Bizarre discussion. Major Twitter campaign to de-russify the language environment in Latvia. Me: you really mean get rid of Russians somehow, no Russians, no demand for using the language. Response- no, but if you don't learn Latvian, go to Russia. Am I wrong? 8 atbildes
 |
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:16:48) |
Bizarre discussion. Major Twitter campaign to de-russify the language environment in Latvia. Me: you really mean get rid of Russians somehow, no Russians, no demand for using the language. Response- no, but if you don't learn Latvian, go to Russia. Am I wrong? | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:18:36) |
I then bring up places where some languages have been erased by very aggressive assimilation policies, like against Native North Americans and their languages in Canada and the US. Everyone freaks - the poor oppressed Indians are just like us... | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:21:12) |
But not really, the percentage of ethnic Latvians has risen, and it ethnic Latvian governments and lawmakers over 30 years who always said all education (essentially assimilation lite) will be totally in Latvian "next year or the year after" but never happens. | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:23:35) |
On top of that, the freak out - how can I compare Russians to Native Americans? All my ultrarightwingers suddenly see this from an intersectional perspective - "indians" oppressed as a colonized people, Latvians the same, also their languages oppressed. | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:26:21) |
Ok, from a lamentationist view, yes, Latvians had it hard, but the point is not to analyze degrees of oppression and victimization, but see that hard line assimilation policies worked against Native North Americans and, as a thought experiment, why not against Russian in Latvia? | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:34:20) |
An while on the subject of lamention (vaimanāšana in Latvian), the exile community always worried about "assimilation" because it was a hard, inexorable process for many, but not all. In a few generations, the Latvian language faded away in the US. | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:44:25) |
As far as language policy and colonialism, I would look to the analogy of the Maxim machinegun. It was used with great effectiveness against Zulus and Arabs. It was also used in later versions, against Nazis, also effectively. The point is effectiveness, not colonial context. | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:46:28) |
So if you subject "colonizer" Russian children to high-pressure assimilation (no Russian in school, no Russian in the playground, Russian is a bad language anywhere) it could be as effective as against oppressed Native American children in the past. | |
|
juriskazha (2022-07-28 12:49:48) |
In short, this policy is less unrealistic than encourage all Russians to move away or some form of "deportation lite" (no cattle cars) that is also a theme on Latvian twitter, where the underlying desire is to reduce the number of or somehow be rid of the Russians. | |