Latvia’s ‘aliens’

Julia Babahina, MRG’s former Fundraising Intern who was born into a Russian family from Latvia, reports from a very personal perspective on the current situation of the Russian minority in her country. Almost a third of Latvian Russians are given non-citizen/alien status, which has drawn widespread criticism from international organisations. The rejection of a referendum in February 2012 to amend the Latvian Constitution to include Russian as an official language proved once again the ethnic split in the country.

Latvia’s citizenship policy, which assigns almost a third of Latvian Russians non-citizen/alien status, prohibits non-citizens from taking part in many aspects of society, such as seeking employment, travelling abroad, or voting during national elections. Even though the Latvian government ratified the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities on 6 June 2005, there is still a considerable part of the Russian population who cannot freely participate in Latvian economic, political and cultural life.

The policy has been severely criticised by the Council of Europe, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Knut Vollebekk, OSCE’s High Commissioner for National Minorities, recently said that all children of non-citizens who were born after Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, must be granted citizenship automatically.

According to data from the Population Register of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs in Latvia, as of 2011, 27.3 per cent of the Latvian population are Russian and 34.6 per cent of these are designated as ‘non-citizens’ or given ‘alien’ status. According to the Citizenship Law of Latvia, a non-citizen ‘is a person who, in accordance with the Law on the Status of those Former U.S.S.R. Citizens, do not have the Citizenship of Latvia or that of any Other State, has the right to a non-citizen passport issued by the Republic of Latvia.’

An “alien’s passport” of Latvia. Credit: Tina Remiz (http://www.fotovisura.com/user/tinaremiz/view/krievi)

Being born into a Russian family from Latvia myself, I have been granted citizenship through my father, whereas my mother was a non-citizen until 2006. My uncle and my grandmother are still non-citizens. I asked my grandmother how it feels.

‘It is heartbreaking and unfair. It is like you have been born into a family and they don’t accept you as their child. The state, the government, and society is the family, and we, non-citizens, are unwanted and alienated children.’

Though all the members of my family were born in Latvia and have lived there for most of their lives, they have no right to vote or work in many state-employed organisations and often have trouble crossing the border. For many Russians in Latvia it is a matter of principle not to apply for citizenship as they think it is absurd given the fact they were born in the country.

Tatjana Zdanoka, one of Latvia’s nine members of the European Parliament and a Latvian Russian, argues that if the Russian community is under-represented in society it is discriminated against, and has urged the international community to support Baltic Russians to claim their rights. Thanks to Zdanoka’s and others’ hard work, in 2007 non-citizens were allowed to benefit from the Schengen Agreement.

On May 2011, 122 recommendations were made to Latvia during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UNHRC in Geneva. The Latvian government rejected seven of these recommendations, including Russia’s recommendation to eliminate the system of non-citizenship. Russia claimed that Latvia’s refusal proved that it does not recognise the severe human rights problem in the country and stated that it violated international human rights law. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia replied that Latvia meets its international obligations in terms of minority rights and held that the non-citizen system is purely an internal affair.

Latvians voting in the February 2012 referendum on whether to introduce Russian as a second official language. Credit: Pablo Andrés Rivero

The Russian government then suggested Latvia accept the human rights recommendations laid out during the UPR so that the call for a referendum, initiated by the Russian speakers’ movement in February 2012 to make Russian language a second official language, would be avoided. The referendum was an unsurprising consequence of people’s dissatisfaction with minority rights in Latvia. Even though 75 per cent of citizens voted against introducing Russian as an official language, it showed the existence of an ethnic divide in Latvian society.

According to Rita Izsak, the UN independent expert on minority issues, the referendum did not prove the superiority of one community over another, but demonstrated that the Latvian government should bring the two communities together and assist them in overcoming fear, mistrust and historical prejudices. However, Latvian nationalists claimed that the referendum was Russia’s attempt to weaken Latvia’s independence.

Today, when Latvian integration issues threaten to polarise the country even further along political and ethnic lines, it is time for the Latvian government to realise that the country’s ethnic diversity does not weaken, but strengthens the country. Latvian integration policies should bring Latvians and Latvian Russians together for a brighter future.

Museum exhibits: an informative piece representing a thriving culture, or a relic of a declining one?

Elvira Nurieva, who recently interned at MRG’s Europe office in Budapest, reflects on the deeper meaning of museum artifacts from indigenous cultures

During my recent visit to the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest, Hungary, I pondered upon a recurring hypothesis of mine about artifacts being both exhibits from a disappearing culture, and symbols of the policies that can lead to the extinction of a distinct language and culture.

Folk bag. Credit: Museum of Ethnography (Budapest).

Studying hand-made objects and colourful photos of women in their national dresses, I caught sight of a piece of information for visitors, revealing that in 2010 the International Finno-Ugrian Congress was held in Hungary, and the representatives of different Finno-Ugrian peoples made a gift to the Museum of Ethnography. At that point my thoughts drifted back to the situation of Mari people in the Republic of Mari El, in the Russian Federation.

Mari women in traditional clothes. Credit: Osmo Joronen webpage

Mari are an indigenous people belonging to one of the five Finno-Ugric language groups; the most sizeable of which are the Hungarians, the Finns and the Estonians. Mari can be divided into three ethnic subgroups: Hill (Kuryk) Mari, Meadow (Olyk) Mari and Eastern (Upo) Mari. Meadow Mari are the largest group. There are two literary languages among Mari and several different dialects are spoken. Mari (who number 670,000) make up almost one-half of the Republic of Mari El (capital city Yoshkar-Ola, meaning Red City), located in the north of the Volga region of the Russian Federation.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the former Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was recognized as a constituent republic of the new Russian Federation. According to a 2006 report by the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and Moscow Helsinki Group, in April 1990 a major grass-roots organization Mari Ushem was set up to promote “the revival of the Mari people,” to advocate for the Mari language to become official in all schools in the republic, and for all civil servants to have bilingual competency.

Sovereignty was declared in October 1990 and the name of the republic was changed to Mari El. The early 1990s were also marked by the revival of cultural trends in Mari El. For instance, in addition to the bilingual Mari National Theater, there was also a new Mari Youth Theater where performances were in Mari only. In comparison with most eastern Finno-Ugric nations still struggling to secure native-language education in the first four grades, the authorities of the republic promoted and protected language and culture by education in the Mari language in public schools, and public funds were allocated to promote Mari language media and Mari cultural activities. Importantly, the 1995 Mari El Constitution included a provision requiring the president of the republic to have command of both state languages. However, the Russian Supreme Court later declared this requirement unconstitutional.

Unfortunately a sizeable change for the worst arrived in the cultural and political life of the Mari people with the launch of federal reforms by President Putin during his first term, between 2000 and 2004. According to state statistics, in 2004 a total of 15 publicly funded Mari language newspapers and magazines and only one privately funded Mari language newspaper were published in the republic.

The spread of the Russian language at the cost of the Mari language has been observed in schools and nursery schools, and also in family homes. In terms of political participation and access to power, although the Mari people make up 43 percent of Mari El’s population, in the republic’s Parliament they constitute only one-quarter of its members.

Where is this boundary between an exhibit as an informative piece of a thriving culture and a relic of a declining one? Knowing that the vitality of a language depends mainly on the number of its speakers, particularly its native speakers, the outlook is somewhat gloomy for Mari.

With the prospect that one hundred years from now the majority of the languages existing today might be extinct, all eyes are on policy-makers of those states where the majority languages are spoken, who have all the political, legal, financial powers to make a positive difference.

Part 2: Indigenous languages are important but are they useful?

In the second of two blogs reporting from the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures, Daniel Openshaw, MRG’s Publications Intern, questions why destruction of intangible culture is often overlooked and what incentive exists to learn an indigenous language.

When the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001 it sparked international outcry. This was an act of intolerance by a global enemy. The buddhas were massive, tangible representations of Greco-Buddhist art and key examples of 6^th century engineering. It was indisputably a cultural disaster. But according to UNESCO’s endangered languages programme, half of the 6000 languages spoken today, will be lost by the end of the century.

Academics and NGO representatives listen to a panel of experts discussing Indigenous Peoples’ rights to languages and cultures.

Last month I attended the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Language and Cultures at Brunel University. Javier Sanchez, one of the speakers and Director of the National Institute for Indigenous Languages in Mexico, asked participants to imagine how they would feel if they woke up tomorrow and were told that they were not able to use the language they had learned from their parents. This is a situation affecting thousands of indigenous people daily and will inevitably exacerbate UNESCO’s predictions. Is this not a cultural disaster equal to the dynamiting of the Buddhas of Bamiyan?

In my last blog I discussed the importance of preserving and promoting cultural rights (including linguistic rights) and the inseparability of these with land rights. I finished by noting how the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled in favour of the indigenous Endorois in Kenyabased on cultural integrity, but how the definition of this term did not include peoples’ right to language. Language and culture are obviously interlinked, but at the seminar Dr Mark Harris of Adelaide University highlighted that they must be seen as individual rights. In some cases of Aboriginal land rights in Australia, land claims are embedded in language and the lack of indigenous languages has led to restrictions on land rights.

An Ampilatwatja elder sets up camp in the bush to demand their rights to land and self-determination. Credit: Rusty Stewart

This is a recurring issue throughout the seminar. Language rights are important, we were sitting in a room full of people who understood this importance, but not everybody does. Referring to my previous question regarding whether the loss of language is akin to the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, the lack of public concern on this issue would suggest not. There is both opposition to and, more dangerously, widespread apathy towards indigenous languages. It is possible that we will be able to preserve them (in the history books) but promoting them will be much more difficult. What is the incentive?

Indigenous languages are important, but are they useful? Major world languages are useful; of the UN’s 6 working languages, French is the international language, English is the international language of business and Chinese is hot on its heels whilst Spanish, Arabic and Russian are spoken across many states. There is a real incentive to spend a lot of time and effort learning these languages. At the seminar it was addressed that learning an indigenous language as either a second language or alongside a first helps the learning of third, fourth and fifth languages, but still, this might seem an unnecessary hurdle to someone who wants to learn a language as a gateway to opportunity. The problem of incentive is not limited to non-indigenous people. In Norway, perhaps through past forced assimilation but nevertheless, the Saami are integrated into Norwegian society, in the main speak Norwegian as their first language and feel they have no need to learn Saami. They lack incentive.

When I introduced this question of incentive at the seminar Dr Harris suggested that it was simply a question of securing the right for indigenous communities to learn- or not to learn- their mother tongue and for wider society to recognize this right.  Incentive to choose to learn as opposed to not learn came in the form of responsibility. At the heart of the matter this is true. It does come down to a sense of pride in one’s language and responsibility to promote its longevity. But is this enough? People have a responsibility to throw litter in the bin in order to protect and promote the visual appeal of their environment, but not everybody does. Responsibility can be a strong incentive and can be used to persuade people to act in a certain way- look at Mao’s China- but in terms of learning a language and the considerable dedication involved, I’m not sure it’s enough (definitely not outside of indigenous communities) to learn an indigenous language.

Javier Sanchez gave a more optimistic answer to the question of incentive. He recounted how there used to be no incentive to learn one of Mexico’s 364 linguistic variants. However since a change in legislation to promote indigenous languages in 1993 there are now intercultural universities, indigenous media broadcasts and the use of indigenous language in civic and public life. Perhaps this is the incentive people need both within and outside of indigenous communities. If, for example court hearings were heard in Saami, then there would be demand for Saami speaking lawyers. If there were Innu TV channels then there would be demand for Innu-aimun speaking presenters. Dr Sheila Aikmen of the University of East Anglia also suggested that bilingual education, which is fairly widespread, should be available to all, not just indigenous peoples, as this in itself can be marginalizing.

The Expert Seminar and work of the Expert Mechanism are indications that the cultural and linguistic rights of indigenous peoples need to become more prominent. In my view, incentive is the key and it is slowly emerging. A new law is going through the motions in Ukraine that would allow court cases to be heard in minority languages, such as Crimean-Tatar; this is just one example cited in this year’s ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples’ to be launched in June. Destruction of language is in large a passive process towards an intangible culture. Bringing the issue to the international stage is an optimistic beginning but there is a long way to go before it is seen in the same way as active destruction of tangible culture.

Part 1: How to Skin a Porcupine

Daniel Openshaw, MRG’s Publications Intern, reports back from the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures. In the first of two blogs he discusses the importance of cultural rights and their inseparability from rights to self determination and land.

I have no idea how to skin a porcupine, but then I do not speak Innu-aimun, the language of Canada’s indigenous Innu. Innu-aimun has specific terms describing how to kill and prepare porcupine, for which there is no equivalent in other languages. Those who don’t speak Innu-aimun will be able to guess, they might hack away at the rodent, trying to avoid being pricked by one of its sharp spines until it resembles a steak, over time even cultivating methods resembling those that Innu have been using for centuries. However, there will be no efficient way of explaining these processes to others if Innu-aimun ceases to exist. This cultural wealth and ancestral knowledge will be lost…at best assigned to the history books with the useful words assimilated (‘borrowed’) into more dominant languages, at worst, forgotten.

This example highlights a recurring theme that emerged at the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures, organised by Dr Alexandra Xanthaki from Brunel Law School in collaboration with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which I attended in March. Majority cultures have a longstanding history of dismissing and assimilating indigenous cultures and languages that are often differ radically from the mainstream.

A panel of expert speakers and OCHCR representatives gather during the Expert Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures

Academics and indigenous representatives from around the globe attended in order to aid the development of a study by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the behest of the UN Human Rights Council under resolution 18/8 of September last year. The aim of the study is to investigate the role of languages and culture in the promotion of the rights and identity of indigenous peoples.

The seminar emphasized the importance of preserving and promoting cultural rights and also important issues standing in the way of this. Professor Elsa Stamatopoulou, former Chief of the UN Permanent Forum on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, summed up the conundrum: human rights are seen as the weak part of international law and within these rights cultural rights are seen as the weakest, as illustrated by the make-up of the ICESCR which covers Economic rights (E) and Social rights (S) from articles 1 through to 14 and then tags on Cultural rights (C) as a vague afterthought in article 15. Things are improving with the introduction of UNDRIP, which although legally non-binding has achieved almost universal recognition and indicates a step forward to recognizing what Professor Stamatopoulou referred to as ‘the essentiality of cultural rights’, not simply as a luxury secondary to a person’s right to food and water.

Maasai child in front of traditional hut. Credit: Kibuyu

‘If you don’t have a traditional culture or speak a traditional language then you are a slave’ – a Swahili proverb that emphasizes that the right to maintain one’s culture is fundamental to one’s right to self-determination. Lucy Mulenkei, head of the Indigenous Information Network, further illustrated this through the displacement of Maasai in Kenya.

When they are displaced, for whatever reason, it is almost certainly a non-indigenous person who has decided they must be displaced and they might be moved to areas where traditional materials are unavailable to build traditional huts in traditional ways. Perhaps without malice but definitely with indifference, decision-makers have not taken into account the cultural rights of indigenous peoples and in doing so have denied the Maasai part of their identity.

Cautious optimism did prevail at the seminar, especially because of recent developments in the recognition of cultural rights, often in conjunction with land claims. Dr Jeremie Gilbert of Middlesex University highlighted the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ (IACHR) 2001 landmark ruling in favour of the Mayagna community of Awas Tingni, Nicaragua. Logging permits had been granted on indigenous land by the state without obtaining the free prior and informed consent of local communities. The IACHR recognized Awas Tingni land as property of the Mayagna peoples on the basis of traditional use and occupancy, equal to the social integrity of the community.

Traditional Maasai huts. Credit: J. Czliao

Dr Kristin Hauser of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law also highlighted how the Supreme Court of British Columbia had allowed traditional culture to be heard on a equal footing to anthropological and scientific evidence in the case of a land dispute involving the Tsilhqot’in first nations peoples of Canada. Given the evidence, the judge stated that 50% of disputed land should have been awarded to the indigenous community but as this was an ‘all or nothing’ claim, no land could actually be awarded. Nevertheless, the recognition has been heralded as a victory.

Furthermore, MRG has been involved in the case of the Endorois in Kenya, semi-nomadic pastoralists who were evicted from their ancestral land in the 1970s to make way for a national park. Here the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) took the rights to religion, culture and access to natural resources, together to be equal to the right to cultural integrity and used this to award the Endorois land rights and posthumous compensation; a positive step but one that two years on is yet to be implemented.

These cases illustrate the inseparable nature of cultural rights and land rights, further emphasizing the essentiality of cultural rights. This will be explored in MRG’s ‘State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples’ to be launched on June 28^th, which this year focuses on natural resources and extractive industries.

However, what is striking is the lack of acknowledgment of linguistic rights in the ACHPR definition of cultural integrity. This is a cause for concern as Dr Mark Harris of Adelaide University pointed out; Aboriginal land claims in Australia are often imbedded in language, a discussion that will be continued in my next blog…