Valdis Zatlers Names Two Fundamental Mistakes Made in the 1990s 0 13

In the series of discussions "Latvia 2035" — a conversation with Valdis Zatlers. A doctor, president of the state from 2007 to 2011, a deputy of the 11th Saeima, founder of the Reform Party. When asked what he is doing now, Valdis Zatlers replies that he lives a very anxious life, with many tasks. In Riga, he lobbies for various cultural projects. "If no one lobbies for them, nothing happens, because we think: there is a government, there is local government, and they will solve everything, but in reality, pressure from society is necessary." Zatlers reveals that he tries to travel a lot around the world, meet people, and understand what is happening. He believes that it is impossible to get an objective picture from the media — one needs to travel, participate in seminars and conferences. And in the summer, there is a garden that serves both as a pleasure and as physiotherapy and psychotherapy.

Speaking about the 1990s, Valdis Zatlers notes that it is essential to start with the positive. He believes that in 90% of cases, fundamentally correct decisions were made.

"In fact, we could talk for a long time about those success stories, and perhaps we do it too little. But, of course, nothing is a hundred percent right."

Valdis Zatlers believes that there are two fundamental mistakes, the consequences of which we still feel and which could have been avoided. "The first — in our education reform, we excluded all other languages from higher education institutions except Latvian. For students, for professors, for the universities themselves. This was completely contrary to what the founders of our state did, who invited professors and smart minds from all over Europe to create strong universities and strong students. And we prohibited this through language. Instead, we should have immediately tackled kindergartens and introduced the Latvian language there. At this age, children quickly master languages and are not yet politically oriented."

The second fundamental mistake Zatlers names is the failure to grant citizenship to the children of non-citizens.

"In a free state, of our own volition, we continued to produce non-citizens. This group of people had the question — why has this state rejected them?"

Zatlers believes that there were no major fundamental mistakes in the economy. At the same time, he acknowledges that we lacked a politician like Estonia's Mart Laar, who could say: I know that because of this I will not be re-elected, but I will still do the right things. "Our politicians constantly worry about their re-election, so perhaps some decisions were delayed. For example, there was not enough principled position regarding the arrival of offshore companies in the economy and their influence."

Speaking about the present day, Valdis Zatlers notes — we talk too much about lagging behind. "In many things, we are not lagging behind at all, but are even leaders. We are a sufficiently organic element of the North Baltic region, which is now strengthening as an independent unit with its specific interests. But if you go to Lithuania, they will say that everything is better in Latvia. The Estonians are a bit more self-assured; they may not say it out loud, but they think to themselves that one thing or another is better in Latvia. It is normal for someone to come out as a leader while someone else catches up with the leaders — there is no need to worry about that."

Valdis Zatlers emphasizes that we need to stop talking about equality between women and men.

"Ideas of equality have always brought destruction in history. We need to talk about the equivalence of women and men, where one gender complements the other and vice versa, and both are equally important. This sounds conservative, but even in conservatism, there can be certain traits of liberalism."

Zatlers believes that we need to learn to discuss meaningfully, without barking and humiliating dissenters. Demography should be on the agenda of every party and every government. "Benefits alone are not enough. If this idea is not present, for Latvians, the year 2035, not to mention 2050, may turn out to be quite sad."

Speaking about other pressing issues, Zatlers notes that there are currently three plagues in Latvia: procurement, competitions for positions, and anonymous complaints. "Procurement is arranged in such a way that the process is meaninglessly long and does not guarantee the selection of the best proposal. With competitions for positions, one has to navigate like over bumps — often everything ends up in nothing, candidates are often smeared against the wall even before the end of the competition. But the saddest thing is that suddenly anonymous complaints have gained great power, based on which people can lose their jobs and be discredited. This is such a Soviet tradition of denunciation, which for some unknown reason is being revived today."

Nevertheless, Valdis Zatlers remains an optimist and hopes that we will overcome these problems. In the new year, he wishes that we have many children, because there are always too few, and that we evaluate each of our decisions in terms of how it will benefit our children. After all, if there are happy children, there will be a happy nation.