Antons Benjamiņš varbūt balsos PAR!


A Moment For Remembering the First Latvian Woman Playright. Ramava.

Harmony centre (Saskaņās centrs) has issued a call http://www.apollo.lv/portal/news/articles/259012 for all Latvians to participate in the Referendum on the “”language issue—ragardless of what one’s conviction is, whether it is FOR or AGAINST enabling Russian to become the 2^nd official language of Latvia.

In effect, this writer is considering the possibility of voting AGAINST Latvian as the only official language in Latvia, and FOR Russian as a 2^nd language.

Considering how one may vote in a Referendum (before the Referendum takes place by discussing it) there is NO HEDGING the discussion, especially if a date for the vote is not yet set., But it does cause one to pause, the PAUSE coinciding with giving thought to the possibility of voting FOR, demands arguments that support doing so, thinking things through not necessarily in a linear fashion only.

Therefore, the following is a list of some of this writer’s reasons for imagining that the Latvian language has not served Latvians in a way that it is supposed to serve in the public spheres of politics, business, economic development, education, video, and so forth. The following is an informative blog on the state of NATO: http://emsnews.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/nato-banking-mess-creates-global-insurrections-and-wars/#more-13582

In effect: This blogger, Antons Benjamiņš aka Jaņdžs, varbūt balsos (may vote FOR) PAR!

NoHedge, re: The ‘Varbūt’ (maybe will) stands for "will ponder for sure".

I In fact, there are two Latvian languages. The first is the one assured ‘eternal’ existence by the Latvian Constitution. This language is the Latvian that evolved in Riga, Latvia’s capital city. The centre of most Latvian urbanism, starting on the cusp of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Riga contained all the elements of a society slated to become consumers consuming everything (newspapers including).

When the Latvian localisms were smoothed out of the-Latvian-language-at-large this Latvian (along with its own mannerisms) became what we know as the Latvian language today. The one region in Latvia that had a very noted idiomatic manner of expressing itself was Latgale. It was not long, before Latgalian Latvian was begun to be looked down on, a presumption of Latvian lawgivers in the Saeima to this day. The second Latvian language is the one spoken at home, whether in Latgale, or anywhere else. What distinguishes this second Latvian language from the first, is its informality and frequent use of the ‘endearing word’ (John=Johnny). The latter inflections almost never appears in documents or the public media in Latvia.

II The call FOR but one language in Latvian schools, does not free one of the yoke of pretentions projected by the first Latvian language (see above; which this writer speaks before he turns to English) against the second Latvian language. Indeed, the Chairwoman of the Latvian Saeima recently denigrated Latgalian on a very official occasion, when she rejected the Latgalian idiom of a Saeima deputy during his swearing-in ceremony.

III The attitude of the Latvian government with regard to  above I & II points, has not improved or come to greater self-consciousness, but appears to preserve the class prejudice that was at the basis of the discrimination between the two Latvian languages during the first half of Latvia’s existence (1918-1939). While many today dismiss class prejudice as a matter of another day, in Latvia the prejudice has continued to progress in a number of ways.

Students and teachers; a Moment For Remembering the First Latvian Woman Playright,
Marija Pekšēna, Ramava, 2011.

IV The consequences of snobbism in Latvia have been disastrous to Latvia in numbers of ways.

a)     The Latvian political and bureaucratic circles, the media including, reject all matters relating to populism as unmentionables. There is—to this writer’s experience—not one Latvia of the above mentioned stripes, who will acknowledge populism as a valid political orientation.

b)    Though accusing Latvians of intra-ethnic conflict may not be very nice with regard to all who hold the prejudice, the “not so nice” tag has its roots in related mindset, re ‘prestige’ http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/prestige/articles/  The ‘prestige comes with being an urbanite vs one from the countryside.This (let me say) ‘stupid’ polarization of society is mostly the doing of urbanites.

c)     This intra-ethnic polarization has cost Latvia at least 200,000 citizens to economic emigration. Whatever the accurate figure may be, the consequences are not only loss of labor force, but is a matter of profound demoralization to the people in the countryside. My neighbour recently responded to the above mentioned figure of 200,000 with: “It feels like a million have left”.

d)    In short, the consequences of snobbism in Latvia on the part of some Latvians who consider themselves to be more Latvian than Latvian Latgalians who do not speak 1^st Latvian without an accent. Thus, just imagine, if so-and-so Latvians who do not speak either 1^st or 2^nd version Latvian, insist that they have a right to continue studying in schools that teach in Russian or when teachers in Latvian schools should begin to teach Latvian speaking Latvian-Latgalian.

e)     The snobbism may also come in reverse. Thus, students in a countryside school may gang up on one who is from Riga. And I have heard quite a few Latvians complain that Russians call Latvian a fascist  language, as the gentleman in the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXKQxcqjMPQ appears to do  (I do not understand Russian, except on inspired osmosis of-the-moments as here) , though apparently for the interviewed person  the word ‘fascist’ is equitable with ‘nationalist’. Here we may be seeing and hearing a Russian liberal of the ‘a Russian-of-Riga’ mind set and its meme.

First Latvian Woman Playright, Marija Pekšēna. Ramava. 2011.

V  For a  Latvian to consider a vote FOR Russian, with which vote goes (in his mind) an automatic AGAINST Latvian there is much to do and think about. One of the questions is, of course, would this question have arisen if the economy was or is doing well?

A large crowd of populists is waiting at the door of the Latvian Saeima, everyone in it wanting to know if the Saeima knows that to the populist Latvians the country feels as if  a million people have gone?