Who do you think you are
RIGA – Do you know who you are as a person? Do you know who you are as a nation?
These are important questions to consider when talking about a society in transition. Unlike Estonians, Latvians don’t consider themselves Nordic or Scandinavian. Unlike Lithuanians, Latvians don’t consider themselves drawn into Central Europe. Unlike both of them together, Latvian national identity is rather weak.
So for almost 18 years of the renewed independence, Latvians have been wrestling with it.
The national identity dictates everything. It offers you confidence in knowing your strengths and weaknesses as a nation. It builds up a healthy sense of pride in your country. It tells you what kind of social structure your country’s government would have. It tells you what kind of form of government, what rights you would have. It solves many societal problems with a simple answer. Once we know who we are, we’ll know how to solve our problems.
A long line of pensioners stood outside one office in the Old Town earlier this month. They waited to sign a petition to raise pensions to the level of the living wages. The efforts led by the fallen People’s Party angel now independent MP Aivars Stokenbergs are populist at the first glance. However, Stokenbergs had advocated building in Latvia a Nordic system of values – creating a softer social pillow in case one should retire or have children. Collecting signatures sounds like a logical first step.
His signature drive thwarted into the spotlight the problem of pensioners. With the rising inflation (January’s indicator was at 15.8 per cent, the highest in the EU) and even faster rising food prices (also the fastest in the EU), the call for the Scandinavian values will surely find a listener. A young mother friend of mine says she gets 30 Ls ($65) a month to clothe, feed, and take care of her almost one-year-old daughter. She would love to take care of her child without worrying about the next paycheck.
And because more people die in Latvia than are born, the government ought to have an inherent interest in supporting a difficult job of raising a child. The slumping demographics also will put pressure on the pension system where the working generation supports the retired generation. Soon you just won’t have enough employed people support a larger number of retirees.
In short, the system is about to crack.
The government opposes the collection of signatures, dubs it populist and useless. Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis promised to raise pensions at least three times this year, otherwise it would strain the budget.
But the problem goes beyond pensions. It goes into the heart of the Latvian way of life. Latvia does not have a role model it wants to follow. It cannot decide whether it’s a Scandinavian country, a European country or a province of Russia. Consequently, it cannot decide if it wants the Nordic social model, a continental European model, or a Russian model.
And at times it feels like Latvians are hoping for the Russian model. They’re hoping for the benevolent dictator to come as a savior on the white horse and solve all social ills. He will be saimnieks of this country. He will own it and will be responsible for it. He will get stuff done and no one will go hungry again. The mayor of Ventspils is such a role model and part of Latvian national identity.
But we really don’t know who we are. We are only now considering a Nordic model for our government at the time when Estonia leaped light years ahead of us in its standard of living that now some Latvians move to Estonia to work while we’re debating the past.
March 7th, 2008 at 0.38
You know who you are. Come on. When I go two, three or four generations back there are several nationalities in our family. Now I am living in Korea and here I am the GERMAN. Cause I am speaking the language, I am born there. That is enough. Enough as recognized coming from a big country.
Imagine Latvia would have the size of 50 millions. What would the outside world think?
March 7th, 2008 at 8.42
We suffer from a perpetual low self-esteem on the national level. It seems as a nation we’re waiting for a man on white horse come and rescue us from evil economy or whatever else befalls us. We want to prove ourselves that we are a real country – something that Germans wouldn’t have to do. This is why we are in the rush to build the national library which is needed, I must admit. This is why we’re searching for a societal model that would be appropriate for us – are we going to turn Nordic create the soft fluffy pillows in case of emergencies, or are you going to remain where we are. I mean, our pragmatic cooperation with Russia is no accident. We find ourselves closer to Russia than to any country within the European Union. But maybe I’m completely wrong.