Return to Riga

[ethics]

William Safire, one of two NY Times OpEd columnist I respect, has a very telling piece on the condition of Latvia (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/25/opinion/25SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fO p%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire) since the breakup of Soviet Union.
In the years since, Latvians suffered the anguish of raw democracy. The hundreds of thousands of Russians sent to colonize and dominate were no longer the elite; they now made up a disliked minority that would not go "home." Grudgingly, Latvia offered citizenship to Russians willing to learn the local language and residency to the rest.

[David McDuff]

William Safire, one of two NY Times OpEd columnist I respect, has a very telling piece on the condition of Latvia (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/25/opinion/25SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fO p%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fWilliam%20Safire) since the breakup of Soviet Union.
In the years since, Latvians suffered the anguish of raw democracy. The hundreds of thousands of Russians sent to colonize and dominate were no longer the elite; they now made up a disliked minority that would not go "home." Grudgingly, Latvia offered citizenship to Russians willing to learn the local language and residency to the rest.



Though Latvia, like the other Baltic states, still has to contend with a truculent and capricious Russian leadership, whose attitudes are mirrored in the writings of pundits like Karaganov (http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=131036&owner=(IHT)&date=20040225150026), who was one of the principal manipulators of the "Russian minority" issue in the early to mid 1990s. Interesting to see that he rides again in the columns of the IHT.