Mr. Vladis Birkavs, former Foreign Minister and presently the Minister of Justice of Latvia, proudly presented his integration initiative for the Russians in Latvia at a Carr Center Lecture at the Kennedy School. Mr. Birkavs asserted that he was pleased with the liberal, progressive thinking of his government, as well as with the Russian embrace of the integration initiative. Indeed, the Russians who came to Latvia together with some other ethnic groups from the rest of the Soviet Union during Stalin s population displacement strategy, were not expelled from Latvia when the Soviet Union dissolved. In this way a war with Russia was successfully avoided. While it is expected that the citizens of a certain country speak the language of that country, ethnic rights should also imply a preservation of ethnic language and culture.
Integration has to be mutual.
If it is one-sided, then it can only be called assimilation. Indeed, Mr. Birkavs affirmed that Russians would never have a university in Russian and that Russian language would not be given equal treatment in any area even though Russians form a third of the Latvian population. Mr. Birkavs bitterly stated that he had to write his doctoral dissertation in Russian, and yet today he deprives the Russians of the same right to use their mother tongue. Latvians can travel to most countries without a visa, but Russians of Latvia do not have the same right. Such marks remind me of one of the most frightful periods in our history when the Jewish people had to wear the yellow star of David.