Comments on: Cancelled Victory Day http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/627/cancelled-victory-day/ Serpentine Percipience Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:12:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Aleks http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/627/cancelled-victory-day/comment-page-1/#comment-1233 Aleks Sun, 11 May 2008 11:58:58 +0000 http://allaboutlatvia.com/?p=627#comment-1233 On education: teaching it in theory, yes. It'd be boring, etc. Teaching it in practice, that'd be different. Like living for a week in a ghetto - that'd teach you everything you need to know about African American studies. On education: teaching it in theory, yes. It’d be boring, etc. Teaching it in practice, that’d be different. Like living for a week in a ghetto – that’d teach you everything you need to know about African American studies.

]]> By: Andrejs http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/627/cancelled-victory-day/comment-page-1/#comment-1209 Andrejs Sat, 10 May 2008 14:44:16 +0000 http://allaboutlatvia.com/?p=627#comment-1209 Education? Always a good thing. The other day I had to attend Traffic Safety school. I listened. I learned. I answered all the questions correctly. I left the parking lot with a squeal of tires because I was running late. Education by itself is meaningless unless its accompanied by the desire to learn. Most U.S. schools now have African American studies on the curriculum. Would you say that that has made much of a dent in the minds of the average Hoosier? I am not saying that education can't make a difference, but there are other factors involved. First and foremost, there needs to be a desire for a meeting of the minds. I do not see that in LV. Not by a long shot. More on this in the Thoughts on Victory Day comments. Education? Always a good thing. The other day I had to attend Traffic Safety school. I listened. I learned. I answered all the questions correctly. I left the parking lot with a squeal of tires because I was running late.
Education by itself is meaningless unless its accompanied by the desire to learn. Most U.S. schools now have African American studies on the curriculum. Would you say that that has made much of a dent in the minds of the average Hoosier? I am not saying that education can’t make a difference, but there are other factors involved. First and foremost, there needs to be a desire for a meeting of the minds. I do not see that in LV. Not by a long shot.
More on this in the Thoughts on Victory Day comments.

]]> By: Aleks http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/627/cancelled-victory-day/comment-page-1/#comment-1190 Aleks Sat, 10 May 2008 08:51:50 +0000 http://allaboutlatvia.com/?p=627#comment-1190 Tom, Ignorance is certainly more prevalent here than it used to be. And it crosses the ethnic divide. Most young people didn't know what event is celebrated by May 4, according to a recent survey. And for me, again, it goes to the question of public education, which, historically, in this country is the job of the government. And I see education, cultural exchanges, mixing with other nationalities as a way for Latvia to achieve the cohesive society in this small country. The marginalized groups are everywhere. There are always people who bitch, moan and complain about anything under the sun. There will always be people unhappy with citizenship laws, education reform, or language laws. There will always be people who'd like to see all evil russkies shipped back to their home country. How do you deal with that? You ignore it. By giving it a voice, you're giving their view a credence. This is why I'll never tire explaining to Russians the "other point of view" of the Victory Day. In the ideal world, Russians join Latvians in remembering those who were deported by the Soviets as Latvians join Russians in acknowledging sacrifices of many common soldiers for peace. Having said that, I think ignoring the deaths of many people during the last war that propelled the birth of the European Union is callous and utterly wrong. Tom,

Ignorance is certainly more prevalent here than it used to be. And it crosses the ethnic divide. Most young people didn’t know what event is celebrated by May 4, according to a recent survey. And for me, again, it goes to the question of public education, which, historically, in this country is the job of the government. And I see education, cultural exchanges, mixing with other nationalities as a way for Latvia to achieve the cohesive society in this small country.

The marginalized groups are everywhere. There are always people who bitch, moan and complain about anything under the sun. There will always be people unhappy with citizenship laws, education reform, or language laws. There will always be people who’d like to see all evil russkies shipped back to their home country.

How do you deal with that? You ignore it. By giving it a voice, you’re giving their view a credence. This is why I’ll never tire explaining to Russians the “other point of view” of the Victory Day. In the ideal world, Russians join Latvians in remembering those who were deported by the Soviets as Latvians join Russians in acknowledging sacrifices of many common soldiers for peace.

Having said that, I think ignoring the deaths of many people during the last war that propelled the birth of the European Union is callous and utterly wrong.

]]> By: Tom Schmit http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/627/cancelled-victory-day/comment-page-1/#comment-1186 Tom Schmit Sat, 10 May 2008 06:50:15 +0000 http://allaboutlatvia.com/?p=627#comment-1186 Alek, My classic moments came a 7 years ago. I was teaching at a private language school that kinda specialized in russian teenagers. They mostly seemed nice and fun to be around. I spent 1,5 years with one group of 16-18 year old in a near advanced (English) group. So we knew each other fairly well. I shouldn't neglect to say that we had one Latvian girl. Sweet kid who wrote poetry. The russians were usually okay with her. Within two weeks, two surprising things happened. First, we were working on "the future" and the exercise was "make five predictions about your home country" (which by-the-way a number of the russians routinely called russia). One quiet teen boy looked my LV friend Asija directly in the face and said "LV will no longer exist, it will be part of russia, as it always has." I have always felt that Asija would have been fully in her rights to pop that boy in the face. A couple of weeks later we were having an "ask the American (me) lesson." They could basically ask me anything they were interested in. Question- "Why didn't America fight in WWII? Why did they leave russia alone to defeat hitler?" How do you dump the burden for this fully on the LV govt? This new reality is more than 15 years old now. Most Russians I know have made an effort to at least be able to function in Latvian and Latvia. I won't tar all with the same brush. But their is a considerable, noisy, whiny, bitching minority that knows the reality but refuses to either (your choose) acknowledge or deal with it. How far does the LV (and the russians who accomadate) have to go to politely draw in the fools who were re-fighting "the great patriotic war" under my window last night? Alek,
My classic moments came a 7 years ago. I was teaching at a private language school that kinda specialized in russian teenagers. They mostly seemed nice and fun to be around. I spent 1,5 years with one group of 16-18 year old in a near advanced (English) group. So we knew each other fairly well. I shouldn’t neglect to say that we had one Latvian girl. Sweet kid who wrote poetry. The russians were usually okay with her.

Within two weeks, two surprising things happened. First, we were working on “the future” and the exercise was “make five predictions about your home country” (which by-the-way a number of the russians routinely called russia). One quiet teen boy looked my LV friend Asija directly in the face and said “LV will no longer exist, it will be part of russia, as it always has.” I have always felt that Asija would have been fully in her rights to pop that boy in the face.

A couple of weeks later we were having an “ask the American (me) lesson.” They could basically ask me anything they were interested in. Question- “Why didn’t America fight in WWII? Why did they leave russia alone to defeat hitler?”

How do you dump the burden for this fully on the LV govt? This new reality is more than 15 years old now. Most Russians I know have made an effort to at least be able to function in Latvian and Latvia. I won’t tar all with the same brush. But their is a considerable, noisy, whiny, bitching minority that knows the reality but refuses to either (your choose) acknowledge or deal with it. How far does the LV (and the russians who accomadate) have to go to politely draw in the fools who were re-fighting “the great patriotic war” under my window last night?

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