In one interview on Estonia’s Kanal 2, a reporter entered a quasi-debate with a Russian-speaking man.
The man: “It’s Estonia. The country of Estonia.”
The reporter: “What? It doesn’t belong to Estonian people?”
The man: “Why? But we live here too. We’re people too.”
The reporter: “Why did they, then, shouted ‘Russia, Russia’?”
The man: “Well, that’s because they’re Russians.”
Russian-speaking folks in the Baltic States (including me) have been suffering from the identity crisis since the demise of the Soviet Union, illustrated by the aforementioned dialog.
Are they Russians? Are they Latvians/Estonians?
Rightly or wrongly, non-citizens believe the governments of Latvia and Estonia do not want them. That’s despite the fact that both countries created a path for non-citizens to become full-fledged citizens and be able to participate in local political life through democratic means, rather than violence.
This stems from the years of continued Russian domination in the region. The policy of Russification commenced immediately after the Soviet troops entered the Baltic States in 1940. I remember reading an article dated August 1940 — just one month after the Soviet invasion — where the pro-Soviet Latvian education minister said Russian would be a mandatory subject in all schools.
Unlike the education reform of 2004 in Latvia, there was no mass uproar.
As Latvia approaches the 17th anniversary of restoration of independence from the Soviet Union on May 4, we consider what, if anything, should be done with non-citizens in terms of their political involvement.
Latvia’s Interior Minister and the first post-Soviet Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis suggested to hold a referendum on whether to grant non-citizens a right to vote in local elections. It would have been tempting to agree if it hadn’t been for the most recent integration fiasco which has become Estonia this last weekend. In Estonia, non-citizens have a right to vote in local elections as you may know.
Will granting non-citizens a right to vote change anything? Unlikely. If Estonia is an example, they’re not likely to get involved in the local politics for a noble goal, but rather to become Kremlin’s marionettes. Some of them are in the clutches of the Russian media sphere and local agitators that more and more resemble World War II communist agitators in their approach to persuasion: It’s either our way, or you’re an idiot, worst yet fascist. Talking to someone like that is a waste of breath. And myriad of posts in online journals and forums suggest that this is their approach to discussion.
They’re unlikely to become honorary participants in the democratic process. The media from the East often lies. It creates the news where there is none. It would much rather cover excellent show staged by pro-Kremlin organizations in the Baltics, then for example, take a look at the impact of the education reform in Latvia two years since.
Russian mainstream journalism has lost whatever democracy it learned in the early 1990s. It’s become a hard-hearted mouthpiece of the official Kremlin line. Gone are impartiality. Objectivity. Or even professionalism.
For example, on her blog, a Russian First Channel Baltic correspondent Natalia Vasilyeva — frequently caught getting things wrong on the air — not only lies, but doesn’t feel bad about it. Often showing herself as a snob, Vasilyeva deletes comments that don’t go along the main line with a philosophy: “It’s my blog I can do whatever I want.”
And viewers trust people like Vasilyeva to get it right? And if Vasilyeva doesn’t care, what is there to say about her management?
In this media environment where most Russian-speaking people get their news from TV, it’s impossible to find a common ground between Latvians/Estonian and Russian-speaking folks unless Russians in the Baltic States quit looking to Moscow for help, until Russian-speaking people will realize that the Kremlin is taking them for a fool.
