Pictures from a seminar talk on Tolerance Education in Lithuania, July 14, 2010, hosted by the Jewish Community of Lithuania. Moderated by Dovid Katz. Photos by Richard Scofield www.richardscofieldphotography.com

The 2009 Eurobarometer Survey on Discrimination in the EU revealed that Lithuanians thought their country was the most tolerant country in the European Union. Results showed that only 4% of respondents in Lithuania reported ever having seen anyone in Lithuania discriminated against based on their ethnic background, and while 26% said they believed that discrimination existed in Lithuania, it was the lowest number reported in all 27 EU countries. So, if Lithuanians are indeed the least discriminatory country in the EU then what has caused international media from the European Parliament to Amnesty International to paint a very different picture of “tolerance” in Lithuania, a country seemingly riddled with acts of anti-Semitism, homophobia, and racism that speak much louder than the self-reported results on the Eurobarometer? Is it that Lithuania is too homogenous to produce intolerance because everyone there really is so ethnically and culturally similar? Is it that Lithuanians, like many Americans in the age of political correctness, have learned what not to say even if it isn’t an accurate depiction of the situation there? Or is there something else going on?

It is important to note that the situation in Lithuania is more complicated than can be adequately addressed here, and there have been positive outcomes to reforms intended to promote democratic ideals and human rights, such as the Tolerance Education Centers that have been created in over 50 schools, as well as initiatives from other groups, such as the Tolerant Youth Association and many universities around the country. Still, it is intolerance that has come to mark Lithuania’s public image. Some of the events that have garnered the most international attention were the canceling of the 2010 Baltic Pride March (which was eventually allowed to take place with international pressure), the indictments of two Lithuanian Parliamentarians (Petras Grazulis and Kazimiras Uoka) who attacked police officers securing the protection of Baltic Pride Marchers; the recent legal decision to “reclaim” the swastika as a Lithuanian historic symbol; racist comments made in 2009 by the president of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation (Vladas Garastas) about black players; the 2009 amendment to the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effects of Public Information outlawing any mention of alternative lifestyles (homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual) in places where minors frequent; the violent 2008 attack on Lithuanian Pop singer Berneen Čereška (originally from South Africa); the 2007 mayoral prohibition (by Juozas Imbrasas) of the EU sponsored anti-discrimination truck tour making stops in 19 cities as part of the 2007 EU Year for Equal Opportunities; and the controversial removal of gay rights ad in 2007 from Kaunas trolley buses because drivers refused to take these buses out on public streets.

With such a long list of intolerant events taking place in Lithuania (and there are others), what explains the perceived gap between perceptions of total tolerance by many Lithuanian citizens and the rise in intolerant acts chronicled by an international audience? Is it possible that the country has changed overnight? Is it a case of confusion about what constitutes acts of tolerance? Could it be that that the international media is guilty of sensationalism, only focusing on negative stories rather than the lives of ordinary individuals? Or is it that the rising trend of more narrowly defined categories of belonging in Lithuania represents a larger issue of power and control, such as concerns over increased EU oversight, western controlled post-Soviet reforms, and external mandates over acceptable representations of culture? While one can never be certain about what “causes” complex individuals with multilayered personalities do anything, there are certain conditions that can be understood as contributing to the way individuals understand and chose to react to social, political, and economic transformation in Lithuania.

Many scholars, from Gordon Allport to Theodor Adorno have attempted to explain the roots of prejudice and intolerance, and others, such as Rogers Brubaker, Anthony Smith, and Will Kymlicka have famously debated the boundaries of multiculturalism and nationalism in the political construction of a nation; and while it is impossible to summarize those myriad philosophical debates here, it important to note that the situation in Lithuania is part of a much larger international discussion about the way that political, cultural, and economic elites or dominant groups influence the shaping of norms and behavior deemed “acceptable” in each society. Though a rather simplistic way to look at it, questions of exclusion and hate can often be understood as situations where power and material resources are perceived by individuals and elites as a “zero sum game” where there isn’t enough to “go around” for everyone. Powerful elites (which could be politicians or just members of the dominant cultural group) use certain “regulating technologies” like policy, discourse, and even social custom to train citizens to approximate what they deem to be the accepted behaviors for individuals in that society. Essentially, these kinds of normative rules are things people in societies all over the world take for granted as just being “the way things are,” but when individuals look more closely at who benefits from such rules and why, it becomes clear that these are not “naturally” occurring codes of conduct, but are created by people in power who must then find ways for them to be accepted by others in order to retain their hold on power.

Reforms coming from the EU are no different, nor are the changes in the political and economic system being enacted by government elites in Lithuania following the end of the communist system. New norms related to neoliberalism and democratic pluralism have replaced norms of communalism and centralization, and individuals can either opt to accept or reject such norms (though often they do both to varying degrees, changing norms a little as they go about their own lives). Tolerance is a case and point here, where acceptance of certain lifestyles or minority groups is regarded as a value from “Western” societies that may or may not have the same appreciation in Lithuania. This is not an excuse for intolerance, but it is important to understand that rejecting tolerance initiatives is also about taking a stand against external dictates of how to run a country or how to behave.

Furthermore, it is important to note that not everyone in Lithuania is intolerant, but there are many flippant applications of the word tolerance in Lithuania (and everywhere for that matter) that miss the essence of what the value is supposed to embody. Tolerance is the very first building block of social stability, but it is not an end unto itself. Tolerance simply posits that whatever group or behavior it is that you dislike, you must chose to let that group or behavior exist unmolested regardless of your personal opinion. Naturally, based on those conceptions, tolerance in Lithuania is often mistakenly equated with anarchy, or the idea that tolerance means accepting anything that anyone, anywhere does from adultery, to stealing, to abuse, to indoctrinating children into cults, which is absolutely not the case. Tolerance campaigns in the EU target categories of groups that are entitled to universal human rights protection, such as gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Debate over the concept and practice of tolerance has existed in Lithuania ever since it toppled the Soviet Union and found itself in full international view as a Republic in transformation. Initially, issues of tolerance were raised in debates about the degree to which Lithuania’s Russian and Polish minorities could claim linguistic and cultural autonomy, but the situation eventually came to encompass not just legal rights, but the very way that Lithuanians spoke and taught about difference in society. To secure EU and NATO membership, one of the key issues that the Lithuanian government was asked to address was the inaccurate portrayals of the Nazi annihilation of Jewish victims during the Holocaust, which some Lithuanians countenanced or even actively participated in. As issues of historical representations were corrected, more surveys (originating both in the EU and in Lithuanian academic institutions) emerged to reveal continued intolerance in Lithuania for ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. Some of the most visible results were the Vilnius University report from 2000 noting that 22% of Lithuanians said they would not live next door to immigrants or Jewish people, or a 2005 European Union Monitoring Commission survey that reported that the Baltic States, including Lithuania, had some of the highest overall rates of intolerance in the entire EU.

One of the main obstacles to tolerance and equality for all groups in Lithuania is the persistent embrace of an ethnic national identity based on language, religion, and other cultural markers that exclude many minority groups or force them to assimilate in order to garner acceptance (a situation also seen in Estonia and Latvia). However, the construction and preservation of “Lithuanianness” is not a new phenomenon. Concerns over the repression of the Lithuanian language and other national symbols have been noted since the early Polonization of the elite during the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth and forced Russification during the Russian Czarist occupation when the Lithuanian language was banned. Most recently, Lithuanian cultural markers and symbols were an integral tool for anti-Soviet independence movements because they could be used to rally individuals with certain linguistic, religious, and ancestral attributes around a common goal of reclaiming Lithuanian soil for its “rightful Lithuanian owners” (though, in fact, many Russians and others also voted for independence from the USSR for a variety of reasons.)

A sort of “hysteria” about the continued obliteration of the Lithuanian “nation” is still in existence, and at times is even being perpetuated by the government (as well as other groups) as a useful political tool. All one has to do is walk down the street long enough to reach a bus shelter and it’s likely that you will find the ad displaying an unraveled knitted tricolor sweater with a lamentation proclaiming:  mes esame tik trys millionai. Further examples of the rhetoric of a disappearing nation can also been seen in the shift in adoption laws forbidding foreign couples from taking Lithuanian orphans out of the country (with a few exceptions), and extensive 2 year maternity benefits (now sensibly being cut) that encourage families to have more children.

Ironically though, while mourning the loss of the Lithuanian nation, the government is simultaneously drawing exclusionary boundaries around residents who are not worthy of being considered “real” Lithuanians, most notably gays, immigrants, and “traitors” who have left the country and then seek dual citizenship. The message that such rhetoric conveys is not that the government is concerned about a strong Lithuania, but that the government is more concerned with reclaiming (or more likely inventing) a narrow category of a “pure” Lithuanianness based on attributes that have probably changed over time themselves. However, this discourse has been visibly taken up by many of those marching against lifestyles and cultures that “threaten” this “true” Lithuania (heterosexual, patriarchal, ethnically “pure”, Lithuanian speaking individuals). Now, this is not to say that culture, traditions, language, and historical customs are unimportant. Distinct cultures do exist around the world (and the Soviets did construct a very carefully planned national identity intended to subvert ethnic identities in favor a Russian-centric one), but “culture” should never be used as a justification for hate. Furthermore, all cultures have changed—and continue to change—over time. The perpetuation of fear that the Lithuanian nation must be secured and preserved from an external enemy bent on destroying it fails to realize that the enemy is now coming from within as Lithuanian citizens turn on each other.

Nonetheless, even with the conservative backlash against the acceptance of some values, these reforms have produced long overdue discussions about topics most people have intentionally driven underground—the most significant example of this is sexual orientation. The 2010 Baltic Pride March and the 2009 amendment to the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effects of Public Information have been the two most visible cases in the battle over the limits of tolerance in Lithuania. Part of the oppression of homosexuality comes from government interpretations of “family,” but another part comes from the influence of the Catholic Church, which continues to defend and accept only traditional marriage and partnership arrangements between a man and a woman. Therefore, accepting homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle has become equated with “liberal Westernness,” and the expectation of its acceptance everywhere is increasingly seen as a demand from “the West” to embrace something that counters values and aims considered important by “locals.” Admittedly, it is quite common for well-intentioned scholars, politicians, and aid workers to attempt reforms in one place by transporting initiatives that worked well in another place, only to find that such “forced fitting” of programs alienates more people than it includes because these transplanted programs fail to grasp the local situation, but Lithuania has taken its demand for sovereignty to the extreme by passing prohibitions on the very democratic goals it claims to value, namely freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

This is seen in the amendment added onto the 2002 Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effects of Public Information, which received international attention for institutionalizing inconsistent attitudes toward talking about different lifestyles in a public setting (discussions that scorn “traditional families” are banned), as well as its potential violation of international human rights guidelines that bar discrimination of people from certain universally accepted categories (especially those that they cannot change, like gender, race, and sexual orientation). The attempt to cancel the Baltic Pride March serves a similar function to silence discussions on matters of sex and sexuality so that the traditional norm of male-female relationships can remain unchallenged. Yet, the result in these attempts to drive discussions of alternative lifestyles underground (many Lithuanians argue that gays can exist in Lithuania as long as they don’t have to see or hear from them) have produced the very public discussions that they are trying to prohibit—which is a good thing.

Overall, recent legal rulings on gay rights (whether it be on marches or discussions) are exemplars of the social attitudes towards difference in Lithuania. There is enormous inconsistency in  tolerance for things that are seen as falling well outside the purview of Lithuanianness—but social intolerance may also represent (though admittedly not in all cases) resistance to perceived influence from a larger, more power political entities (even if they are just imagined) attempting to dictate Lithuanian identity and norms. However, as was seen in the United States during the civil rights movements when the federal government had to send armed National Guard soldiers to forcibly integrate some segregated, racist schools, sometimes there is a need for international intervention to force action on issues of human rights. Yet, to combat intolerance, one must also recognize that it’s not just about hate (though on occasion it is); it is often also a symptom of anxiety and a loss of control, which is an understandable perception in a country that has seen itself occupied three times in the last 200 years. Nonetheless, institutionalizing intolerance is never a victory for anyone, and while some Lithuanians may ask that discussions about issues such as alternative lifestyles be silenced, the only way toward a strong pluralist democracy is to keep talking about the things that sometimes make people the most uncomfortable—and to also accept that a willingness to admit one’s own resistance to tolerance is a form a discourse too.

If you asked me two weeks ago what was the one issue related to tolerance education in Lithuania that I was not going to touch, I would have said gay rights. It is not that I don’t believe in gay rights, it’s just that I have enough experience with Lithuania to know that the the topic of homosexuality will shut down a conversation faster than, say, the suggestion to bring the USSR back.

Over the last few years as a researcher interviewing scholars and practitioners about tolerance in Lithuania, I have only ever smuggled in the issue of gay rights, if at all, because of the considerable opposition to it. However, it now appears that my prior inclination for a soft stroll amongst the eggshells of carefully selected parlance has become passé thanks to a series of moves by the Lithuanian parliament (seimas). Unfortunately, for those of us who support the acceptance of homosexuality as a basic human right, the discussion of gay rights in Lithuania is on the table for all the wrong reasons, but its prevalence in conversations at all is important for the continuing promotion of tolerance.

Firstly, a little background on the situation. Several weeks ago, the Lithuanian parliament passed a law that banned discussion of homosexuality in schools as a threat to the development of minors. According to the Baltic Times, the bill, titled, “The Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information,” intends to ban “propaganda for homosexuality and bisexuality.” (I am not sure what this means because the only people who have ever knocked on my door with propaganda are religious people).

Subsequently, then-president of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, vetoed the law, pointing out that virtually all information was public and that the law effectively banned students from learning anything in school. In my own mind, I mused that this sounded like the system Lithuania had spent the last 60 years fighting against, but this time the blame for this inhibiting law was credited not to the inertia of a Soviet past, but to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, of which 80% of Lithuanians are said to belong.

Still, although Adamkus’ veto was lauded by many European agencies, a Presidential veto is not final (just like in the American system) because the Parliament can vote to overturn it, which is exactly what happened. So, a few days ago, the parliament overruled the veto and passed the law against mentioning homosexuality in schools with 87 yay votes, 25 abstentions, and only 6 nays. To complicate matters, Lithuania now has a new president, Daila Grybauskaite, who was handed this mess on her inauguration day, July 12^th. Now it gets even more complicated because in spite of the 72^nd constitutional amendment requiring Grybauskaite (or any president) to sign into law any resolution passed against a presidential veto with a majority, she has publically stated that she will not sign the law.

What’s going to happen next is anybody’s guess, but the process has been an important one that I would never have predicted would come so soon in Lithuania.

The discussions surrounding this law have catapulted gay rights into the spotlight—a topic that Lithuania has been avoiding for a long time—but this issue is also larger than just questions about rights for one specific group. In the mix are many different factors about what guides the politics of this nation and the social mores that people accept and reject. On one side are questions about religion and morals and the influence of the Catholic Church on the politics of the nation. On another side are questions about the importance of democratic ideals, such as the freedom of speech, expression, and freedom from fear. On yet another side are questions about EU influence, and what constitutes meddling, bullying, and intrusion on the sovereignty of a state. On still another side are questions about pluralism, inclusion, the promotion of tolerance, and the creation of safe places for people to be who they are. All these sides have converged in this important debate, and though the legal outcome is a step backward for Lithuania, the long overdue discussions about a topic most people have intentionally driven underground are necessary for progress on many fronts.

Overall, this legal ruling is indicative of the social attitude towards difference in Lithuania. I have found that quite a few Lithuanians are preoccupied with the concept of “normal,” around which there seem to be certain clear and inflexible boundaries. Of course, if Foucault is right, then abnormal is a productive force for the “normal,” but the knee-jerk reaction against gay rights doesn’t seem to be this well examined in Lithuania. Instead, the discussion seems to be centered on what’s “right” and “wrong,” from purely personal (religious?) convictions and does not examine whether the messages in the law contradict article 25 of the constitution that, “The human being must not be hindered from seeking, receiving and imparting information and ideas.“ Perhaps children are not considered human beings in Lithuania.

Additionally, one article aptly asked what’s the point of such discriminatory measures in a country where there is virtually no social or political acceptance of nontraditional orientations anyway? (In one instance, the former mayor of the capital city, Vilnius, refused to the let the Rainbow Bus come from the EU for a march about tolerance because it supported gay rights). Furthermore, difference of any kind is not well-tolerated in Lithuania, with minorities often being targets of hooligan street violence, with one immigrant from Somalia killed because he happened to “look” different, and Pop singer Berneen Ceseka from South Africa was attacked in Vilnius Old Town last year when her white Lithuanian companion was not.       

This new law is an albatross around the neck of a free and democratic Lithuania, and one that should be examined and questioned by its populace in more detail. The six parliamentarians who voted against this law should be recognized, and Grybauskaite should be encouraged to stick by her guns and not sign it. Institutionalizing intolerance is never a victory for anyone, and the only way out of this complicate quagmire is to keep talking about the things that sometimes make people the most uncomfortable.

Sources Consulted:

Vaige, L.(2009) President Vetoes Controversial Law, The Baltic Times, vol. 10 #661

Vaige, L. (2009) Lithuanian Parliament Blasted over Homophobic Laws, The Baltic Times, vol. 10 #663

Amnesty International, Lithuanian parliament passes homophobic law http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/category,COI,,,,4a5d99092,0.html retrieved on July 17, 2009

1992. The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania.

November 2008 

Since my last posting on this website, I have started my PhD program, settled into a new town, and found myself knee-deep in organizational duties as the new president of the Baltic and Finnish Studies Association at IU. I have been neglecting my own website during this time, so recently I have been desperately trying to think of something to write about to resume my personal scholarship here. This afternoon my topic found me in the form of the controversy in Lithuania swirling around the racist comments made by Vladas Garastas, the president of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation.

The nuts and bolts of the current controversy in Lithuania are taken from the English language, Latvian-based newspaper The Baltic Times, which also cites Kauno Diena. Apparently, Garastas called two of his African-American players “black assholes” after being called by a journalist and questioned about a recent club match that he watched. He allegedly said,  “now about the negro playing in Zalgiris, I would expel him immediately. Zygimantas Janavicius is twice as good as he is…Education, there‘s no education there, with only the black assholes playing,” (Kauno Diena in Baltic Times).

The Human Rights Monitoring Institute drew political and media attention to this incident, but the case was dropped after the basketball club sent a letter saying that it did not wish to press charges. Executive Director of the Human Rights Monitoring Institute Henrikas Mickevicius told The Baltic Times that he was puzzled by the decision to drop the case. Garastas was told to apologize for the remark, who also stated that he was unaware that he was being tape recorded by the journalist and thought that he was being asked for a personal, not organizational, opinion (as though this somehow makes a difference).

The players were not told of the incident until days later, as they did not speak Lithuanian and were not able to follow it in the media. The Baltic Times reports that Kaunas Zalgiris basketball club player Laurence Woods said, “What the president said was very racist and I’m sure that the apology that was issued was fake. What he said was very offensive to myself and to my teammate and to African American players in the Lithuanian league. I think comments like that are unique in the world and I think these views are just disgusting. He embarrassed himself and his family and the Lithuanian people.”

Frequently, I am clucked at when I inquire about the topic of racism or intolerance in Lithuania. Being an American without any Baltic heritage, I am sometimes suspected of trying to make Lithuania look bad by only hunting for the “bad things” that happen. Let me reassert (again) that I adore Lithuania, but the good stuff that happens in Lithuania doesn’t require the attention of a tolerance scholar as frequently as the stuff that smacks of intolerance. Yet, I give credit where it is due: Lithuania has been lauded by the Helsinki Commission of the US Department of State for their amazing Tolerance Education Centers born from the work of International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. Unfortunately, these centers are too small in number to single-handedly teach tolerance at the rate needed.

Additionally, I also get a lot of finger-waving righteousness and queries about how I can presume to talk about intolerance in Lithuania when my own country has so many glaring problems of racism and hatred. Again, I give credit when credit is due: the US has a whole boatload of problems. I find American intolerance just as insulting. I find the recent Indiana University decision to retain the name of an avowed segregationist as the name of the physical education building wholly offensive and blatantly RACIST. To further add insult to injury, the Committee on Names at Indiana University decided that the most prudent thing to do in the face of this criticism would be to attach the name of the first African-American player at IU to the name of the avowed segregationist. This basketball player died in the 1970s, so he is not around to object to being immortalized with the very man who said that blacks should never be allowed to intermingle with whites at Indiana University. Decisions like this are cowardly. So, yes, we’ve got racism in spades here in the US, but that does not negate (justify?) the problems that exist in Lithuania.

Finally, I am aware that semantics do play a part in this discussion. The world for ‘black’ in Lithuanian is negras, the root of which is obvious here. I have heard it argued that the historical offenses of slavery and oppression do not exist in Lithuania, so the baggage associated with sensitive labels found in American cannot be understood in the same way in Lithuania. The argument is based on the idea that the use of words found offensive in America are mere ‘symbols of language’ in Lithuania, much like we call a tree “a tree” and they call a tree “medis.” Having had to literally cross out both the “N” word and the term mulatto from every Lithuanian dictionary that I have ever come across, I can attest to the fact that Lithuanians do seem to think that the use of these words is ok. My latest electronic dictionary still advances this troublesome practice, even offering a translation for the phrase, “the n***** in the woodpile…” a phrase which I cannot imagine a need for in any vernacular the world over. I reject this argument, but find it a difficult task to change the language, save for one person at a time. 

Over the summer, my nephew innocently explained to me that different races are addressed in his Lithuanian history book as “yellow people, red people, and black people.” My horror was pretty evident to him when I embarked on an animated history of how people have used labels to oppress others. Regardless of what he got from this conversation, he seemed pretty intrigued by my suggestion to go home, rip those pages out of his history book, and take them to his teacher to ask for more appropriate ways of explaining other cultures. Extreme? Perhaps. In light of the recent story? Maybe not so much….
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/21736/

June 2008

This question is not intended to be glib. This is a real question, and one that occurred to me last week while attending the 2008 Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies [AABS] international conference in Bloomington, Indiana.

I have been a fervent (some might say vociferous) proponent of the importance of post-Soviet research in the Baltic States. I have regaled anyone who would listen (and even some who wouldn’t) with my opinions, my research, and my personal experiences in the Baltics. In fact,  someone even emailed me recently asking for an advice as an “expert” in the field of tolerance education programs in Lithuania.  I smiled after receiving this email (sort of laughed actually), but then I became worried that someday I might actually have to be an expert on something instead of just a responsibility-free student. So, expert or not (definitely not), the AABS was a place where I could go to learn from other more esteemed and seasoned voices in the field.

At the conference I expected to find a throng of like-minded Baltic intellectuals who were experts in the captivating, yet often overlooked, field of Baltic regional studies. The conference was a success because there definitely were world-renowned practitioners and scholars in the field, but there definitely wasn’t any sort of a throng. At the opening ceremony for the conference only about 40 heads nodded along in agreement with the speaker’s remarks. This was not because an overwhelming majority did not agree with the speaker’s remarks, or that there were people who were reserving judgment until a later time on the speaker’s remarks, it was because there were only about 40 heads total in the room.

I knew that it was quite normal for there to be a paucity of Baltic scholars at  more discipline-specific conferences. For example, this year at the Comparative and International Education Society [CIES] conference in NYC, I was the only speaker out of over 1,000 who was listed under the topic header “Lithuania.” Then it seemed sort of cool the be the maverick scholar, but that was then– AABS was an actual Baltic Studies conference. Thus arose my question: Where was everybody?

Maybe we should put this into context before we proceed. The total combined population of the Baltic States is roughly 7.1 million people. The total world population is 6.67 billion people. This makes the Baltic States less than .0001% of the earth’s total population. When put into that context it makes sense that only about 40 people attended the Baltic Studies conference. Yet, proportionally speaking (if we assume that every one of the 7.1 million Baltic residents cares about scholarship regarding their country), this means that only .0000056% of the Baltic population was represented at the conference.

In order to alleviate other variables, I suppose that I have to also contemplate whether or not Baltic Scholars just don’t want to go to Bloomington, Indiana (which is actually a lovely city); however, the following day the incoming AABS president, Guntis Smidchens, remarked that only about 10% of Baltic Scholars belong to the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies. Where was our collegial mentality?

 “Well,” it went through my mind, “maybe I just belong to a really lame association.” However, I know that this isn’t true, especially because there are virtually no other English speaking, interdisciplinary Baltic Studies associations. So there I was nibbling on some lukewarm polenta in Frangipani Hall contemplating the question, “why should we continue to care about advancing scholarship in and about the Baltic States?”

I will tell you.

The Baltic States could not be more relevant examples of problems in transformation, national identity, political reform, educational revolution, and democracy and citizenship reformation. The Welcome Page of this site highlights some of the most interesting aspects of the Baltic States. Based on that collection of facts, I feel that these three countries are undiscovered gems. After so many years of forced Sovietism (let’s not even pretend they were anything other than a weird hybrid of ‘isms’), they have finally undertaken democracy. This is a new social experiment. 

Though I am not a diehard proponent of purist empiricism, the Baltic States can provide researchers with experiences that can be reviewed, researched, validated, and interpreted against their stated intentions from 16 years ago. Though it may offend those with a highly developed Baltic sense of political maturity (apologies), the Baltic nations are likely still evolving towards a more refined definition of self (as most societies are despite what they say). The political, educational, social, and economic experiments are far from over. How could any country so deep in the midst of such an evolution not be an interesting topic for research?

For more information about joining the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies, click here.

September 2007

Lithuanians are crazy about basketball. This is a fact that anyone even remotely aware of Lithuania should already know. Lithuanian basketball, often called “the second religion of Lithuania,” generates widespread media coverage, national obsession, and even doctoral dissertations. Most recently, Lithuania won a ticket to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing by taking the bronze medal in the 2007 European Basketball Championships.

 My husband, a Lithuanian native who immigrated to the US in 1998, has never been much of a sports fan. In fact, he has been the subject of envy by some of my friends and colleagues for his preference to watch ice skating and gymnastics with me over football and soccer. Only on the occasions when Zalgiris plays Lietuvos Rytas (Lithuanian rival teams) or when the Lithuanian national team competes in an international competition does our house belie our disdain for sports.

For example, just last week our house was a hotbed of Basketball activity when Lithuania progressed undefeated towards the European Basketball Championship semi-finals. Not only did we follow up-to-the-minute coverage of the games, we had to do it while on the phone with my husband’s parents, and on Skype with my husband’s sister, all of whom were watching the championships in their respective houses in Lithuania. This fervor possessed my husband to suddenly call up friends for a pick-up game, resulting in the two, now neglected, basketballs that have been rolling around the backseat of my husband’s car for the last week. I digress. 

 There is anecdotal social research in here, I promise. The most interesting part of all this was the occurrence that I had seen many times before: the dichotomy of love and hate for Russia depending on the circumstances.

Learning the nuances of a population still defining itself after oppression has been a tough experience for me. Though I have spent the last two years immersed in academic discourse on nationalism and cultural identity in post-Soviet states for my Master’s degree, this is obviously quite different from actually living a cultural reality. Though I can understand the Baltic sentiments towards minorities as they exist now, I try to assert academic balance by reminding people of the semantic differences between disdain for Russia/Russians versus disdain for the politics and policies of the Soviet Union. This, of course, is a clear example of my well-intentioned academic naïveté, as it is impossible for the situation to be so cut and dried, black and white, or plain and simple. The relationship between Baltic majorities and Russian minorities is deep and complicated, and I catch interesting glimpses of its complexity through personal experiences with my husband.

The night that the final four Euro Championship teams were announced (and here I must admit to being in the living room doing homework while the aforementioned group viewing took place), my husband was ecstatic that there would be a meeting of Lithuania and Russia on a court where Lithuania clearly had the advantage. Lithuania was marching towards undefeated victory in the Championships, and it was highly plausible that it was the one team that could provide a public lesson to the former “oppressors” about the strength and victory of those they had oppressed. The situation that was expected to unfold was a classic case of someone “about to get schooled;” The sentiment among our Lithuanian friends and family was that Russia would lose. It sounded similar to the ‘legendary’ (at least to Americans) meeting of the United States and Russia at the final hockey match during the 1980 winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York where the US won. Despite whatever the Olympic Committee says, it is clear that these are the times that sports are politics, and winning is ideological victory.

 The Euro Championship game between Russia and Lithuania was nervously watched in our house, especially when Russia came out of the gate with a dominating lead. While the Lithuanian team caught up, in the end Lithuania failed to provide either an athletic or moral victory over Russia. Based on the unpleasant Lithuanian curse words that came from cell phones, internet video conferences, and my husband, it was as if the results of the game meant that Lithuania would go back to being occupied by Russia; yet after my husband regrouped, an interesting shift took place. The mood in our house changed from outrage to one of a logical recalculation of the stakes.

Lithuania had lost. Now, our attention became focused on making sure that Lithuania took the bronze and thus made it to the Olympic Games. When Russia faced Spain in the final round, the desire for Russia to taste defeat disappeared. Suddenly we were champions of the Russian team. The Lithuanians on the end of all those phone calls were now desiring Russia’s win over Spain. When I gently prodded my husband about his sudden about face, he said, “Russia at least touches Lithuania. We don’t have any connection to Spain.”  In defeat of Russia, there would have been victory and notoriety for the small Lithuanian nation. Now that possibility had vanished, but in defeat of Spain the known enemy (so to speak) was at least preferred to the unknown. I have stopped trying to understand this convoluted relationship. I am not sure if this sentiment is even widely shared among others in the Baltic States, but I have seen it play out before in my husband’s family and in our circle of Lithuanian friends. When I ask for an explanation, there is rarely one that can sufficiently express in words how one is shaped by life under oppression. Though, in these anecdotes, I catch small glimpses of the legacies left behind by decades of intricately balanced relationships that will take many more decades to understand by insiders and outsiders alike.

July 10, 2007

Here in Washington, D.C. the omnipresent flip-flop is considered to be a fashion faux pas. It is an example of youthfully negligent accessorizing that is directly contrary to the expected modes of Capital Hill fashion. Yet, many of us still don our flip flops and trundle off to work without giving them any further attention. Fashion no-nos can often be fodder for the superficial, but they generally do not cause any real harm. Lately though some fashion trends are becoming an affront to history. I am speaking of anything that bears that infamous red star or hammer and sickly of the now defunct age of communism.

Cameron Diaz is the most famous recent victim/propagator of this fashion trend. Though Diaz apologized for her political insensitivity, a bag emblazoned with a quote from Mao Zedong displayed in highly offended Peru, the problem of communist kitsch is far from isolated. Diaz’s ignorance made headlines because a Maoist group known as Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) employed methods of violence and brutality to advance their agenda in Peru in the 1980s. Their rampage killed almost 70,000 people. Diaz didn’t know this and attempted to distance herself from any perception of ill-intention by explaining, “the bag was a purchase I made as a tourist in China and I did not realize the potentially hurtful nature of the slogan printed on it.” This hardly makes the affront less insensitive; it merely changes the venue of offense.

How the bag originating as tourist kitsch in China should explain away the offense is no more satisfactory. Mao Zedong, leader of China from 1949-1976, made many economic and political reforms that launched China as a world power, but his successes were marred by his chaotic agricultural and cultural reforms. These “reforms” left anywhere from 40,000,000 to 78,000,000 people dead. Diaz, though insipidly stupid, is not alone in not misunderstanding the appropriateness of wearing red stars and/or hammer and sickles as fashion. Sadly, her behavior is indicative of a larger problem. As CNN indicated, “The bags are marketed as fashion accessories in some world capitals,” and this means that many more red star tote bags exist silently paying homage to leaders and regimes that intentionally orchestrated terror, oppression, starvation, and destruction. Stalin, another communist icon oversaw a manmade famine that killed thousands, especially in Ukraine. The symbols of the former USSR (CCCP) are no less prevalent in modern “fashion,” especially on the chests of generations too young to even know about them.

A quick internet search for “CCCP Fashion” nets 301,000 hits; a veritable bounty of options if you want to celebrate an empire that once boasted a leader responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million people. Fascist and Communist attire is now ‘retro chic,’ available as mass marketed reproductions or at roadside kiosks in post-Soviet countries where sunflower-seed eating men will attest to their authenticity.

Now, I know that I am teetering precariously on the line between freedom of expression and KGB style repression, but I question the appropriateness and accessibility of these fashion accoutrements. Short of becoming the next Lynn Chaney to the millions of rebellious teenagers who want to express themselves, I question the need for what is being expressed in these items. What is the message of brilliant red communist stars that needs to be recycled for a new generation?

I cannot lay the sins of this trend entirely at the feet of consumers and manufacturers, but must also take to task those who are closer in time and place to the messages of communist kitsch (myself included). We must do a better job of educating others about what these symbols mean and why they should be reserved for museums, textbooks, and other more appropriate sites of learning.

In February [2007], the European Union put forth a vote on whether or not to ban the display of the red and black twisted swastika of the Nazi party in Europe. At the same time, several Eastern European nations, among them Lithuania and Estonia, urged the EU to also ban the Soviet era hammer and sickle. Their argument was that these were as representative of mass killings and torture as the nazi swastika.

 These symbols embody decades of destructive oppression and their existence as commodities in western markets is insulting to those whose lives, nations, and families that were altered, disrupted and, in many cases, destroyed by the forces bearing these symbols. While we as scholars, witnesses and/or victims don’t actually make the clothes, mint the flasks or own the stores that sell these items, we have a responsibility to impart to others the weight that these symbols bear.

July 2007

On July 9, 2007, Latvia will have a new president, Valdis Zatlers.

Vaira Vike-Freiberg (also spelled as Freiberga), the former-president, served two terms as the president of Latvia. One can only wonder what Vaira Vike-Frieberg’s political legacy will be– she was known as Latvia’s Iron Lady.

Vike-Freiberg is a Diaspora Latvian. She fled Latvia as a small child at the end of the war, and she returned to Latvia after living in Germany, Morocco and Canada. She became president of Latvia with no prior political experience, apparently forwarded by the Parliament (Saeima) after several other suggestions ended in stalemates. Her story of ‘success’ after a lifetime away from her homeland is similar to that of two-term Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus, who also fled his homeland with his parents at the end of World War II. By the time he became president, he had spent more time away from Lithuania than in it.

One of Vike-Freiberg’s main contributions, though certainly not the only one, was the fact that in a distinctly male-dominated profession she was one of only a handful of women leaders around the world. Only about 22 countries have or have recently had a woman in an elite leadership position. For a quick snapshot of some current and historical woman leaders check out

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0801534.html

Many have compared Vike-Freiberg to Britain’s Margaret Thatcher because of her strength and determination; some even referred to her as “Latvia’s Iron Lady.” Still, it is questionable whether the existence of a female president in Latvia has made the climate more progressive for women. The International Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights reports that in 2000 only 20 women actually held seats in the 100-seat Saeima (the Latvian Parliament). Additionally, the US Department of State reported that women in Latvia are still discriminated against in the workplace (this is also true of the US), and human trafficking also exists, usually the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation.

Early in her presidency, Vike-Freiberg returned (did not endorse) a popularly supported language law to the Saeima for “re-draft.” Though a majority of the population supported this law, Vike-Freiberg rejected it because of its restrictive “Latvian Language Only” stance for communication in public spheres. She was concerned the legislation would negatively affect Latvia’s bid for EU membership as being discriminatory against the Russian-speaking minority. While Vike-Freiberg took a risk on this issue, there are many citizenship and language laws that were enacted that continue to create tension between ethnic Russians and the ethnically-centered Latvian nation that she did not reject.

Vike-Freiberg was widely respected enough to be put forward by the UN to replace Kofi Annan as Secretary General of the U.N., but the contentious human rights record of Latvia may have contributed to a significant number of “nay” votes against her. Latvia is a parliamentary democracy and the president of the republic is regarded as a domestic figurehead with visible foreign affairs responsibilities. Valdis Zatlers, only the third president since Latvia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, comes from a medical background. Zatlers’ role as president will be his first real foray into politics, much like it was for Vike-Freiberg.

Zatlers campaigned for president without a political party affiliation. This lack of affiliation may be in response to his prior membership in the Latvian Communist Party. Early lustration policies in the Baltic States attempted to distinguish the ‘benign’ party members from the more detrimental political actors (such as KGB members), so his party membership may be little more than a practical decision at a certain time in history, but many question his loyalties. His decision to distance himself from a party out of favor has increasingly been seen as self-promoting behavior. This pattern of this self-serving behavior was further questioned when recent questions arose over his acceptance of “private donations” for his medical services. While, doctors in the Baltic nations are not highly paid (compared to other Western nations), and this practice is generally regarded as commonplace, these gifts were not been declared to the State tax authorities as payment of services rendered. Can someone with a black spot already on his record be what Latvia truly needs in a leader?

 Time, of course, can only tell what the legacy of both Vike-Freiberg and the contributions of Zatlers will be.