Re: Destination: North

On Apr 13, 8:49 pm, Tadas Blinda <tadas.bli...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 14, 8:46 am, EZ <zvi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



As I said yesterday, you know what the Polish-speakers real motivation
is, but you won't admit it.  You are trying to be "politically correct" to impress your
American friends. You know that what is really bothering the Polish
speakers of the Vilnius region is their wounded pride and their
outrage at no longer being able to arrogantly and superciliously
demand that the Lithuanians speak Polish with them. While they harbour
such deluded thoughts in their heads, no progress is possible with
them.
Why are you picking on your own homeland?  Why are you criticising it
for exactly the same things that happen in your beloved USA and
everywhere else?  Do you see U.S. Government funded schools in
languages other than English?  Are American citizens of ethnic origin
allowed to write their names in their U.S. passports using non-English
diacritic letters?  Are you howling your condemnation at the U.S..
Government for encouraging assimilation and expressing its joy that in
most immigrant groups 90% or more of the offspring of the original
immigrants cannot speak the ethnic language in any meaningful way by
the time they grow up?

Tadai Blinda - I know the arguments on both sides, and I go with what
is closest to what I believe or what seems reasonable to me. I do not
care to impress you or anybody else. You can find a lot of arguments
on either side - of course Mr. Tomaszewski (or Tomaševski) is playing
on people's emotions - which is not good. But saying that the people do
not know who they are and you will 'educate' them that they are
'polonised Lithuanians' seems childish to me. What are you gonna do -
force them to think that they are Lithuanians? Especially when they
themselves tell you that they are Poles or tutejszi - and the closest
ethnicity to them is the Polish. Your argument of forced assimilation does not appeal to me.

You are missing the point again.  No one is trying to re-educate them
or forcing them to do anything.  All that I – and many others – are
saying is that all their blather can't be taken seriously, that their
childish accusations are baseless.

You also keep steadfastly ignoring my question of why assimilation is
fine everywhere else in the world except Lithuania.  Are you
protesting that the U.S. government does not provide Lithuanian
schools?

 > But the fact is that Lithuanians and Poles lived together for many
centuries.

So what?  Rats, ticks and lice have lived with people for thousands of
years.  All uninvited and unwelcome guests.

Cz. Milosz gives some great thoughts on this account.

I prefer to read Lithuanian authors.  He lived in Lithuania and didn't
even speak Lithuanian.  He is of no interest to me.

This is how it is - and there is nothing we can do about it.

Oh yes there is.  We can remind everyone that Lithuania is a sovereign
nation, an E.U. member, with no fewer rights than countries like U.K.,
Germany and France.  If those countries can legitimately expect that
all their citizens speak the national language, then so can we.  Why
you are making such is strenuous effort to justify the Polish
speakers' outrageous behaviour is a mystery to me.

I already stated that I do not agree with Mr. Tomaševski's (or should
I say Tomaszewski's) behavior. However, IMHO Finland and Lithuania
share many similarities - and the similarity between the Swedish
minority in Finland and the Polish minority in Lithuania cannot be
ignored. The solution - at least partly - could be similar, no?
Countries such as US or Australia are immigrant countries and as such
probably are not a good example.

EZ
.

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