Does Latvia Belong to the People or to Latvians?

Everyone who tends to have opinions certainly has one about the Constitutional preamble too. In broad strokes, the story is about whether power belongs to the people of Latvia or to Latvians. Looking through various opinions, I came across an article [1] in which lawyers Jānis Pleps and Edgars Pastars (incidentally, a former adviser to V. Zatlers) share their thoughts and reach the conclusion that the idea of Latvian sovereignty is undesirable for Latvia.

Two nuances caught my attention, which the aforementioned gentlemen used in their argumentation:

1. "Taking into account the (current) ethnic composition of the state's population and historical traditions."
2. "In democratic Latvia there is no place for exaggerated Latvian nationalism."

The Current Ethnic Composition

In case anyone has forgotten, Latvia was occupied from 1940 to 1989, and the power to decide belonged neither to the people of Latvia nor to Latvians, but to the centralised party apparatus, which delegated to the locally installed power the performance of certain economic functions. Moreover, this local power had no say whatsoever over ethnic composition and migration. Meanwhile, to claim that the existing ethnic composition was established illegally, one must somehow prove this. Here we arrive at the point that the fact of occupation is not something to be proven but, it turns out, can either be recognised or not recognised. In effect - it is a political position. There is no such super-court that will once and for all declare whether there was an occupation or not, and accordingly one will be able to argue at great length about the "currently established situation". We can only speculate and conjecture what ethnic composition would have formed had there been no occupation.

Equally one cannot claim that the "current ethnic composition" was established legally, because there is a dispute over the fact of occupation and its consequences. This dispute can drag on indefinitely, since it is at first glance not a dispute of legal resolution but of a political one, and therefore it cannot be subject to a statute of limitations. What the lawyers propose is to base matters on the existing situation, which was not established in a legal manner, and moreover not in accordance with the will of the people of Latvia or of Latvians.

Looking at this statement in a very narrow context, the phrase "that's just how history turned out" is not unfamiliar and can often be heard in officials' polemics as a pretext for doing nothing. For example, in the matter of the stench in the port area of Sarkandaugava - it just so happened that in the nineties oil terminals were built mere metres away from residential buildings. And? If it has been established that such a decision was wrong, shall we just go ahead and demolish them!? Oh, no - it turns out the "historically established situation", regardless of how and by what means it was achieved, becomes binding over time.

Exaggerated Values

To use the irrational label "exaggerated", it would be desirable to clarify the scale of values and its gradation. Since the subject is nationalism, such a scale is in principle impossible. Even the desire to use the Latvian language in communication could be reproached as exaggerated nationalism, which, incidentally, was also done during the Soviet era. Accordingly, since the value of the label "exaggerated" cannot be measured, this label should be excluded, as a result of which we obtain the claim that "in democratic Latvia there is no place for Latvian nationalism".

If democracy is something that stands above the sovereignty of states, who will be the judge who evaluates whether a state is democratic or not, and whether national expression threatens democracy or not? The international community? Does the international community have a face? It does not, because in democracy there are no personalities, only processes and a system that functions "of its own accord".

At the 68th session of the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out several times in his address that Israel is a Jewish state, and not some Israeli state. At the same time, the Old Testament of the Bible uses the designation of the Israelite (or Israelite) people. Has anyone reproached Israel with a lack of democracy for such conduct? Given Israel's close ties with the United States, has anyone reproached the United States with a lack of democracy? No! Even more so - the United States is held up as a model of democracy.

Source:
[1] http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rpsnj8