[19] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (7)

Part 1.

Latvia’s human sacrifice: abandoned children neglected

http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/254993 

It is common among mythologists and anthropologists to see in sacrifices [made in what are called “foundation myths” (usually of and by “primitive” people)] as “foundational acts”. It is also common to refer to such foundational sacrifices as foundational violence.

A favorite scholar, literary critic and  philosopher of mine is Rene Girard. Professor Girard wrote some very thought provoking books about human sacrifice, especially about the role in human sacrifice of the “scapegoat”.

The scapegoat in mythology is the person whom the community selects—for whatever reasons of its own—to sacrifice when the tensions inter- or intra- a group has reached the breaking point, i.e., the community is threatened by the tensions with breaking up.

At such times, what ever it is that ails the community screams for a correction. The circumstance may be a physical provocation, an enemy, or it may simply be confusion. However, the expectation of violence becomes part of everyone’s subjective self. When subjective concensus unbeknownst to itself reaches a peak, yet remains unspoken, we may count on it that someone will speak up.

He/she may go to the temple and speak to the priest.

“Holy brother, I think it is So Andso who is creating all the trouble among us. I believe you should consider that we have him done away with, have him sacrificed. At least, let us chase him from our midst.”

To which the holy brother replies: “I see what You mean. I have for some time been thinking along those same lines, except that I do not think that So Andso is at fault, but that it is You. Temple guards, seize this man and lock him up. He looks starved. Fatten him up. Bring him every night a new village virgin for company.”

Imagine now that you are a young Latvian man who went to complain to the priest and received the above sentence. Would you leave the virgins untouched?

If you are a Latvian of today, surely not. You would take everyone of the virgins and give them a ride on the best horse You had. The priest would then call the villagers together and give them the news.

“That son-of-a-bitch should be castrated,” screamed an elderly woman. “Off with his head!” screamed a great number.

“We should not do this,” said the holy brother to the villagers. “Not today anyway. We had our foundational sacrifice many years ago. That event horriblis was terrible enough, but it brought us together. Which is why we have become a kinder and a more united people. Now we only sacrifice once a year to remind ourselves that we live not in a virtual but real world.”

“I agree,” seconded someone out of the group that had gathered at the temple. “That was a bloody event that should not be repeated often. Okay, give John another virgin for the night.”

“Good,” said the holy brother. “The next summer solstice, Johns Day, does not come until June. The temple will keep John supplied with virgins. When Johns Day comes, John will hang his head in shame, but die happy. And we all will breathe a sigh of relief”.

I agree with Professor Girard that the scape goats [likely called by proto- Latvians “Cross-Johns” (Krish-Jahnji/ Christ-ianity)] are among the first human scape goats who were allowed to voice a subjective self. This subjectivity was later described as the subjectivity of a holy man or woman, even God. The New Testament is one such subjective story.

As a consequence of the switch of who is or is not guilty of seeking and persecuting a scapegoat, scapegoating became a crime.

However, if violence (idealized as ‘sacrifice’) is necessary for the foundation of a community—is it not that any and all violent events may be looked at as foundational violence? Even suicide, surely a misbegotten foundation act, is a foundational act nonetheless. A suicide more than likely gives witness to the fact that there is no community or nation worthy the name.

Going by such myths, the question that arises is “What is the foundational act of Latvia in 1991? We know what the foundational events were in 1918. What was the foundational act of Latvia in 1991?”

[19] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (7)

Part 2.

We know that during the “Days of the Barricades” in Riga in 1991, the Omon, a specnaz group of the Soviet Union, let loose a barrage of bullets from the streets near the Ministry of the Interior http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y4wLPgTxwk and killed five people, a videoman/ filmmaker, among them.

One way that one may look at the death of the videoman is that he was filming the events of violence as part of the re-foundation ministrations begun by the Soviet Union.

As it happened, the Soviet Union did not survive, and a re-foundation of Latvia occurred instead. Still, the question remains—especially in the light of the corruption that followed—whether the deaths of said five was enough of a foundational sacrifice to become internalized in the body and blood of every Latvian?

The filmmaker was shot and died as one who documents an events. He recorded flashes of light from Omon’s guns firing. The camera also recorded the video camera falling in a dizzying whirl of its own motion, then coming to rest and pointing nowhere in particular. The filmmaker was struck by a bullet. His death was accidental in that he was part of the fifth estate (reporters) and did not face or fight the fire, but was moving away from it.  

In other words, the foundational violence of Second Latvia (1991) was not clearly defined. Sensing the vagueness, the uncertainty, Latvians prefer to “see” the Second Foundation of Latvia as “a singing Revolution”.

The re-foundational violence of Latvia’s was felt by many as unconvincing, and one man, Adolfs Bukhis, a tool and diemaker from Jelgava, tried a second foundational act in May of 1993. He shot himself in front of the Latvian Monument to Freedom in the centre of Riga. He died protesting corruption in Latvia’s government led by Latvians. Pervasive corruption had made Latvians feel that the re-foundation of Latvia had become a dismantling of Latvia.

It is of course difficult to say when re-foundational sacrifice is enough to begin exerting its influence on all who are witness to it. In the case of Latvia, all that can be said is that it did not suffice. A renewed Latvia was soon seized by interests that were able to neutralize emotions activated by such violence as had occurred in 1991. By 1993 the then Latvian government felt strong enough in its corruption to hide the notes found in Bukhis pocket, and there were few, perhaps no voices from the public that demanded that the notes be made public.

As for Mr. Bukhis, we do not know how he formulated his sacrifice. However, we may presume, that he viewed corruption in government as proof that government or elements in government were not part of the Latvian community, at least not of the kind of community that most everyone of the “singing revolution” had prayed for.

The re-founded Latvia that arose after surviving Soviet occupation was not a political entity structured horizontally, seeking an economic order working toward economic equivalency among its smaller communities. Instead, Latvia became a nation divided in those who dwelt on the “North Pole” and those who dwelt on the “South Pole”. This means that (an over simplification no doubt) that Latvians who live on the North Pole have beautiful smiles and shiny teeth, while Latvians living on the South Pole have rotten teeth and poor health.

The subjective thoughts of many Latvians on Foundation Day 2011 (commemorated on November 18) are restless and distrought. These thoughts are like cranes rising in air for a long journey, but yet circce in a circle of chaos. An order for flight has not yet emerged out of the whir.

The Latvian government (for practical purposes near broke) acts as if nothing is missing, that everything is in order.

The President and the Ministers of Latvia are working furiously to cut government expenses at the expense of poor Latvians. The poor Latvians have protested by leaving Latvia for a job abroad mosly. No one in government is thinking or suggesting ways of making money by way of analysis of the present and imagining untraditional niches that may be more compatible with the future.

The demogrophic of Latvia is in a Death Spiral. At least one government official thinks that Latvians test out dumber than Russians when it comes to critical thought. Foreign banks are happy that Latvians are cutting down their private forests, because it means Latvians are paying off their debt.

The optimists are saying that though Europe is falling apart, Latvia is either re-founding itself or founding something else. Founded on air blown by a joke perhaps?

This property, 17.9 ha for sale. See http://melnaysjanis.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 1.

The current dream of Latvian nationalist coalition parties to control Riga is based on the fact that Riga has been the capital city of Latvia since the foundation of Latvia in 1918.

Though Riga remained the capital of Soviet Latvia during the Soviet occupation, “occupied” Riga underwent significant changes. For one, the Latvian population, which had replaced a largely German population at the beginning of the 20^th century and constituted a majority of the Riga population by 1940, decreased as Riga became the domicile of many Russians in the fifty year period under the occupation of the  USSR.

Today the seats in the Latvian Saeima are roughly proportional to the ethnic divide in Latvia, even as Riga--with roughly 42% of Latvian Russians--remains a major centre of Latvian Russians.  

From the point of view of tactical manuverability and  geopolitical advantage, the Latvian nationalist dream and the consequences of their attempt to realize it, have proven as unrealistic as disastrous (currently fait accompli) to the interests of Latvians. There are two reasons for this:

a)     The Latvian Latvians who were forced to leave the countryside due to neo-capitalist agricultural policy of the EU (largely favored by Latvian nationalists) did not result in an increase of Latvian population in Riga. This is because of the corruption in the Latvian Latvian government (which uses ethnic jingoism to bamboozle the rest of Latvians into a deadlock vote) and misguided economic policies. In real-life, most Latvians bypass Riga for Ireland, England, and other countries offering competitively better job opportunities.

b)    The corruption of Latvian Latvian politicians resulted in straight-jacketed Latvian economic policies, which led to a take-over of Latvia by foreign (largely Swedish) banking operations. The infiltration of Latvian interests by the “West” (a term used to avoid using such terms as “Swedish”, NATO, or Brussels) has turned Latvian economic policies into a Ouija board like exercise. The Latvian Ouija board works, because the forces that guide the pointer remain largely unknown to Latvians and turns them into easily duped believers in magic.

The deadlock vote--the result of a never-ending stoking of jingoism (encouraged by the “West” of course)--has allowed the nationalists to create a dogma of sufficiently long duration to engineer an inter-Latvian geopolitical advantage for Riga. That is to say, a reapportionment of the territories of the earlier four regions of Latvia (formerly a mythic three) into five, created the new Region of Riga.

The Region of Riga expanded Riga’s territorial influence at the expense of the three regions surrounding it, re Vidzeme, Zemgale, and Kurzeme. With the exception of Kurzeme, all other regions were deprived of access to the sea.

In effect, the three landlocked Latvian regions (formerly only the region of Latgale had suffered from such disadvantage) have been forced to become economically dependent on Riga.

No wonder that Riga can so readily misspend 130 million to build a totally useless (I call it ‘broken wing’) glass frame for its library. [I have my ideas about its uses, but that for another time.]

Were it not for the self-induced ineptness of the Latvian Russian controlled Harmony Centre [its ineptness clearly a result of knee-jerk reaction to the Latvian Latvian coalition (thus failing to unite all Latvians], Riga might have fought off the penetration of Latvia by foreign banks and the weakening of its sovereignity.

Part 2 follows. The original at http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 2.

An  offer of Riga to the highest bidder will result in disaster (except for the Region of Kurzeme) if it is done with the Latvian hypernationalist map of inter-Latvian geopolitical advantages intact.

If the reapportionment of Latvia’s regions is not deconstructed and Riga is not forced back into less expansive presumptions (for example, a 30 km radius from the flagpole on the tower of the President’s castle), a planto rent it would not result in an advantage to Latvians. The construction of the current map falls into the trap favored by the Unity Party (Vienotība) and Latvian geopoliticos advised by a Oija board controled by the “West”.

Although the Riga region is not the creation of the after- or post-‘fired’ government in office, it was created by the same forces. Also, the President of Latvia, AndrisBerzins) was still only the President of the Swedish afiliate in Latvia, Unibanka. He had not yet become a Swedish poke in Latvian ribs in the office of Latvia’s president. The President, therefore, deserves to recuse  himself from the office even at this late date.

[Parenthethetically, the reconstruction of the Riga region could begin by returning the formerly administratively unified region of “The Northern Vidzeme Biosphere" its unity and give it more generous legal powers to enforce a true biosphere, i.e., one protected from human predators cutting down its forests and killing the wildboars/pigs.

A map of the biosphere: here.  

In other words, in the process of deconstructing the Riga region back down to size, it should be kept in mind that Riga is a sweet. Riga has the potential of being rented to business under limited, but more or less sovereign authority of its own–for an agreed period of time. Latvians want investors to come to Riga and begin working at their business, but only by staying within boundaries drawn with the consent of the Latvian people. Those boundaries include limitations as to Riga’s extent on land and respect for the rights of the inhabitants of the rest of Latvia, not least for Latvia's “forest green” heritage.]

This is a good time for the Harmony Party to speak not only for Latvian Russians (the party’s majority membership), but to speak up on behalf of Latvian Latvian interests that have not been well served by Latvian nationalist destructiveness of Latvian interests.

It takes too long to tell all the reasons why a 3-way split of interests in Latvia and Riga (the deadlock between Latvian-Latvians and Latvian Russians) serves all three parties concerned, but one can reasily percieve that the language issue so troubling to the unity of Latvian citizens is replaced with English as the language of everyday social intercourse, while Latvian and Russian remains a subjective issue among the speakers when home.

In Jelgava, the next Latvian capital city, Latvian will of course prevail.

Latvian will also prevail in the rest of Latvia where “forest green” rather than the chainsaw or plow rules. As for the latter, it is misleading (as an ad on television loudly claims) that for the last seven hundred years the Latvians have been a peasant (zemnieku) people.

For more than half the above mentioned 700 years, Latvians were forest dwellers, who cultivated a patch of land (sokle) to enhance their forest diet with turnip and beet. The term "brotherhood of the forest" (Mezha brahlyi) was a popular term until even after the end of World War 2. The sense of freedom for a Latvian comes from the forest, not from plowing the land for the barons.

It is only after 1933 (the arrival of the so-called Ulmanis regime, that Latvians officially become descendants of peasants. They stay locked into this mistaken perception of themselves to this day.

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 1.

The current dream of Latvian nationalist coalition parties to control Riga is based on the fact that Riga has been the capital city of Latvia since the foundation of Latvia in 1918.

Though Riga remained the capital of Soviet Latvia during the Soviet occupation, “occupied” Riga underwent significant changes. For one, the Latvian population, which had replaced a largely German population at the beginning of the 20^th century and constituted a majority of the Riga population by 1940, decreased as Riga became the domicile of many Russians in the fifty year period under the occupation of the  USSR.

Today the seats in the Latvian Saeima are roughly proportional to the ethnic divide http://www.economist.com/node/21530161 in Latvia, even as Riga, with roughly 42% of Latvian Russians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Latvia , remains a major centre of Latvian Russians.  

From a point of view of tactical manuverability and  geopolitical advantage, the Latvian nationalist dream and the consequences of the attempt to realize it, have proven as unrealistic as disastrous (currently fait accompli) to the interests of Latvians. There are two reasons for this:

a)     The Latvian Latvians who were forced to leave the countryside due to neo-capitalist agricultural policy of the EU (largely favored by Latvian nationalists) did not result in an increase of Latvian population in Riga. This is because of the corruption in the Latvian Latvian government (which uses ethnic jingoism to bamboozle the rest of Latvians into a deadlock http://deadlocked.askdefine.com/ vote) and misguided economic policies. In real-life, most Latvians bypass Riga to this day for Ireland, England, and other countries offering competitively better job opportunities.

b)    The corruption of Latvian Latvian politicos resulted in straight-jacketed Latvian economic policies that led to a take-over of Latvia by foreign (largely Swedish) banking operations. The infiltration of Latvian interests by the “West” (a term used to avoid using the terms “Swedish”, NATO, or Brussels) has turned Latvian economic policies into a Ouija board like http://www.skepdic.com/ouija.html  exercise. The Latvian Ouija board actually works, because the forces that guide the pointer remain largely unknown to most Latvians and turns them into easily duped believers in magic.

The deadlock vote, the result of a never-ending stoking of jingoism (encouraged by the “West” of course), has allowed the nationalists to create a dogma of sufficiently long duration to engineer an inter-Latvian geopolitical advantage for Riga. This is to say, a reapportionment of the territories of the earlier four regions of Latvia (formerly a mythic three) into five, created the Region of Riga.

The Region of Riga expanded Riga’s territorial influence at the expense of the three regions surrounding it, re Vidzeme, Zemgale, and Kurzeme.

With the exception of Kurzeme, all the other regions were deprived of access to the sea.

In effect, the three landlocked Latvian regions (formerly only the region of Latgale had suffered from this disadvantage) have been forced to become economically dependent on Riga http://mapsof.net/map/latvia-regions-map.

No wonder that Riga could so readily misspend 130 million to build a totally useless (I call it ‘broken wing’) glass frame for its library. [I have my ideas about its used, but that at another time.]

Were it not for the self-induced ineptness of the Latvian Russian controlled Harmony Centre Party [its ineptness clearly a result of knee-jerk jingoist reaction to the Latvian Latvian coalition (thus failing to unite all Latvians], Riga might have fought off the penetration of Latvia by foreign banks and the weakening of its sovereignity.

Part 2 follows. The original at http://rigacapital.blogspot.com/

[18] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (6)

Part 2.

My geopolitical offer of Riga to the highest bidder, if using the Latvian Latvian or Latvian hypernationalist created map of Latvian territory would be a disaster to the other regions of Latvia.

If the reapportionment of Latvia’s regions is not deconstructed and Riga is not forced back into less expansive pretentions (for example, a 30 km radius from the flagpole on the tower of the President’s castle), my plan is not to the advantage of Latvians. It falls into the trap favored by the Unity Party (Vienotība) and Latvian geopoliticos advised by a Oija board controled by the “West”.

Although the Riga region is not the creation of the after- or post-‘fired’ government currently in office, it was created by the same forces. At the time, the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andris_B%C4%93rzi%C5%86%C5%A1_(Latvian_President) was still only the President of the Swedish afiliate in Latvia, Unibanka http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEB_Unibanka . He had not yet ascended to become a Swedish poke in Latvian ribs from the offices of Latvia’s president. The latter, therefore, deserves to recuse http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Recuse  himself from the office even late after ascending to it.

[Parenthethetically, the reconstruction of the Riga region could begin by returning the formerly administratively unified region of “The Northern Vidzeme Biosphere”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Vidzeme_Biosphere_Reserve its unity and give it more generous legal powers to enforce a true biosphere, i.e., one protected from human predators cutting down its forests and killing off http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx2EuC2sxLY&feature=related the wild pigs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeXqrHMSYNU .

A map of the biosphere: http://www.baltcica.org/casestudies/latvia.html  

In other words, in the process of deconstructing the Riga region to size, it should be kept in mind that it is a sweet. It has the potential of being rented to business under limited, yet more or less sovereign authority of its own–for an agreed to period of time. Latvians want investors to come to Riga and feel free to begin working at their business, but only by staying within boundaries drawn with the consent of the Latvian people. Those boundaries include limitations as to Riga’s extent on land and respect for the rights of the inhabitants of the rest of Latvia, not least Latvian “forest green” heritage.]

This is a good time for the Harmony Party to speak not only for Latvian Russians (the party’s majority membership), but to speak up on behalf of Latvian Latvian interests that have not been so well served by Latvian Latvian nationalist self-destructiveness.

It takes too long to state all the reasons why a 3-way split of interests in Latvia and Riga serves all three parties concerned, but one can readily percieve that the language issue now so troubling to the unity of the Latvian citizens is replaced with English as the language of everyday social intercourse in Riga, while Latvian and Russian remains a subjective issue among the speakers when home.

In Jelgava, the next Latvian capital city, Latvian will of course prevail.

Latvian will also prevail in the rest of Latvia where “forest green” rather than the chainsaw or plow rules. As for the latter, it is misleading as an ad on television loudly claims, that for the last seven hundred years the Latvians have been a peasant (zemnieku) people.

For much more than half the above mentioned 700 years, Latvians were forest dwellers, who cultivated a patch of land to enhance their forest diet with turnip and beet. The words brotherhood of the forest (Mezha brahlyi) was a popular term until even after the end of World War 2. The sense of freedom for a Latvian used to come from the forest and not from plowing the land for the barons.

It is only after, say, 1933 (the arrival of the so-called Ulmanis regime, that Latvians officially become descendants of peasants. They stay locked into that perception to this day.

[17] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (5)

Part 1.

One way to describe cruelty is as violence hidden. Hiding behind the milder word “cruelty”, violence and savagery can be obfuscated and hid in a mist. Such cruelty, i.e., savagery-violence, is the way of the Latvian government with the Latvian people.

I am writing about the savagery-cruelty-violence by the Latvian government as it expresses itself through economic cruelty-violence. For more detailed and sensate proof see Michael Hudson’s and Jeffrey Sommers article in the Guardian.

As a result of the government’s economic violence, hundreds and possibly thousands of Latvian pensioners and children will die a premature death due to health problems, poor nutrition, and outright despair. Thousands more will leave Latvia as economic refugees. Suicide rates driven by despair in Latvia are among the world’s highest. Unfortunately, the Latvian media are in the habit of ascribing suicide to alcoholism, rather than to despair that results from unemployment, lack of money, and not least, a lack of educational facilities for potable skills.

One of the potable-useable skills that Latvian country folk possess is, unfortunately, the ability to use the simpleton’s tool, the chain saw. This barbaric instrument is then used to cut down Latvia’s forests, which procedure keeps Swedish bankers in plenty of spending money, while Latvians stay barely alive.

To obscure the cruelty of the Latvian PM’s, Valdis Dombrovskis, and emphasize the “cure”, Latvians are presented the Estonian economic model. Alas, according to Jeffrey Sommers and Markku Sippola, both economists, the Estonian example demands that Estonians accept economic serfdom to Swedish banks and submit to Swedish geopolitical interests. The Latvian PM is making sure that Latvians ‘accept’ serfdom similar to the Estonians by peddling an intellectually questionable product authored for him by Andres Aslund , a Swedish hack working for Swedish banking interests.

Of course, one may argue that cruel measures—as in unavoidable and necessary measures—can be justified if at stake is the existence of, say, a nation. It may be argued that such is the situation of Latvia today.

Having suffered under the delusion that to be “free” of the Soviet Union means to become truly free and—the next delusion—that prosperity will arrive automatically, Latvians are now again faced with  circumscribed freedoms and forced delusions regarding their sovereignty.

In blunt words, the circumscription (or hair cut) of Latvia’s sovereignty comes as a result of the ideology of the oligarch-owned West outfitted to serve Swedish banks and Swedish ways of spreading disinformation about themselves and their foreign policies.

End part 1. Part 2 follows. 

[17] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (5)

Part 2.

Way back in 1991, the then emerging political leadership of Latvia was faced with American sent ‘“Harvard boys” . These  agents charlatans (one example here), sanctified by credentials from one of America’s most prestigious universities,  proposed to reverse economic direction from Soviet-style socialism to American style neo-liberal capitalism. Naturally, the Boys favored to see (my intelligent guess) a Latvian government controlled by Latvia’s own charlatans.

The instant privatization of Latvia, the economic shock policy advised by the Boys, favored the entry into Latvian government offices folks who practiced empty rhetoric and prepared to utilize it to rise to a quick and privatized prominence.

One such prominent riser is the current President of Latvia, Andris Berzins. Selected to become President of Latvia by forces that used a pocket thief’s sleigh of hand to maneuver (how did they do it?) this white rabbit into the office at Riga pils (the presidential castle), remains everyone’s mystery. The government supported Latvian news media refuses to look into the matter. For them a "mysterious joker" in Latvian government hands is a given.

If the Latvian media does not look into the matter, write, and educate the public about it, it is unlikely that many readers, viewers, and followers of news know of the infiltration of Swedish lobbyists into Latvian government. This is why the Latvian intelligentsia does not even note this phenomenon with regard to the governments in Estonia and Denmark. The PM’s of the last mentioned countries just visited Latvia to reassure and strengthen the Swedish ministrants in Latvia. The Lord’s wardrobe attendants brush the dust off the Lord’s shoulders unselfconsciously, proving they do not know what they are doing—even if their doing harms Latvia.

The collaboration of the Latvian media with the Latvian led Swedish lobby in the Latvian government, leaves the Latvian-Russian led Harmony Centre the only force of opposition to the Western-and-Swedish bank-led attempt to “occupy” Latvia.

It is in the interest of Latvians (other than those compromised by Sweden) to have a government of their own, a government that is able to become the 3^rd force, the force that controls the geopolitical interests of Latvia with an undiminished sense of Latvia’s sovereign self.

One of the ways to achieve the status of the 3^rd force is to isolate Riga. The isolation is best done by offering Riga for bid to the highest bidder. The beginning bid may be set at a repayment of Latvia’s current debts; financing (paying for) the move of the capital of Latvia to Jelgava; and a yet to be determined annual rent, payable to the Latvian people through the Latvian government in Jelgava.

[16] Harmony Centre &
Its Geopolitical Uses (4)

In the September 2011 elections, the Harmony Centre received 28+% of the total vote, which gave it 31 deputees at a Saeima consisting of 100. Excluded from participating in government by a coalition of the nationalist block, Harmony Centre now sits in opposition. From all signs, the party is for a loss of what to do next.

The lost look in the eyes of Harmony Party leadership (led by the Ushakovs-Urbanovich team) is nothing new. With its centre of power located in the municipal government of Riga, the party has never seriously projected for public consideration a geopolitical plan for either Riga or Latvia that is more than superficial.

Like the nationalist block [concentrated in the Union (Vienotība) Party)], Harmony Centre is a single issue gathering of jingoists. While Latvian nationalist jingoism expresses itself in a gnashing of teeth over whether the Latvian language will prevail as the language of Latvia, for Harmony Centre the issue is whether the Latvian government will relent and allow schools for Russian-speaking students teach their subject matter in Russian.

This one-issue conflict conflicts with the reason for the dismissal of the 10^th Saeima by now ex-President Zatlers, 
which reason was verified by a Referendum by the Latvian people. The issue at hand was and remains government corruption, the mismanagement of the Latvian economy and its collapse. However, when it came to the election of the 11^th Saeima, the successor to the dismissed 10^th—the issues brought to the debating table did not concern an economic-social-cultural vision of the fututre, but the divisive issue of who speaks Latvian, where, when, other.

No doubt there is considerable justification for the emotions indulged in by the Latvian nationalists when it comes to the Latvian language. The language has endured for thousands of years and, as I have often mentioned, projects great spiritual harisma by way of the ‘endearing word’, misnamed ‘diminutive’ by modern grammarians. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons the language may be dying. The following are some of the reasons:

1.     The Latvian people are in the middle of a demographic crisis engineered by Latvian politicians during the past twenty years. Up to 500,000 Latvians have become economic refugees to Ireland, England, and other countries.
2.     The demographic crisis creates a literary and cultural crisis. The number of ethnic Latvians hovers around the 1.2 million mark. If a century ago Latvia had one of the highest literacy rates in Europe, today the rate is among the lowest. Latvian publishing houses are not only being taxed by government out of business, but the decline in literary demographic has created a snake chasing its own tail situation: diminished literacy is threatening publishing with bancruptcy. The earnings of a writer of an original work, a book, does not justify the time spent to write a book in Latvian. It is almost certain that publishing business is kept in business by publishing books for Latvian schools. The other writers who can perhaps earn a living are translators of foreign literature.

3.     Points 1 and 2 (above) diminish the harisma of the Latvian language and put it on artificial life-suppor—the government. This makes the Latvian language less a real language than a virtual one. In other words, once the government collapses [and it is, arguably, in the process of collapsing (denied of course)], the language will face the ‘real world’, i.e. competition, unprepared.

4.     The Russian speaking Latvians, many of whom do speak Latvian, see the disadvantages of the Latvian language. Weakness is never persuasive, especially when it is surrounded by Latvians who create conditions that make the weak even weaker. Among the Latvian agents of weakness are Latvian Culture Ministers. Among the last four that come immediately to mind, there is not one who persuades that he-she understands the words “Latvian people” other than “Riga Latvians”. This results in a situation where lovers of opera and simphony music, who could easily travel to Stockholm, Vienna, Berlin, etc. to fill their cultural needs, receive more government support than the theatre. The theatre, the tool of mimesis-mime par excellance and the foremost teaching medium (from folk to high kitch to folk-metal) goes unnoticed. The theatre, mimicry, the art that transmits culture above all teaching aids, receives least government support and becomes culturally ineffective.

5.     Just a few days ago the President of Latvia, Andris Berzins, traveled to Daugavpils, the easternmost city in Latvia, and made a donation of a month of his salary to schools and “to keep local culture alive”. This act by the President makes “the act of pity for Latvia” the official way of how to deal with the current crisis of the economy and community. I.e., there is no direct action by the Latvian government on the public stage vis a vis the Brussels monster, Swedish bank repression of Latvian interests, or demand debt forgiveness as recommended by many economists. The establishment’s wolves in sheeps clothing do not get mentioned by government or the anally retentive Latvian media. Instead, the equally anally retentive Harmony Centre gets to enjoy all the nationalist blame.

The Harmony Centre—while claiming to be fully committed to Latvia’s interests, at the same time does all it can to keep alive Russian jingoism. It keeps a more expansive vision of Latvia’s future out of sight of Latvian-Russians lest they lose sight of Moscow. This myopic view is also witness to and cause of Riga’s disintegration.

These jingoists on behalf of their respective languages are well matched, and are one of the reason why this check-mate may not be resolved by arriving at a commonsensical solution. A radical mimesis is required instead.

I have argued for quite some time that we must visualize Riga as an object to be exchanged by Latvians for Jelgava as their national capital. As the nation debates, Latvian Latvians and Russian Latvians ought to explore the possibilities of renting Riga to the highest bidder for the next hundred years. If the rent offer raises realistic interest, a national referendum should be held. People may be surprised that the vote may agree that Riga is put up for bid.

In fact, renting Riga may be a great deal for Latvia if the monies received pay off the Latvian national debt, allow Latvians to get rid of the Latvian political lobby that works on behalf of self-interest, and not least on behalf of the interests of the half million Latvian economic refugees, who may get a chance to return to Latvia.

The Russian Latvians, too, will be happy, because no one (whether Paris, London, Berlin, Stockholm, Moscow, or Beijing) who rents Riga will do so for any other reason than making money. At least, such should be a precondition to any deal. The lingua franca of Riga of course will be English, the language of business.

PS A must read analysis by Stratfor of Russian geopolitical interests: click here.



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."

[13] Harmony Centre & Its Geopolitical Uses (1)

Leaving home, the beginning of a journey from Latvia.

No Latvian who is aware that Latvia has a Foreign Ministry is unawares that the ministry is hardly a part of public consciousness, because it is profoundly dysfunctional, if it has any function at all other than a mouthpiece for NATO.

Moreover, the Latvian media hardly ever discusses the uses of geopolitics in Latvia, because it is brain dead when it comes to geopolitical thinking other than being anti anything East and serving as a distributor of NATO’s viewpoint. Being brain dead to geopolitics applies to both Latvian and Russian language media, because both are navel gazers of their particular ying, whatever the homunculus of their yang may be at the other end.

If someone wishes to dispute with me on the above, I will concede that the geopolitcs that I am bringing up is that it happens in the deep background, for example, in my brain and its image screen. As one Latvian to whom I mentioned the lack of geopolitical thought among Latvians told me: “Unfortunately, we have not yet progressed to geopolitical awareness”.

Tom Thumb, 2 years old, setting out from Latvia.

So, where does my geopolitical awareness come from? I presume that it comes from my maternal grandfather, who was one of Latvia’s first ambassadors to the Soviet Union/Russia, who theorized that the nations from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea ought to form a co-operative alliance for the sake of creating its own economic and political zone of influence.

Ambassador Karlis Ozols http://www.mfa.gov.lv/lv/Ministrija/vesture/4439/4476/  was profoundly pro-American. He was sent by the tsar’s war machinery from the famed Putilov factory in St. Petersburg, where he was an engineer, to Canada as an inspector of railroad wagons. KO became deeply involved in Latvian Relief when the fortunes of war changed. Subsequently, he met with then President Hoover, and when he was in semi-retirement, he recorded in his memoirs his ideas about the alliance which he saw possible between the nations that stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea

[A sideline: ambassador Karlis Ozols claimed that he had seen men hung from lamp posts in St. Peterburg (at the Putilov factory in 1917).

Sister of Tom Thumb, Laura, leaving Latvia, too.

[While serving as Latvia’s ambassador in Moscow, Stalin declared him a person non grata, and he returned to Latvia. His hopes to further participate in the diplomatic field were dashed, when the Soviet Finance Minister Tsurupa stopped by to visit with him in Riga on his return from cancer treatment in Germany.

[Karlis Ozols' wife, my grandmother (Marija b. Ral  http://pipl.com/directory/name/Ozols/Marija ) a descendant of that tsar and tsar Kugushov), was close friends with the wife of Tsurupa, and Mrs. Tsurupa wanted to visit her friend. The women had met on Marija Ral’s uncle’s Kushov’s estate near Tombova. Tsurupa had served as knaz Kugushov’s bookkeeper, after they met in Siberia, where both were serving prison sentences for unfriendly acts vis a vis the tsar. Knaz Kugushov had not lifted his cap to the tsar during a student inspection visit.

Mother and Baby Thumb leaving Latvia behind.

[Karlis  Ozols agreed to the visit of the Tsurupas as their personal guests, even as he knew how ticklish politically it was. The Latvian media got hold of the news, created a public atmosphere that suggested that KO was a pro-communist, and this terminated for him a further career in the Latvian diplomatic corps. His personal tragedy was that he had hoped to become Latvia’s Foreign Minister in the future as he was in good standing with then President Chakste. As the link to the Latvian Foreign Ministry tells us, he was shot in a Moscow prison in 1941; so much for the Latvian press.]

Krishyan, left, arriving at RIX.

The death of geopolitical thought in Latvia is one of the accomplishments of the Latvian Trimda-Exile, the McCarthyite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy wing of Latvian politics. While the McCarthy perspective on communism was a natural for those who had fled the communist holocaust and arrived in the United States of America in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it destroyed the possibility of a variety of geopolitical views among Latvians. When the Soviet Empire fell in 1991, all Latvians had for a geopolitical perspective was the one that was Trimda-Exile bred, fed, and sanctioned.

Karlis Ozols geopolitical perspective was sabotaged by the immaturity grown of navel gazing narcissism infecting the nations in the north-south corridor containing the nations that run from the Baltic region to the Black Sea. The instruments of brain deadness or at best of brain atrophy persist to this day in the Latvian government, even while KO’s perspective is probably moot at this point in time and history.

While the Latvian Foreign Ministry during President Karlis Ulmanis time was neither forward looking or had an imaginary worth speaking of, the Latvian intelligentsia was not yet so repressed and bereft of views on Latvian geopolitics as it is under today’s NATO regime.

Krishyan, Emil, and Laura, fingers crossed, on October 24, 2011.

It is interesting that in the fall of 2011, at the very time that a political coalition is being created to form the next Latvian government, the McCarthyite viewpoint remains prominent, this time not fingering possible communists in Holywood, but the Unity Party led Nationalist čoalition government in Riga fingering the Harmony Centre.