Lake Burtnieki (Magicmaker) looking west I.

 [14] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (2)

The leadership of Harmony Centre, the party with the numerically largest number of voters in Latvia, was not included in the present government of Latvia by the Latvian nationalist wing.

As mentioned in the previous blog, the geopolitical orientation of the nationalist wing is currently playing on the populist sentiments of dedicated Latvian communitarians, which is a noble sentiment.

The Latvian communitarian sentiment however is knotted by several so-called “ties”, which like the Gordian knot will not untie and let breathe.

Lake Burtnieki (Magicmaker) looking west II.

The first of these ties is the Latvian language. The 1.9 million Latvians, minus some six hundred thousand Russian speaking inhabitants http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/policy/4641/4642/Muznieks/ , are committed to their language, even though the lingua franca after nearly five decades of Soviet occupation was the Russian language. Russian still remains the lingua franca at the work place among many Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, etc. economic refugees in England and Ireland

While this writer does not dispute the importance of the Latvian language as a bond among Latvian communitarians, the practical aspects, never mind the negative ones, are hardly ever discussed due to the exploitation of populist jingoism by Latvian governments in office since 1991.

One of the practical aspects that profoundly affects the role of the Latvian language are the limitations imposed on it by demography and the nature of the vehicle by which language is communicated. Since the total number of allegedly ethnic Latvians is likely to hover just above one million mark, the practical effects have a marked influence on Latvian authorship on the materials being read.

Lake Burtnieki (Magicmaker) looking west III.

For example, this author experienced quite a shock, when a manuscript that he offered to a publisher received an offer of Ls 189 (about $350). Imagine such an offer being made to an established Latvian writer (not me)! Such monies amount to a one month salary for unskilled labor. No wonder that most books that appear these days in Latvian are translations of foreign authors, translation being a far quicker process than creating an original work, even as one may wonder about the quality of such translations. Of course, editing an original work is an expense that publishers cannot afford except at a superficial level.

As this writer has pointed out before, the spiritual aspects of the Latvian language, the notable spiritual role of the endearing word (misnamed ‘diminutive’) goes virtually unnoticed. Compare the role of the Latvian folk songs or dainas with the Japanese haiku. While the Japanese honor their haiku with an annual festival and even the emperor writes a haiku poem for the occasion, the Latvian daina is hardly noticed and for all practical purposes is dead.

The demographic handicap experienced by the Latvian language has been long exploited by the Harmony Centre Party through its many requests that Russian speaking Latvians (most of them of Russian descent) be allowed Russian language schools. This point of view has been best expressed by Igor Pimanov, a deputy from Harmony Centre at the Latvian Saeima. See http://rt.com/politics/latvia-russian-language-universities/ .

[This writer remains an anglophile in so far as the Latvian lingua franca of tomorrow is concerned. What language you and I speak at home is your and my personal business. When my English speaking relatives visit Latvia, I tend to speak in English with them, even as with my neighbors I speak Latvian, and with Russian speaking people, I communicate through a dictionary or by way of sign language.]

The second Gordean knot for Latvian communitarians comes within the jingoistic context is the Nationalist block’s (represented by the Unity Party) exclusive orientation to the West and represents the McCarthyite (an American Senator from Wisconsin in the 1950s) wing in European politics.

As understandable as an anti-Soviet stance among those once occupied by the Soviet Union may be, it is this near exclusively West orientation that has harmed Latvia’s economic development most.

The orientation West has caused the Latvian people to think of themselves as a border state of the West, and, therefore, the geopolitical thinking among Latvians remains limited to the West, even as a strong pro-NATO bias bolsters the jingoist stance against the East and Russia.

As a result, it is not surprising that the Latvian government has no forward looking economic program or “vision” for Latvia.

Admittedly, there is some ‘noise’ due to the economic pressures now facing the Latvian people about the Latvian government being more cooperative with Russia. However, this is likely to be an initiative of the Swedish banks, which ‘occupy’ Latvia by way of bank ownership, forcing Latvians debt, then forcing them to deforest their lands, then buying the land at a fraction of its real price when the owners have spent their money. As the  news item (in Latvian) shows, the Swedes top off their ‘victory’ by selling Latvians cheap Swedish potatoes http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/254154. 

Lake Burtnieki (Magicmaker) looking west IV.

It does not take much to realize that Swedish interests may be trying to force Russia to recognize the Swedish ‘occupation’ of Latvia as de facto. If so, the Harmony Centre Party, in so far as its membership also has Latvians aboard, may be the only vehicle of resistance to such an ‘occupation’, both, in the interest of Latvians and as possible check mate for Russia.

If you wish to keep Latvian land for Latvians, here is a ‘For Sale’ offer http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/ If you cut down the oaks on the land, you may well recover a part of your investment. The present owner refuses to destroy the 25 or so oak trees.

Highly recommended article by Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers: Latvia and the disciples of 'internal devaluation'  To quote: "Latvia; a country that has imposed one of the world's most brutal austerity regimes on its people and whose policies have pushed it to near demographic collapse."