3 July, 2007
I know perfectly that people usually hear only these things, which they would like to hear, that they have their own “regime of truth”, which influences the creation of their social reality. I was taught at my university to have a critical approach to any information I receive and to avoid the creation of this “regime of truth”, which can distract us to be critical and objective at the same time. But I am an idealist by heart, with a strong belief that humans by nature are good and ideas do matter in this imperfect world. Idealists are those persons in world or national politics, who try to contain realists, making this world more peaceful, and friendlier. However, sometimes it is really difficult to be this kind of person.
12:00 am
As a member of the Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO), I was invited to take part in the Civic Forum on democracy future in Latvia "Political decision-making: impunity or accountability?" I had free time and decided to attend this meeting of the opposition, where not only prominent academics, intellectuals, journalists were present, but also some businessmen and representatives of oppositional political parties – New Era, Latvian Social-Democratic Party, Latvian Farmer’s Party, Labour Party and maybe others. Due to the intensive traffic and traffic jams, I was late a little bit. When I came, a woman, standing in front of the audience, was reading a common declaration (however, I could be named as an appeal to the wider public):
"One of the main Latvia's tasks today is the strengthening of democracy and rule of law. (...) Unfortunately in reality we can observe quite opposite processes. Democracy and rule of law in Latvia is ruined by corruption during the elections of the mayor of Yurmala [Latvian summer resort by the sea], violations of the legislation during the election campaign before the parliamentary elections [some parties exceeded their expenses during the campaign, thus violating the Law] and usage of the unfairly obtained power in manipulations with the Laws on State Security. The new state president will symbolize this reality during the whole his tenure. He will be like an embodiment that a principle "One law, one justice for all" does not work in Latvia. The gap between authorities and Latvian voters has never ever been so deep...."
Finally I found a place where I could sit down and take my notes (the hall was very small with more than 100 participants). Next speaker was a prominent political scientist Rasma Kārkliņa. Her message to the audience was about political accountability and recent political decisions:
“… Political accountability of the Government is multidimensional, but in its terms, it is when officials resign or the whole government changes due to the scandal where these officials are involved. This form of the accountability is rather weak in Latvia. However, there are some exceptions, for example, when recently the Latvian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Gaidis Zeibots had resigned after the case when two skydivers died. In the same way during Yurmalgeit scandal [corruption during the elections of the mayor of Yurmala], Minister President forced Minister of Transport Ainārs Šlesers to resign. However, he resumed to fulfill duties of the Minister of Transport after the new elections held last October. The government did not draw political consequences after its unaccountable action to amend legislation of the state security services, unwillingly naming it as a mistake, which is easy to correct. If the government cannot draw the conclusions from different kind of political scandals, this should be done by the Parliament, but at the present political constellation the majority of Saeima [Latvian parliament] is leaded by the government and does not perform an independently, as, for example, starting to question ministers and organize parliamentary inquiries….”
Next political scientist Nellija Ločmele was speaking about the significance of the voter’s voice in the state decision-making process. She was more pessimistic, stating that “there is no belief that individual in Latvia does matter.” According to her view, the recent parliamentary elections were unlawful because of the fact that those parties, which are now in the coalition, have violated the law on party expenses during the election campaign. The government has exhausted the credit of the people, who has to broaden their responsibilities.
The deputy head of the Corruption Preventing and Combating Bureau (KNAB) Juta Striķe emphasized in her speech that referendum on July 7 about scandalous amendments in the Laws on state security services will show the force of the voice of people about what is permitted and not permitted to do, amending laws on security services. “Officials will be forced to take into consideration he will of the people,” said Striķe.
Famous LTV1 journalist Arta Ģiga was very pessimistic about what is happening in Latvia, saying that the fight with the whole system is taking place, not with several corrupted officials or civil servants.
Businessman, the president of the real estate company LATIO Edgars Šīns was even more pessimistic, blaming EU about is failure to make our society more free. At the present moment, Latvian officials do not afraid of someone, because they have no force who they should be afraid of. Brussels officials pay little attention what is happening in Latvia right now. Famous Latvian economic miracle did no affect ordinary people, mainly high ranking officials. According to him, influential people agreed on prior things should be done first, but politicians perform only tasks of executors, but society is rather inert and not so active. This all lead to the fact that changes are not possible that it will be very difficult to change this system of governance. Partly I can agree with his statement. One can only compare foreign policies of all three Baltic States to see the difference, maybe the difference in mentality. If Lithuanians are so active in promoting their interests and their foreign policy agenda, Latvians usually agree with the common EU position and are not so active in its Eastern neighborhood despite the fact that this region is our priority not only in the development cooperation field. Listening to these words of Edgards Šīns, I had remembered one anecdote about average Latvian, published in the magazine Riga Times (Rīgas Laiks):
“Average Latvian by his nature is the sinusoidal anarchist. He reluctantly participates in the parliamentary elections, however with a great pleasure supports a referendum about the dismissal of the parliament and new elections, in which he could reluctantly participate and elect for him unpleasant parliament, which could be dismissed later with a great pleasure.”
But let’s go back to the discussion of our opposition forces and pay attention to our two last speakers – Ainārs Dimants, who is the Chairperson of the Latvian Union of Journalist, and writer Anna Žīgure. The first one tried to give a relatively positive message about the current affairs, however, admitting that democratic traditions are weak in Latvia and Latvian people will show on July 7 what does democracy mean to them, but still he did not manage to get me out of the depressive feeling. This feeling has been deepened by the words of the last speaker – Anna Žīgure, who was criticizing not only our government, but also speaking about dangers to Latvian languages etc. Later I found out that she is the Chairperson of the Fund of the Occupation Museum. This fact explains a lot.
Despite my delay, I managed to get very nice place, from where I could observe the whole audience. During the discussion time, when everyone was allowed to speak up, I was sitting and observing the rest of the participants. Mainly, these were middle aged persons and pensioners; young faces were in minority (if we assume that a young person is a person who is under 35, not 30). I have been living in Latvia twenty two years already, and I do not know why, but I can distinguish ethnical Latvians and Latvian Russian-speakers. At that moment, I could not find a face of a Russian-speaker (only face of my colleague and two known journalists from Latvian Public TV). What does it mean? This means a Civic Forum, where not all the representatives of the Latvian society are present. But this means also that our society is divided not only according to the ethnicity (ethnical Latvians and Russian speakers), but ethnical Latvians are divided among themselves. Latvian society is polarized.
2:20 pm
I left the hall to have a cup of latte in a very depressive mood. I found my colleague and asked him: “Don’t you feel to be driven into depressive mood?” Alex had quickly replied that he does not, he is very positive after his meeting. Hmmm, maybe he managed to visit more depressive events. But these speakers and following discussions gave me a lot of “food” for thinking.
3:30 pm
I am sitting in a nice café in the centre of Riga, reading a new issue of the influential daily Diena, which is very critical of the current government and newly elected president Valdis Zatlers. In the day of elections, on May 31, Diena published a photo of the local tycoon, former prime minister and member of the ruling People’s party member Andris Šķēle with the headline “Against Šķele’s president”, writing on the front page that “The future of the president candidate Valdis Zatlers proposed by Šķēle is the state of legalized corruption, divided society, legal nihilism, political instability, which is not influential on the international arena and as a result subjected to the great external threat.” This time Diena published on its front page an article with the headline “Latvia risks having a president with a criminal record”:
“Envelope money” paid by patients had to be declared. This was confirmed by the newly elected president Valdis Zatlers, making comments on the content of the letter he received from the State Revenue Service. Doing so, he in an indirect way confirms that he has been violated a law, which says that Valdis Zatlers as an official had to declare all the revenues and presents – “envelope payments” made by patients. This means that the State Revenue Service has a possibility to inflict an administrative penalty because of the undeclared revenues.”
On the next page I found a section with the name “People’s Voice”, where journalists of Diena had asked ordinary citizens whether they will participate in the referendum. One answer really deserves your attention, because this answer shows the real life and attitude towards politics of a middle aged inhabitant of Latvia:
"I could try to participate. Till this moment I have never participated even in the elections. However, one time one should start. This bureaucracy and corruption on all levels, how I understand from the news. Maybe something will change. They [the government] do not take into account under class of the society and consider us as we do not exist. I did not go to sign, [it was necessary to have 140 000 signatures of Latvian citizens in order to call a referendum], because was overloaded with my work. My sons are in Ireland, and one of them has told me that he will not go back. "
My next newspaper was Latvian Newspaper (Latvijas Avīze), which is very popular among older people and in the countryside as well as among nationalists. In an interview MP from the ruling People’s Party Jānis Lagzdiņš complained about the fact that Latvian language is not the sole language for communication in Latvia that Russian language prevails in the society that when a Latvian meets Russian-speaker they both start to speak in Russian although later tries to speak in Latvian or in English, if they are young. Again fears about Latvian language, I think I heard these words before.
5:30 pm
I meet my friend; we go to the park, having nice and interesting discussions. He tells me an interesting story he was observing couple hours ago. He works in a small enterprise as a web-page administrator. This afternoon his Russian boss was interviewing a young Latvian for the position of the logistics manager. The office-seeker had started to speak in Latvian, but my friend’s boss continued to interview this young man in Russian. At one moment the boss asked this young Latvian about his knowledge of Russian. The office-seeker had told that his knowledge is rather poor. “No, no. We need a person who speaks perfectly as in Latvian as in Russian,” was the answer of the head of the small Latvian enterprise.
11:00 pm
I live in Pārdaugava (over the river Daugava), not far away from the Old town. I take a mini bus and go home. The mini bus is overcrowded by young males and females – Latvians, Russian-speakers, and Pakistanis from my university. Russian-speakers speak with Latvians in Latvian; Latvians speak with Russian-speakers in Latvian. They do not care about ethnicity, politics; they are young and speak about music, upcoming friend’s party, Ocean’s thirteen. I live in a perfect tolerant society. But maybe this is my own “regime of truth”?
1:00 am
My brain is still working. Now I understand why David Usupashvili (Republican Party)speaks about democratic decorations in Georgia.
I know perfectly that people usually hear only these things, which they would like to hear, that they have their own “regime of truth”, which influences the creation of their social reality. I was taught at my university to have a critical approach to any information I receive and to avoid the creation of this “regime of truth”, which can distract us to be critical and objective at the same time. But I am an idealist by heart, with a strong belief that humans by nature are good and ideas do matter in this imperfect world. Idealists are those persons in world or national politics, who try to contain realists, making this world more peaceful, and friendlier. However, sometimes it is really difficult to be this kind of person.
12:00 am
As a member of the Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO), I was invited to take part in the Civic Forum on democracy future in Latvia "Political decision-making: impunity or accountability?" I had free time and decided to attend this meeting of the opposition, where not only prominent academics, intellectuals, journalists were present, but also some businessmen and representatives of oppositional political parties – New Era, Latvian Social-Democratic Party, Latvian Farmer’s Party, Labour Party and maybe others. Due to the intensive traffic and traffic jams, I was late a little bit. When I came, a woman, standing in front of the audience, was reading a common declaration (however, I could be named as an appeal to the wider public):
"One of the main Latvia's tasks today is the strengthening of democracy and rule of law. (...) Unfortunately in reality we can observe quite opposite processes. Democracy and rule of law in Latvia is ruined by corruption during the elections of the mayor of Yurmala [Latvian summer resort by the sea], violations of the legislation during the election campaign before the parliamentary elections [some parties exceeded their expenses during the campaign, thus violating the Law] and usage of the unfairly obtained power in manipulations with the Laws on State Security. The new state president will symbolize this reality during the whole his tenure. He will be like an embodiment that a principle "One law, one justice for all" does not work in Latvia. The gap between authorities and Latvian voters has never ever been so deep...."
Finally I found a place where I could sit down and take my notes (the hall was very small with more than 100 participants). Next speaker was a prominent political scientist Rasma Kārkliņa. Her message to the audience was about political accountability and recent political decisions:
“… Political accountability of the Government is multidimensional, but in its terms, it is when officials resign or the whole government changes due to the scandal where these officials are involved. This form of the accountability is rather weak in Latvia. However, there are some exceptions, for example, when recently the Latvian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Gaidis Zeibots had resigned after the case when two skydivers died. In the same way during Yurmalgeit scandal [corruption during the elections of the mayor of Yurmala], Minister President forced Minister of Transport Ainārs Šlesers to resign. However, he resumed to fulfill duties of the Minister of Transport after the new elections held last October. The government did not draw political consequences after its unaccountable action to amend legislation of the state security services, unwillingly naming it as a mistake, which is easy to correct. If the government cannot draw the conclusions from different kind of political scandals, this should be done by the Parliament, but at the present political constellation the majority of Saeima [Latvian parliament] is leaded by the government and does not perform an independently, as, for example, starting to question ministers and organize parliamentary inquiries….”
Next political scientist Nellija Ločmele was speaking about the significance of the voter’s voice in the state decision-making process. She was more pessimistic, stating that “there is no belief that individual in Latvia does matter.” According to her view, the recent parliamentary elections were unlawful because of the fact that those parties, which are now in the coalition, have violated the law on party expenses during the election campaign. The government has exhausted the credit of the people, who has to broaden their responsibilities.
The deputy head of the Corruption Preventing and Combating Bureau (KNAB) Juta Striķe emphasized in her speech that referendum on July 7 about scandalous amendments in the Laws on state security services will show the force of the voice of people about what is permitted and not permitted to do, amending laws on security services. “Officials will be forced to take into consideration he will of the people,” said Striķe.
Famous LTV1 journalist Arta Ģiga was very pessimistic about what is happening in Latvia, saying that the fight with the whole system is taking place, not with several corrupted officials or civil servants.
Businessman, the president of the real estate company LATIO Edgars Šīns was even more pessimistic, blaming EU about is failure to make our society more free. At the present moment, Latvian officials do not afraid of someone, because they have no force who they should be afraid of. Brussels officials pay little attention what is happening in Latvia right now. Famous Latvian economic miracle did no affect ordinary people, mainly high ranking officials. According to him, influential people agreed on prior things should be done first, but politicians perform only tasks of executors, but society is rather inert and not so active. This all lead to the fact that changes are not possible that it will be very difficult to change this system of governance. Partly I can agree with his statement. One can only compare foreign policies of all three Baltic States to see the difference, maybe the difference in mentality. If Lithuanians are so active in promoting their interests and their foreign policy agenda, Latvians usually agree with the common EU position and are not so active in its Eastern neighborhood despite the fact that this region is our priority not only in the development cooperation field. Listening to these words of Edgards Šīns, I had remembered one anecdote about average Latvian, published in the magazine Riga Times (Rīgas Laiks):
“Average Latvian by his nature is the sinusoidal anarchist. He reluctantly participates in the parliamentary elections, however with a great pleasure supports a referendum about the dismissal of the parliament and new elections, in which he could reluctantly participate and elect for him unpleasant parliament, which could be dismissed later with a great pleasure.”
But let’s go back to the discussion of our opposition forces and pay attention to our two last speakers – Ainārs Dimants, who is the Chairperson of the Latvian Union of Journalist, and writer Anna Žīgure. The first one tried to give a relatively positive message about the current affairs, however, admitting that democratic traditions are weak in Latvia and Latvian people will show on July 7 what does democracy mean to them, but still he did not manage to get me out of the depressive feeling. This feeling has been deepened by the words of the last speaker – Anna Žīgure, who was criticizing not only our government, but also speaking about dangers to Latvian languages etc. Later I found out that she is the Chairperson of the Fund of the Occupation Museum. This fact explains a lot.
Despite my delay, I managed to get very nice place, from where I could observe the whole audience. During the discussion time, when everyone was allowed to speak up, I was sitting and observing the rest of the participants. Mainly, these were middle aged persons and pensioners; young faces were in minority (if we assume that a young person is a person who is under 35, not 30). I have been living in Latvia twenty two years already, and I do not know why, but I can distinguish ethnical Latvians and Latvian Russian-speakers. At that moment, I could not find a face of a Russian-speaker (only face of my colleague and two known journalists from Latvian Public TV). What does it mean? This means a Civic Forum, where not all the representatives of the Latvian society are present. But this means also that our society is divided not only according to the ethnicity (ethnical Latvians and Russian speakers), but ethnical Latvians are divided among themselves. Latvian society is polarized.
2:20 pm
I left the hall to have a cup of latte in a very depressive mood. I found my colleague and asked him: “Don’t you feel to be driven into depressive mood?” Alex had quickly replied that he does not, he is very positive after his meeting. Hmmm, maybe he managed to visit more depressive events. But these speakers and following discussions gave me a lot of “food” for thinking.
3:30 pm
I am sitting in a nice café in the centre of Riga, reading a new issue of the influential daily Diena, which is very critical of the current government and newly elected president Valdis Zatlers. In the day of elections, on May 31, Diena published a photo of the local tycoon, former prime minister and member of the ruling People’s party member Andris Šķēle with the headline “Against Šķele’s president”, writing on the front page that “The future of the president candidate Valdis Zatlers proposed by Šķēle is the state of legalized corruption, divided society, legal nihilism, political instability, which is not influential on the international arena and as a result subjected to the great external threat.” This time Diena published on its front page an article with the headline “Latvia risks having a president with a criminal record”:
“Envelope money” paid by patients had to be declared. This was confirmed by the newly elected president Valdis Zatlers, making comments on the content of the letter he received from the State Revenue Service. Doing so, he in an indirect way confirms that he has been violated a law, which says that Valdis Zatlers as an official had to declare all the revenues and presents – “envelope payments” made by patients. This means that the State Revenue Service has a possibility to inflict an administrative penalty because of the undeclared revenues.”
On the next page I found a section with the name “People’s Voice”, where journalists of Diena had asked ordinary citizens whether they will participate in the referendum. One answer really deserves your attention, because this answer shows the real life and attitude towards politics of a middle aged inhabitant of Latvia:
"I could try to participate. Till this moment I have never participated even in the elections. However, one time one should start. This bureaucracy and corruption on all levels, how I understand from the news. Maybe something will change. They [the government] do not take into account under class of the society and consider us as we do not exist. I did not go to sign, [it was necessary to have 140 000 signatures of Latvian citizens in order to call a referendum], because was overloaded with my work. My sons are in Ireland, and one of them has told me that he will not go back. "
My next newspaper was Latvian Newspaper (Latvijas Avīze), which is very popular among older people and in the countryside as well as among nationalists. In an interview MP from the ruling People’s Party Jānis Lagzdiņš complained about the fact that Latvian language is not the sole language for communication in Latvia that Russian language prevails in the society that when a Latvian meets Russian-speaker they both start to speak in Russian although later tries to speak in Latvian or in English, if they are young. Again fears about Latvian language, I think I heard these words before.
5:30 pm
I meet my friend; we go to the park, having nice and interesting discussions. He tells me an interesting story he was observing couple hours ago. He works in a small enterprise as a web-page administrator. This afternoon his Russian boss was interviewing a young Latvian for the position of the logistics manager. The office-seeker had started to speak in Latvian, but my friend’s boss continued to interview this young man in Russian. At one moment the boss asked this young Latvian about his knowledge of Russian. The office-seeker had told that his knowledge is rather poor. “No, no. We need a person who speaks perfectly as in Latvian as in Russian,” was the answer of the head of the small Latvian enterprise.
11:00 pm
I live in Pārdaugava (over the river Daugava), not far away from the Old town. I take a mini bus and go home. The mini bus is overcrowded by young males and females – Latvians, Russian-speakers, and Pakistanis from my university. Russian-speakers speak with Latvians in Latvian; Latvians speak with Russian-speakers in Latvian. They do not care about ethnicity, politics; they are young and speak about music, upcoming friend’s party, Ocean’s thirteen. I live in a perfect tolerant society. But maybe this is my own “regime of truth”?
1:00 am
My brain is still working. Now I understand why David Usupashvili (Republican Party)speaks about democratic decorations in Georgia.
2 comments:
Paldies, spasiba, for your nice, interesting and intensive report, Irina!
Thank you also for inventing the term "Latvian idealist" - I could like to join you!
Alberts, Bremene, Vaacijaa
www.lettland.blogspot.com
Paldies par labiem vaardiem!
Centiishos arii turpmaak rakstiit par Latvijaa notiekosho, tomeer vairaak par Gruziju, jo driiz paarvaacos uz kaadu laiku uz Tbilisi/Rustavi.
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