RIGA – “Is this true, Mr. Minister, that you already had received a rejection letter from the IMF,” asked a reporter at a press conference today.
“God save us,” exclaimed Atis Slakteris in the presence of journalists after the government’s decision to seek loan from the EU and IMF.
“If you had been following articles in the friendly press, such as Latvijas Avize, you would have known that –”
At that point, I drifted off and began picturing a surprisingly short former-vet-turned-minister-of-finance Slakteris dressed in a contamination suit, reading the leading Latvian-language newspaper Diena. If only the truth could be dangerous, Slakteris would want to protect his self.
His comments didn’t make any sense. We’d already separated friendly local press from unfriendly local press based purely on the language of a publication. The Russian press is disloyal; the Latvian press is loyal – or at least so I thought. But why would a high-ranking public official imply that the Latvian flagship daily Diena – founded in 1990 on a principles of Western-type journalism – is so unfriendly?
Since the government announced the partial nationalization of the largest bank in the Baltics, Parex, I had to attend a few press conference where Slakteris was the main course on the menu. On Nov. 8, when the government made the late-night announcement about Parex, Slakteris behaved rather strangely. He looked insanely nervous and attempted to refuse to answer any questions from the same Diena reporter. Unfortunately, only the unfriendly press had questions. In the end, the minister sought shelter inside the Green Hall where the pesky reporter followed him.
Sure, going to the IMF for a loan is humiliating for the country that claimed that Western economists do not understand the specificy of our little kingdom, sandwiched between Estonia and Lithuania. But at the same time,
Loyalty in Latvia, it seems, means non-questioning the authority. Anyone who questions a policy, a decision, a direction of the country may be considered a disloyal citizen. Certainly when thousands of people spilled into the streets during — though disappointing for me — the Umbrella Revolution last October, they didn’t seem disloyal or unfriendly. However, eaves dropping on the conversations between members of parliament inside the building one would think they are – they attempted to challenge the ruling elite.
It would be an easy way our to brush the disdain for “unfriendly” press to the years of the Soviet occupation, to the Soviet mentality, but the more one listens to high-ranking officials, the more one thinks that it is a deeply rooted ethnic Latvian trait.
