“We Messed Up” - Former Politician on Why All Schools Did Not Become Latvian in the 90s

Former politician, now publicist and school teacher Andris Panteleevs shared his memories of the 1990s in an interview with Latvian Radio, specifically about why all schools did not gradually switch to Latvian at that time. "We were late, then we completely forgot about it for a moment, to be honest, and suddenly we realized where we were when we finally started thinking that a unified school was needed. Why this happened, I can provide various excuses, of course, but the problem is that now in Europe the issue of minority rights is not such a pressing topic, but back then it was a major concern. We, like green cucumbers, were creating our country and listening to smart people, and the smart people – there was OSCE Commissioner Van der Stoel and others, whom I won’t name, all came to us and said that no, we need to preserve Russian schools because it pertains to minority rights, that they cannot be touched. Van der Stoel spoke to us from the perspective of human and minority rights, while Western politicians spoke in a strange language, but said the same thing – "don’t irritate Yeltsin – let him withdraw the army from your country, achieve that first. Don’t irritate now, because, you see, if you start forcing Russians to learn in Latvian, they will protest, and Yeltsin will be forced to talk about protecting Russian rights. Just don’t irritate." That’s how it turned out. Although now, for example, Ojars Rubenis said that actually in the early 90s, the Russian schools and Russians were much more embarrassed by everything that happened. At that moment, they might have accepted it much better and easier than now, 20 years later, because, of course, if you have been teaching in Russian for 20 years, then why suddenly after 20 years is it no longer acceptable? Well, there is a word "messed up." To some extent, we messed up, but the international pressure was still very strong on this issue," said A. Panteleevs.