dobelis or Tabūns hold forth… or, on the other side, Kabanov or Zhdanok. I’ve also noted that prejudice cuts across socio-economic lines quite often—in most Western countries, highly educated people are unlikely to be homophobic racists. It’s not unusual here, though, in my experience. Then there’s the staggering level of ignorance. Most people really do not know much Latvian history (not to mention basic civics)—this, too, is true at both extremes as well as in between.

Blaming everything on the Russians (or, conversely, seeing Latvia as a fascist state), or defending the Legion whilst ignoring or downplaying the evils of the German occupation (and the participation of some Latvians in those evils)—or, conversely, blaming all Latvians and conflating the Legion with the Sonderkommando, etc.—is hazardous to this society’s health.
 
Vysu lobu,
/P

Tom, in a different thread, could you post about “Meierovica” that you mentioned?  That was the first I’d heard of it, and was going to ask, but just today I received an email from people I respect talking about its conception.  Yes, you’ll probably get some ignorant comments, but remember that way more people read than post…

Information about the Meierovica Biedriba (Meierovics Society) can be found at this web page.

http://lietussargs.lv/

Some English language info will follow later, but this is it for now.

Ojār—so, can we get an answer to what Tom asked, at least?

/P

My problem with this, as always, is that we have all of these people on this forum proclaiming themselves to be protectors of Latvia’s image and accusing others of continually tarnishing it. And yet here is a golden opportunity to show that the majority of all Latvians, and therefore the Latvian nation itself, does not support such views. And yet what do we have? Silence or some lame comment about political correctness.
I guess its far easier to just accuse others of being fifth columnists, cabalists or of reading Trotsky.

Andrejs, now getting back to work

Peteri - which question of Tom’s?

Ojār—you don’t think they’re organized?

/P

Andrejs et al.,

Where were you when Latvia tried to regain its independence ?
Visu labu,

I’m sure someone is. But I think there are more effective ways of measuring their size, power and influence than thru DELFI comments.

To be honest, I still don’t fully understand how to properly evaluate the significance of anonymous chatter on the web. It is a social phenomenon that didn’t exist 20 years ago, and is being studied and analyzed, I’m sure. Those who use it strategically clearly believe in its impact, and those who follow it are being impacted whether they realize it or not. But I think we need to be careful about jumping to conclusions on the basis of anonymous web comments.

Maybe I’m getting jaded by age, but there’s nothing about human behavior that scares me anymore. I’ve read enough history to know that humans are capable of anything. And I have no doubt that some of them will continue to behave that way long after we are gone.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about “looking over my shoulder scared.” I am talking about a general kind of concerned with where we are. And, I find comparisons with the past to be of limited value. I live here and now. It is interesting to see how these things may or may not have changed over time, but today is the day.

If these comment boards are used strategically, it is worth trying to reverse engineer that strategy. Understanding the arguments or emotions is the first step to countering them. It is too easy (to me) to simply dismiss them. If we do not consistently, persistently and politely challenge these things, we continue to give people permission to put them out into the world without any fear of consequence.

Unlike Tom, I try not to live in the here and now [grin]. One of the interesting things in Ezergailis’ recent writings is a staunch refusal to conveniently convert evident anti-Semitism into the Holocaust retrospectively, for example. It’s an argument worth looking into deeply; when we bandy about terms like “intolerance,” “stupidity” or “hatred,” it’s important, at least to my mind, to differentiate the forms—to identify them and study their behavior. There’s this term “kitchen anti-Semitism,” for example. There’s “state anti-Semitism,” which most rational people do not accuse Latvia of. The trouble for me is at least on the surface simple—how can one possibly claim a sainted innocence, or even extenuating circumstances, when one lives in a country where venom is spewed in such quantity (and, khe, quality!)? And I ain’t just talkin’ about the ‘Net, and you conveniently ignore that, Ojār. The Cardinal, for example, contributed homophobic rhetoric to Garda’s collection; said Cardinal tries to quash tolerance education ‘cause he claims we’re quite tolerant. The Lutheran Church, as Aleksejs hinted, is in a time warp. Churches are very organized things. LPP/LC, not too long ago a ruling party, is pretty damn organized and has a theocratic ideology, favorable to “Russians” but not much else. I don’t think there’s any hope for progress (whither?) so long as… um, so long as Ambi thinks we can’t know Mr LL’s politics. Defending the Legion against cheap British press attacks would be pretty easy. It’s not so easy when you take the Fatherlanders’ ethnocentric rhetoric into account. These aren’t Internet trolls—these are people in position.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Like Tom, I’m interested in the here and now and like Peteris I’m fascinated by history. But what intrigues me the most is the future (especially since I won’t live to see it.) I’m interested in the post-1991 generation of people in Latvia, who have been raised on PC’s, the Web, mobile phones, cheap and easy travel, and are exposed to many cultures and ways of life. I’m also interested in the attitudes and values of those young Latvians who have studied and worked abroad and return to Latvia to live, work and get involved in politics here. How will life in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Berlin and New York shape their attitudes toward races, cultures, lifestyles and social issues? How does an education at Stanford influence the attitudes of a future Minister of Economics or Health? I think many of the controversial issues of the here and now will fade with time and be replaced by new ones. Those of us who are here will no doubt defend and support those values we believe are important and try to impart them to the next generation. But as I recall in my own youth, while I found the wisdom of the elders of great interest, I was determined to forge my own path.

Is racism, anti-semitism and bigotry a trend or just an unfortunate fact of human nature? Do comment boards reflect a growing social movement, or simply the desperate cries of sick souls? In the past, governments, organizations and ideologies knew how to battle their opponents in the public arena, just as NATO once knew how to battle an enemy behind the Fulda Gap. The Internet and its comment boards have opened up a new front in the war of words, and we need to understand what we are really dealing with before we start deploying people, resources and money to do battle there.

I’m not saying we should ignore anonymous expressions of despicable stupidity. We just need to know when it is truly dangerous, and when it isn’t. Ideally, we should fight it everywhere. In reality, we simply can’t. I won’t argue with the lonely drunk in the bar or the sad misogynist at his PC, because I have bigger fish to fry. But if that drunk or misogynist forms a party and starts to threaten my well being and freedom, I’ll battle him. 

.

Sveiki!

Though by now I ought to know that e-forums are what they are, I still have a question for Ojars - and/or Toms, if either of you care to answer. :)

What precisely is the agenda of this new “Meierovica sabiedrība?”  For a couple of days I thought that *I* was not quite getting something, since for the life of me I couldn’t figure out from the press releases & website what the organization’s concrete policy goals consisted of.  I only marginally felt better when the academic Rozenvalds also questioned what such an extraordinarly diverse group—i.e., founders are all over the political spectrum—hoped to accomplish.

Is this an attempt at recreating your experiences during the 3. Atmoda and/or creating a Latvijas Fronte II 20 years later?  I honestly don’t doubt everyone’s good intentions, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what you intend to create. 

After all this fanfare, when is the organization planning on announcing precisely what it plans to do?  Sorry, but when I read (from skeptics) that this may be nothing more than a step in Ēlerte’s bid to become president, without a concrete agenda from the organization, then that suggestion looks quite plausible.

Visu labu,

Elizabete

A couple of things come to mind, Ojār. One is the worst thing I ever had to translate for the Chancery: when the Queen was here, we waxed eloquent about how Latvians go work in the UK and gain valuable experience that they bring home, and how meanwhile many British visitors come here to experience our ancient culture. The reality? Latvians in desperate circumstances go stuff sausages or pick mushrooms or sweep floors, and UK people came here to savor our cheap booze and gorgeous whores. Caveat: sure, there are indeed some going abroad gaining valuable experience, studying, etc. (and a few might even return), and some people do visit Latvia to check out the Jugendstil. But—the overall picture?

Secondly, re intolerance, and I think for the third time—I’m not just talking about Internet fora. I am talking about the whole concept of blaming occupiers for most everything, claiming innocence in the War, etc. This is not the Fulda Gap—it’s not a hypothetical. Nearly all of Latvia’s Jews were murdered—I can see one of the streets they were marched down if I look away from the monitor. It’s quite different from some abstract redneck in X to invite some big-nosed person to Rumbula than it is for somebody in Latvia to do so. This is especially true because this a country where people are divided along ethnic lines. I once asked you how many of your bright young employees were Russian. You didn’t answer, so I made my assumptions. And I will again (again, again) repeat—there hasn’t been a single ethnic Russian in any government with the possible exception of the half-Russian Makarovs, a Fatherlander.

You can go on and on about how there are Russians in Parliament or how great of a singer Naumova is, but to me that is a whitewash. You’re being disingenuous. This society is divided along ethnic/national/linguistic lines. If that’s okē, that’s one thing. I ain’t p.c. and if the bigots here want to submit proposals about a glorious fascist state, I’ll listen. But the pretense of national unity is a pretense. And it’s not new at all—Latvian democracy already failed once. No occupants [sic!] were necessary.

Ar cieņu,
/P