President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga’s July speech on women’s issues before the Zonta International Convention seemed to blame the proportion of women students and business and leadership roles in modern society on the historical capacity of woman in childbearing and rearing roles. Perhaps the proportion of gender distribution among modern business and leadership roles is also a function of historical division of labor caused by practical necessity and individual voluntary choice which through time became tradition as well.

In earlier times the roles of men and women were more physically demanding than today, and the roles that developed were those that worked. Before technology made travel, communication, manufacturing, building, domestic chores, childrearing, education and even warfare more convenient, easy, faster, less physically and mentally exhausting ,it was necessary for defined roles for society to even function. Now, as technology levels the playing field it is more feasable for more role interchange to occur because natural bio-gender differences are less constraining. Modern gizmos often make child’s play out of work that used to wear folks out.

Trying to rush change in the name of progress by creating an adversarial climate between genders can be counterproductive. Blaming one side or the other for historical gender roles is useless because we have no way of knowing the true context in which others lived because we do not know the future they saw contemporaneously—which affected their choices. In all ages there were intelligent people who made choices to the best of their ability in the context of and practical necessities of their times. Those who follow may think they have 20-20 hindsight, but do they have it for the context of their own times?

In many societies tradition and history have established roles for the genders. It will take time for those to change in a positive way. Hostility and adversarialism can also slow change and retard progress.

Genesis 1:27 of the Bible states, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them.”

There may be a good reason why we have two different genders instead of one. Diminishing the value of child bearing, rearing and nurturing in favor of hyperemphasis on career pursuits may have consequences in the lives of future children and adults that make careers seem secondary in retrospect. A domestic career may be the best choice for some individuals. It is a matter of balance. Of course, multiple available options can also make for better choices.

President Vīķe-Freiberga may want to see positive change for women, but she also knows that there are men—husbands, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, sons and friends—who want the same. Equality is not always necessarily a gender issue. It is an issue for fair-minded people of good will regardless of gender who can intelligently find practical ways to accomplish positive change in the best way for all concerned.

Today is about Rumbula and what happened there. The eyewitnesses and the historians agree on what happened. In the Rumbula forest on Nov. 30 and Dec. 8, 1941, 1,700 executioners murdered more than 25,000 Jews.

Of those 1,700 killers, between 1,000 and 1,500 were residents of Latvia drawn from the SD (the Sicherheitsdienst, or the Nazis’ Security Service), precinct police, Rīga city police, battalion police being trained for military action in Russia, and some 100 Latvian ghetto guards. The execution was carried out in the most cruel and heartless way, under the direction of the Nazi Obergruppenfuehrer Friedrich Jeckeln.

The question of why human beings engage in such savagery is not only an anthropological question. If we mean to safeguard civilization and democracy, we have to examine the events and the participants, and we have to understand its relevance to us and to our times.

Recently in Rīga there has been discussion, especially in newspapers, of how to describe the participants in the Rumbula killings. Some people say that not all the Latvians were there voluntarily. Some say nothing done in those times under Nazi occupation was “voluntary.” Some say those were complicated times. Some say that we should not mention the Latvian participation, because it was not voluntary. Some say that we should forget about the Latvian participation.

It is uncanny that some people are adopting the Nuremburg defense used by the Nazis at their postwar trial. They too denied responsibility for their actions, saying they were “just following orders.”

How sad that anyone in today’s free and democratic Latvia would excuse this kind of crime by saying “it was a complicated time” or the executioners were not “volunteers.”

What we have learned from 20th century history is that no man has to follow orders. Each of us has a moral and ethical obligation to do what is right. We have the duty to recognize evil and immoral acts. We have the duty to refuse to take part in them. We are all volunteers on this earth.

And, how do we teach this morality, this internal ethical standard to our children? We teach them the lessons of the past. We do not pretend that evil never happens. We do not cover up the awful truth.

No, we print it in big letters and we make sure everyone reads it. We make sure everyone knows that this was an evil that no one of us must ever let happen again.

That is why we are here today. That is why a monument to the victims of Rumbula matters. That is why it matters what we write on that monument. It is the truth.

To me, the meaning of Latvia’s Independence Day today is very different to what is was when I was growing up.

As a child of post-war Latvian refugees I too attended “Saturday School” where we learnt about Latvian language, culture and our heritage. It was our duty to attend—we were the future.  We had to keep alive the idea that Latvia could again regain its independence and be a free, independent nation.

Year after year, our elders would at the time of Nov. 18 retell the stories of how Latvia regained its independence in the post-World War I period and how, in the following years, people would celebrate the day. We would each go and place flowers and candles at the feet of a large photo of “Milda” (Latvia’s Freedom Monument). We would listen to recordings of the ringing bells of Rīga’s cathedrals and churches.

As a child I would look forward to the celebrations as we would each get a tub of ice cream to mark the event. But I could not help but feel that for the adults and our elders the day was always tainted with sadness.

In those days, the marking of Independence Day had some sort of personal meaning. Even though I was born and raised in Australia, had never been to Latvia and only knew of the place through what I had learnt at language school and through the stories of my grandparents, I felt personally touched, personally responsible, for making sure that in spite of it all the day would be marked and not forgotten. In my late teens (before Latvia regained its independence) I would attend the events, filled with a sort of nationalistic pride, thinking that we must never forget the dream and that we must ensure that Latvia does regain what it once had.

Today, now that Latvia has regained its independence, the meaning of Independence Day as it used to be seems somewhat redundant. The flame has been handed back to those living in Latvia. The job of the diaspora is done.

No longer do I have a personal sense of duty that the day must be marked and remembered. It has been a number of years since I attended one of the official ceremonies held every year at the Latvian House. It’s not that I have forgotten Latvia or that I am Latvian. I have travelled to Latvia five times and keep in contact with relatives there. I still consider myself part of the Latvian community as many of my closest friends are Latvian and I am married to a person of Latvian heritage. It’s just that since Latvia regained its independence, the celebrations of Nov. 18 hold little or no meaning to me.

In some ways I have fallen to the fate of my fellow Latvian emigres and their descendants. Ever since Latvia regained its independence we are forced to re-invent ourselves—our reason for collective existence—as well as the meaning of Nov. 18. It could be said that Nov. 18 can finally become a true celebration as Latvia is now generally regarded as a free and thriving democracy.

And if we have handed back the flame, is it not up to now up to the people of Latvia to define the true meaning of Nov. 18?  Who is to say that Latvia’s independence needs to be celebrated on Nov. 18? Maybe the date should be changed to some time in August when Latvia regained its independence and the world community recognised that it had done so. Either way, it is not up to those outside of Latvia to decide.