References to “Latvians and Livs” in http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/untc/unpan018407.pdf refute this statement.

I also understand the general logic, the thinking behind the Latvian post-occupation naturalization policies. Indeed, you had had an independent ethnocentric nation before the occupants came. During the soviet occupation, a great lot of people migrated to Latvia and stayed to live in your country. Majority of them were Russian speakers, and the soviet system allowed them to live freely and avoid learning Latvian. When Latvia became independent, your government had to deal with these new Latvians in one or other way. Lithuanians granted citizenship to nearly everyone. Your government chose another way. I opine it was an errant way. Most of these immigrants had nothing to do with the soviet occupation. I deem it to be totally unfair not to grant citizenship to the families who have lived most of their lives in Latvia. It was appalling not to initially grant citizenship to the children born in such families. The whole idea of “passport of a non-citizen” is utterly discriminatory. Most of such families did not deserve the hardships and humiliation they had to go through due to the Latvian citizenship policies.

Of course, neither your country nor mine should have been occupied in the first place. Desovietization, democratization in all our countries was bolstered with the national renaissance, growth of nationalism and the elite’s urge to buttress our titular ethnic groups by purging our countries off the occupants or, at least, integrating them into our ethnocentric societies. But the problem is that it is quite late to build strictly ethnocentric states, especially when our states are no more ethnocentric de facto. We have rolled back to the questions of ethnicity and national identity in the age of globalization II-III (the terms coined by Tom Friedman). Latvia, just as Lithuania where I now live, is part of the European Union, a sui generis case, a grand project of political integration. Latvian ethnic dominance hits the rock of the Europeanization process.

And I agree – on the surface, the language shift you now have is toward Latvian. But in essence, the question that automatically pops up is for how long that would be? I disagree that Latvia stands a chance to grow more Latvian for too long. This may be a painful thought to consider, but the rationale of postmodernity is fastforwarding this globalizing metanarrative.

Citizenship laws never had anything to do with ethnicity. Many Russians (and other Russophones) are citizens by descent — they received passports based on they or their parents (or grandparents) having held citizenship.

No one was disenfranchised; those came here during the occupation never held Latvian citizenship. They have the opportunity to naturalize, which does indeed require learning a modicum of Latvian. About 130 000 have done so.

“Now Latvia has joined the European Union, the borders opened, the new opportunities drove hundreds of thousands to the West.” Hundreds of thousands? Sorry, you’re on the wrong scale — we don’t have so many people! I’ve never seen any estimate over 100K, and most estimates are more like 50-70K recently. And those estimates include Russophones, who have been at least as likely to leave as Lettophones.

In the meantime, the linguistic environment has changed radically in favor of Latvian, and basically continues to do so. Nearly all mixed couples (and Latvia has an extremely high rate of inter-ethnic marriage) with one Latvian partner, for instance, now send their children to a Latvian-language school. Minority schools have revived — a lot of Poles would not like to be described as “Russian speakers,” for example.

The softening up of the language laws was not related to the labor shortage — it was related to law and European integration. Yes, it’s quite true that Russian is still necessary for most “decent” jobs — but it’s also true that Latvian is also now necessary, and it wasn’t before.

All in all, language shift is definitely towards Latvian, and that will be accelerated by the education reform.

Recent sub prime issues nearly caused insurance company to bankrupt……

Who fault?

The top management of the listed company salary should be tied a portion of it to the shares…. so when the shares price drop, it don’t just penalise the investors, but those who don’t take care of the company…..

Since the U S is going to have president election, should they bring this out as a topic for discussion?

And at present time when 9 million of people of Belarus are speaking Russian it is very short-sighted and unwise to use Belarusian during elections by the opposition and by the foreign-funded electronic media.

What is deadly harmful in Belarus 2008 is not Trasianka
but dictatorial regime speaking on it.

Democratic Belarus - First! Belarusian language - Second!
Otherwise it definitely will be doomed …

http://www.squidoo.com/FreeBelarus