Stealing Latvia, Final Episode

Third part of Ra-gana’s story

Truck at the crossroads in Vilzeni



Ragana apologized for her fit of Turettes (see previous blog about the worms and all), then continued to tell her story to the impressed Latvians:

“The proto-Latvian witch Ragana was the Sun. “Ra” as you know is Egyptian for the Sun, while “gana” (really pronounced yana) is a herdess (as in cowherd), re Sun the Herdess of life on Earth. Another word which the proto-Latvians derived from “ra-gana” was “ra-zhena”, meaning productive. “Zhena” is of course the same as “Yana”, just differently pronounced. Zhenchina is Russian for a young girl or woman, which is equivalent to the Latvian “saules meita”.

“Where do you get all this stuff,” asked a Latvian.

“It’s all in the language,” answered Ragana, “all you have to do is open your ears. Did you know that the Latvian word for ‘birch’ is ‘behrzs’, which comes from the word ‘berzeht’, to rub?”

“You are making this up,” said someone in the audience.

“Not at all,” answered Ragana, “all I do is use my imagination. You see, once upon a time everyone from Kamchatka to Latvia who went to the sauna or sweat house used birch branches in place of sponges. They dunked leafy birch brooms in hot water and whacked their limbs with them to loosen the old skin. The fragrance is divine. This was called ‘berzēt’, to birch one’s self.”

“Alright, I get it,” said one of the Latvians, “except it’s the other way around: the word ‘berzeht’ comes from ‘birch’.”

“You are right,” granted Ragana, “I sometimes get so excited that I get things backward, though—you must know—when I go backwards, I really am going forward. That is how screwed up the world is.”

“So, what else have you to tell us? Why are you telling us about birches?”

“Ahh”, said Ragana, “that has to do with the new Latvian President-Elect Andris Bērziņš or Andris Birch, if you will. I told you before that Berzins ought to think twice before he accepts his election to the Presidency by the Latvian parliament as a valid. That is, of course, if the Latvian people vote to dismiss the Saeima in the coming Referendum.

Same truck, same place

Why should the Latvian people dismiss the Saeima? It has such nice people. Some former deputies were and still are well known musicians. Everyone looks so well scrubbed.

I will tell you why, said Ragana.

It is because the Latvian Saeima is engaged in—yes, it is true—surreptitious (secretive) de-soverenization of Latvia. This mouthful of words are the words that make Latvia disappear. After de-sovrenization is complete, the Swedish banks—to which the Latvian neo-liberals owe so much money, they can never repay it—will join Latvia to Sweden by way of the Nordic Battle Group. The Swedes never accepted their defeat by Russia in the Great Winter War (1700-1721) http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/slkrig_eng17b.htm . The Swedes are planning their moment of revenge as we speak http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/sl_kartor_sv1700.htm#Poltava .

Two cars at the bus stop waiting for guests.

Ten rolls of thunder! You mean that President-Elect Andris Berzins is planning to become the Swedish Viceroy of Latvia?

Something like that, said Ragana, like almost a king, yes. Maybe he will be called governor, like a governor of one of the states in America.

But that is ridiculous? We are in the 21^st century. Everyone knows that Latvians sang their way to freedom from out of the clutches of the Soviet Union. It was a great miracle.

I know what you mean, said Ragana, however, it is not as strange as you think. I just read in Stratfor’s geopolitical intelligence sheet on the internet http://www.stratfor.com/print/198089 that the alliances of the past centuries have not been forgotten. In a section called “Europe’s Spheres of Influence”, researcher Marko Papic http://www.qfinance.com/contributor-biographies/marko-papic , writes:

“The Nordic regional bloc (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia): These mostly non-eurozone states generally see Russia’s resurgence in a negative light. The Baltic states are seen as part of the Nordic sphere of influence (especially Sweden’s), which leads to problems with Russia.”

Almost high noon

Wow! said the Latvians. Why does no one tell us ‘the Swedes are coming’? That is a centuries old dream of Livonians.

Well, answered Ragana, that is because the blind are united in their blindness. The Latvians forsook their Sun Goddess, the symbol of their forebears that stood for the light of the universe. Moreover, they also no longer know they used to call themselves Children of Johns, the sons and daughters of the Sun—answered Ra-gana. You and I, all Latvians, are the goose for the gander in Sweden. One of our own, Andris Vilks, our Finance minister http://www.eib.org/about/news/andris-vilks-new-governor-for-latvia.htm may soon be the Swedish Viceroy's Vice-President of Latvia.

Holy cow!

The Swedes will deny any wrong-doing, continued Ragana. And, strictly speaking, they are right. How could they be wrong if the Latvian Saeima writes laws to their liking? Only a few days ago (7/29) the Chair of the Saeima, Gundars Daudze, insisted (NTV3) that the Saeima must continue to allow to vote in secret, else it will put the Populists in power. He was responding to Ilma Čepane, a deputy, who believes that Saeima’s votes should be public; that people ought to know who the deputies vote for.

Who are the Populists? asked the descendants of Latvian populists who had lost their historical bearings. We hear the word all the time, yet all we know is that it is a very bad word. Neither the media or anyone in Latvian government ever explains it. Can you tell us what the populists do?

They eat fish (reņģes), answered Ragana. It makes their armpits smell different from those of a minister and most journalists. They are poor people whose children are not encouraged by their schoolteachers to move ahead unless it is to move out of the country. Populists do not make lots of money unless they win the lottery.

But surely Andris Berzins will never give up being President-Elect of Latvia. If he did, then the prihvatization of Latvia could come to a stop and Latvia could go from a parliamentary democracy to a people’s democracy, that is to say, a populist democracy. It may even happen that the populists put a stop to the deforestation of Latvia. After all, the Latvians used to call their freedom fighters “forest brothers”.

I would like to see that happen, said Ra-gana, and began to recite a famous, but forgotten folksong. Because the song has been forgot, Ragana put it in her own words:

The potatoes are blooming.

Over the dense tree tops of Tahlava,

rides Ra-gana with glistening shears in her hands.

The linden and oak trees kiss the blades of the light

that bids them good night with so gentle a snip.



(To be continued.)