THE VOICE OF INTERNATIONAL LITHUANIA
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Dr. Stasys Backaitis |
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Dr. Stasys Backaitis, |
EU Eurozone (17) |
The promise
For most of the southern EU countries the euro may seem like chains to a captive, but for Latvia’s and Lithuania’s governments and their elites, acceptance into the eurozone (EZ) symbolizes freedom and independence. To the Baltics, membership in the EZ reinforces each country's integration into the west and is the final big step in liberation from their historical tormentor, Russia. Following Latvia, Lithuania is eagerly awaiting the green light to be admitted to the EZ in the next year or two. That was also the message by the Nobel Committee last year, when it awarded the EU the Nobel Peace Prize for its role in “the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights as well as political freedom”. The message echoed by the Continent’s politicians, in the words of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is the choice between continued integration or a return to “centuries of hatred and blood spill”.
The EU message is hammered home relentlessly by the EU
politicians,
who believe their citizens face a stark choice, in the words
of Chancellor
Angela Merkel of Germany, between continued integration and a
return
to “centuries of hatred and blood spill.”
Benefits of membership
This euphoria seems to be rather a strange contradiction, as deep financial problems in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and several other countries have rattled the foundations of EU and particularly the integrity of the eurozone. Now that the Czech Republic, Poland as well as Hungary are having second thoughts of joining the euroclub, and England is outright rejecting the thought, why are the Baltic countries so eager to join it?
Lithuanian Finance Minister, Rimantas Sadzius, echoed Dombrovski, by saying in a Bloomberg Brussels interview on May 13, 2013 that joining the euro will help his country’s economy by boosting its ability to attract international financing. “We would have a huge improvement of the investment climate in Lithuania almost overnight,” Sadzius said. He noted that “Lithuania risks isolation if it slows its march to the common currency, now that Finland and Estonia have joined the 17-nation euro bloc and Latvia has been invited to join it in 2014.” Assuming it can meet all economic and fiscal targets, Lithuania is aiming for acceptance into the eurozone in 2015. “We want to participate in the decision-making of the euro zone,” Sadzius said. “We see our future here.”
According to the Guardian, Latvia's prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis,” joining the euro makes economic sense”. It will bring budget savings, promote foreign direct investment and underpin the recovery from an economic collapse in 2008-11. But it's not all finance and economics. For the Baltic States, long at the mercy of an imperial Russia, whether tsarist or communist, and now wary of Vladimir Putin, the euro would affirm gain rather than loss of sovereignty.
The Baltic States wanted to join the eurozone in 2008, but was stopped by the financial collapse in the EU. Their housing and consumption bubble, fuelled by cheap credit from the Swedish and Danish banks that dominate the Baltic banking sector, burst and sent the economy into a tailspin, more in Latvia and Lithuania and somewhat less in Estonia. Their economies shrank by nearly 25%, civil service jobs and wages were slashed, numerous social, education, and health services frozen and some axed. As a result unemployment tripled, property prices collapsed by up to 70%, and an estimated 10% of the population, mainly young people, emigrated.
Yet in the last year and a half, the Baltic countries went back from bust to boom. Because of their previous belt tightening economic policies and self imposed fiscal constraints, they became the fastest growing in the entire EU region, up to 5% last year.
Dombrovskis and his Lithuanian counterparts argue that, unlike Greece and the other southern rim eurozone members, the recovery of their countries is solid and sustainable, based on manufacturing and exports and not by easy credit of the boom years of the last decade. The achievements are something no other eurozone members have managed to pull off, by imposing austerity measures and spending cuts as tough or tougher than any in the eurozone without causing public unrest or social upheavals.
Lithuanian Finance Minister, Rimantas Sadzius, said in a Bloomberg Brussels interview on May 13, 2013 that joining the euro will help Lithuania’s economy by boosting its ability to attract international financing. “We would have a huge improvement of the investment climate in Lithuania almost overnight,” Sadzius said. He noted that “Lithuania risks isolation if it slows its march to the common currency, now that Finland and Estonia have joined the 17-nation euro bloc and Latvia has been invited to join it in 2014.” |
Managing hazards
Are the Baltic States over the hump, and will not experience the euro sickness that is shaking the southern EU rim? Based particularly on Greece’s and Portugal’s debilitating experience, there is convincing evidence that euro’s initial lure leads most financially unendowed, less industrialized and poor in natural resources countries, subsequently to very painful downfall.
Estonia’s Prime Minister Andrus Ansip noted at the Baltic Development Forum in Riga on May 30, 2013 that Latvia and Lithuania’s joining the euro area will make the Baltic States even more attractive to investors and will boost economic growth in the region. “Joining the euro area was and is very important to us. After joining the euro area, foreign investment in Estonia went up 10.4% within a year while unemployment decreased significantly”. According to the Prime Minister, the use of a common currency also increases trade with other European Union member states and generates economic growth.
In a 1961 paper Robert Mundell noted that common currency is a matter of balancing advantages against disadvantages. Economically, the advantages are reductions in the costs of trade-eliminating the need to buy and sell currencies, to hedge exchange rate risks with futures or swaps, and the like. Economic disadvantages stem from the fact that a country with a shared currency cannot respond independently to external shocks by using monetary instruments like changes in interest rates or exchange rates. Mundell also recognized a role for political factors in the choice of currency arrangements. Interestingly, at that time, he saw the question of common currency as purely academic, “hardly within the realm of political feasibility that national currencies would ever be abandoned in favor of any other arrangement.” Little did he know of what would happen in 2000 and beyond years.
If joining the eurozone stimulates economies and helps to reduce unemployment, why is the opposite happening to the southern rim of EU?* People in the southern rim countries appear to believe that the euro project has locked them in economic chains, rather than advancing democracy, liberalism, and human rights. As is, the euro has taken the weaker less industrialized member states to an extraordinary test of resilience. Large segments of the southern EZ citizens see themselves cast in an economic prison, with Germany as the jailer and the common currency as the bars. They view the future as continued stagnation, characterized by aging societies with expensive welfare burdens and large segments of the young people sitting idle and , unable to find work.. It is a horrendous stress, unseen in the history of modern Europe, and particularly devastating to the youth segment. Of the population. In the Continent’s sick-man economies, the jobless rate for those under 25 now staggers the imagination: more than 40 percent in Italy, more than 50 percent in Spain, and more than 60 percent in Greece.
If
joining the eurozone stimulates economies and helps to reduce
unemployment,
why is the opposite happening to the southern rim of EU?
Stepping stones to success
Upon joining the eurozone, countries such as Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal are almost certainly no better off than if they would have kept their own currencies a decade ago. "The introduction of the euro created a lot of wrong signals and distortions," says Uri Dadush, an economist at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, DC and author of the excellent new study “Paradigm Lost, The Euro in Crisis”. The euro provided benefits, such as reduced transactions costs, inexpensive loans to finance internal projects, etc., but also caused very serious problems at pay-back time these countries now face."
Monetary union has damaged their economies in two major ways. First, inexpensive borrowing, that made the euro look so appealing, caused booms in domestic consumption. However, it also raised enormously overall costs, especially for labor. As a consequence it lowered dramatically their competitiveness both compared to stronger euro zone members such as Germany and France and with respect to countries that didn't join the euro like Britain and Sweden.
Second, the easy credit enticed the southern rim governments to borrow and spend lavishly. As a result, they are now struggling with potentially ruinous levels of debt. Both problems were just what Friedman would have predicted, that, a single monetary policy and one-size-fits-all interest rates simply won't work for economies as different as mighty Germany and as wobbling as Greece or Spain. It turned to be ruinous even to the more prosperous Italy and Ireland, whose stronger economies suffered from the same wrong signals.
Since joining the eurozone, the southern EU economies have lost ground to their stronger trading partners in competitiveness. Their costs for making products or even growing fruits and vegetables, especially for export, have increased sharply and became uncompetitive The best measure, called Real Effective Exchange Rate or REER index, calculated by the EEC for 35 nations, indicates that the main culprit in the unbalance is the cost of labor.
Since 1989, the competitiveness ratings fell 9% for Greece, 16% for Spain and Italy, and 26% for Ireland, which was renowned as a mighty exporter. Now, everyone of them is struggling with costs that are between 16% to 31% above the norm. According to the index, labor and other expenses in Italy and Spain are now one-third higher than in the UK. This indeed is not a good denominator for resolving high unemployment problems.
Latvia’s and Lithuania’s integration into Europe must be viewed through the lens of powerful historical forces and very dangerous and unpredictable neighbors. For both countries deeper integration into the EU is the only right way to go. But the euro evidently might not be necessarily the right symbol of that forward movement, or if it is, it must be handled with extreme sense of balance, which in a climate of intense political rivalry is very difficult to carry out. The euro is most often viewed as a political project, one that will bring the nations of Europe into a greater and deeper union. But joining the euro at a moment when history is fiercely contesting this vision, might be euphoria to some and disaster to others. The majority of Baltic populations is on the cautious side and wants to see first how the EZ will resolve its own problems. Will politicians listen?
Although Latvia and Lithuania appear to meet the criteria set by EU to be admitted to the eurozone club, it does not tell the whole story. Membership in the eurozone may not always be easy, because each of the countries faces unique problems and because the euro itself is in a highly fragile circumstance.
First; it is not likely that inflation in both Latvia and Lithuania will continue to stay as low as it is now. Experience by southern rim euro countries indicates that a relatively poor country with a fixed exchange rate, upon availability of “cheap” money, will experience faster inflation than its larger trading partners. Yet to counteract these negative effects, the euro member countries cannot use monetary policies and exchange rates to manage their changing inflation rates.
Second; faster real growth and faster inflation will make management of fiscal policy more difficult. During the boom years of cheap and easy money in 2004 to 2007, the governments, yielding to populist pressures, raised government salaries, minimum wages, and social benefits with little worry about consequences. The resulting overheating of the economies intensified the crash that followed the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2009. As a result, even more severe austerity measures were required than would otherwise be needed. To avoid repetition of that scenario careful fiscal management is an absolute necessity.
Third, both Latvia and Lithuania face a difficult demographic situation. The population reproduction rates in the last decade are well below replacement levels, accompanied by steadily increasing number of retirees per worker. The rising burden to support pensions, increasing healthcare needs of the aging population, and lack of employment opportunity induced emigration of large numbers of mostly young people. As a consequence, falling revenues, increasing outlays, and high unemployment made the financial situation very difficult to control.
Since
joining the eurozone, the southern EU economies have lost ground to their
stronger trading partners in competitiveness. Their costs for making products
or even growing fruits and vegetables, especially for export, have increased
sharply and became uncompetitive The best measure, called Real Effective
Exchange Rate or REER index, calculated by the EEC for 35 nations, indicates
that the main culprit in the unbalance is the cost of labor. Since 1989, the
competitiveness ratings fell 9% for Greece, 16% for Spain and Italy, and 26%
for Ireland, which was renowned as a mighty exporter. Now, everyone of them is
struggling with costs that are between 16%
to 31% above the norm. According to the index, labor and other expenses in
Italy and Spain
are now one-third higher than in the UK.
The bottom line
The governments of Lithuania and Latvia appear to realize that they are dealing with a very fragile economic and geopolitical situation, but in their judgment, the quest for insuring security and protection of their countries’ sovereignty are worth many sacrifices and hardships. In their many speeches, the respective politicians suggest that success in dealing with the 2008-2012 world economic crisis is a living proof that the austerity measures taken were sufficient to navigate safely through extremely devastating situations, and that the recipes of the European Commission do work and helped to achieve the planned results.
If becoming eurozone members is a way for the Baltic countries to insure security and protection of their sovereignty, then it is a reasonable risk, provided it is guarded by good governance and sound administration of fiscal policies. Of most importance is that the Baltic politicians do not succumb to the lures of easy money and irresponsible spending. Even when debt is incurred, the borrowed funds should be invested in long-term economic growth and job creation, improved competitiveness, quality of work, and with focus of achieving positive balance of trade. The Baltic politicians need to realize that their small countries are not equipped and cannot compete in traditional mass manufacturing with highly industrialized countries. Rather the countries can excel by being frugal and competing through product uniqueness, excellence in quality, innovation and unexcelled services. Their success of rising from economic ashes of 2008-2012 is a proof of their ability to meet these challenges.
Dr. Stasys Backaitis |
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Dr. Stasys Backaitis, |
EU Eurozone (17) |
If becoming eurozone members is a way for the Baltic countries to insure security and protection of their sovereignty, then it is a reasonable risk, provided it is guarded by good governance and sound administration of fiscal policies. Of most importance is that the Baltic politicians do not succumb to the lures of easy money and irresponsible spending. Even when debt is incurred, the borrowed funds should be invested in long-term economic growth and job creation, improved competitiveness, quality of work, and with focus of achieving positive balance of trade. The Baltic politicians need to realize that their small countries are not equipped and cannot compete in traditional mass manufacturing with highly industrialized countries. Rather the countries can excel by being frugal and competing through product uniqueness, excellence in quality, innovation and unexcelled services. Their success of rising from economic ashes of 2008-2012 is a proof of their ability to meet these challenges.
Valdas Samonis |
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Valdas Samonis, PhD, CPC |
Cutting through the EU bureaucratic gobbledygook
Part 2
The more I am into my research on my forthcoming book
"INSIDER CRONY SOCIALISM", the more I see the parallels
between the Gorbachev's USSR and Barroso's EU!
Collapsing EUSSR under Reformer Barrosov?
Pray that God gives more wisdom to European Leaders!
I have to admit it.
The more I am into my research on my forthcoming book "INSIDER CRONY SOCIALISM", the more I see the parallels between the Gorbachev's USSR and Barroso's EU!
A New Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum is Open
The Vytautas Kasiulis Art Museum is a new unit of the Lithuanian Art Museum, open to public from 28 of June. Vytautas Kasiulis has fully deserved to be called by art reviewers as one of the most interested painters of Paris school of the second half of 20th century.
Read more
Culture Night –
“Let There Be Night!”
Vilnius Old Town
2013-07-05
Music jingling all night long from the abandoned backyard in Vilnius old town, never-ending movie show in the meadow at the Baltasis Bridge, concerts, performances, exhibitions, workshops, and installations taking place on the streets, squares, and the most unexpected spaces... The entire city is filled with music, colors, lights, and smiles. And this is not a dream or a motive from a motion-picture. All this is the Culture Night.
Programme
New Self-Serve Bike Rental System in Vilnius
Starting July 15th, bikes will be available for self-serve rental for Vilnius residents and visitors. At the rental stations, bikes will be available for rent 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The stations will be distributed at distances of 300-400m from each other. The bike rental season will extend to October 15th.
Read more
Discover Vilnius Old Town
If you came to Vilnius on your own and want to become acquainted with the city, to see its most beautiful sites, we invite you to join the tour Discover Vilnius Old Town. Tours are organised in English, Russian & German languages and start at 11 am from Cathedral Belfry.
Read more
Listen to the
Sounds of Music
Various Places
2013-07-021 – 2013-09-08
This is an international Christopher Summer Festival that abides by the rule “all genres are good except the boring ones”. It is one of the biggest summer events in Vilnius, which attracts numerous performers from Lithuania and other countries. A limitless, happy, eclectic marathon of fun “holiday” concerts is about to begin!
Read more
Days of Live Archaeology
in Kernavė
Cultural Reserve of Kernavė
Kerniaus g. 4a, Kernavė
2013-07-06 – 2013-07-07
The past will rise from the oblivion in the ancient capital of Lithuania. Festival of experimental archaeology is dedicated to commemorate the Coronation of Mindaugas – the Statehood Day. During the festival visitors will have a possibility to try various medieval games and funfairs, watch the craftsmen work.
Programme
Tamsta Music Festival
Trakai
2013-07-12 – 2013-07-14
July 12-14 – that's the weekend, when Lithuanians and their friends from all over the World are going to Trakai. Friendly atmosphere, tones of music, love, entertainment, games, beautiful nature and water – this festival is “a must” of this summer.
Programme
Contacts:
Vilnius Tourist Information Centre & Convention Bureau
Vilniaus g. 22 LT-01119 Vilnius
tic@vilnius.lt
Valdas Samonis |
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Valdas Samonis, PhD, CPC |
Cutting through the EU bureaucratic gobbledygook
Part 2
The more I am into my research on my forthcoming book
"INSIDER CRONY SOCIALISM", the more I see the parallels
between the Gorbachev's USSR and Barroso's EU!
Collapsing EUSSR under Reformer Barrosov?
Pray that God gives more wisdom to European Leaders!
I have to admit it.
The more I am into my research on my forthcoming book "INSIDER CRONY SOCIALISM", the more I see the parallels between the Gorbachev's USSR and Barroso's EU!
According to the numbers circulating in the European financial press, the EU outstanding debt is some euro 40 trillion!
The practically only EU paymaster's (Germany') GDP is some euro 2,5 trillion. I will not insult your intelligence; just compare the two!
For the first time in human history, the picture is further dangerously complicated by some one thousand trillion in toxic derivatives sloshing around the global economy. It is like financial AIDS and no bank will tell you that!
In terms of financial intermediation, Europe relies on banks much more than any other major region of the world economy.
On June 26, the EU agreed to a couple of years of reforms towards the European Banking Union (EBU), a very complex bank supervision, etc, arrangement that leaves some countries out, some in, to different and obfuscated extents, etc.
Coming to the Gorby/USSR parallel, when the central planning from Moscow (sorry: Frankfurt/Brussels!) doesn't work, the solution proposed by the planners is more centralized planning rather than letting nations or EU sub-regions to find their own workable solutions.
Germans are wise as usual; they exempted the great majority of their banks (that serve the German economy) from the EBU and will regulate them from Berlin, not Frankfurt (ECB)! Voila!
If I were a young European, I would buy my transatlantic ticket today; one way!
Pray that God gives more wisdom to European Leaders; as the Lithuanian Bishops suggests when the LT Presidency of the EU starts on July 01, 2013.
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Dr. Rimas Slavickas |
Dr. Rimas Slavickas |
It is an honour for such a small country like Lithuania to fulfill the role of EU Presidency. By accepting this responsibility to diligently fulfill this task may further enhance EU’s unity to be as ‘one’, yet retaining the strengths, resiliencies and differences of autonomous ‘individual nations’ with their own respective historical identities. Lithuania has an opportunity, during its tenure, to raise the European bar – standards, even higher by setting examples for others to follow. The further pursuance of practical ideals and solutions which include government and economic stability, wrapped in democratic principles of justice, freedom of expression and human rights would provide even a greater global attention and exposure for both EU and Lithuania. Namely, by setting aside human frailties of individual self serving political esteem and associated benefits and thereby provide a perception of greater national unity and strong leadership to further enhance the positive moral direction by affectively addressing European challenges. Such efforts would be globally recognized that integrity, sincerity, goodwill and determination of purpose, even from a relatively small nation, can achieve much. This attribute is especially relevant to Lithuania which historically has seen many years of political turmoil, world wars and more than half a century of suppressed occupation and yet has retained its rich cultural heritage, religious beliefs and basic democratic principles. Such national determination initiated the ending of the official Soviet system and today stands out to others as an example of perseverance and that ‘it ‘can be done’, irrespective of the magnitude of the perceived challenge.
Therefore, let the Lithuanian decision makers brace themselves to this privileged task and recognize that this tenure is not only a challenge but also an opportunity to help both the EU concept and also the Lithuanian nation. The strengthening of the idealistic concepts of European Union would also enhance Lithuania’s global credibility and fundamental concepts of national unity abroad and at home.
Lithuania will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the second half of 2013, starting from the 1st of July. VilNews has on this background asked readers to annotate and analyze factors that have to do with Europe, the EU, the euro and Lithuania. This is one of the posts we have received. An article by Dr. Rimas Slavickas |
Dr. Rimas Slavickas |
It is an honour for such a small country like Lithuania to fulfill the role of EU Presidency. By accepting this responsibility to diligently fulfill this task may further enhance EU’s unity to be as ‘one’, yet retaining the strengths, resiliencies and differences of autonomous ‘individual nations’ with their own respective historical identities. Lithuania has an opportunity, during its tenure, to raise the European bar – standards, even higher by setting examples for others to follow. The further pursuance of practical ideals and solutions which include government and economic stability, wrapped in democratic principles of justice, freedom of expression and human rights would provide even a greater global attention and exposure for both EU and Lithuania. Namely, by setting aside human frailties of individual self serving political esteem and associated benefits and thereby provide a perception of greater national unity and strong leadership to further enhance the positive moral direction by affectively addressing European challenges. Such efforts would be globally recognized that integrity, sincerity, goodwill and determination of purpose, even from a relatively small nation, can achieve much. This attribute is especially relevant to Lithuania which historically has seen many years of political turmoil, world wars and more than half a century of suppressed occupation and yet has retained its rich cultural heritage, religious beliefs and basic democratic principles. Such national determination initiated the ending of the official Soviet system and today stands out to others as an example of perseverance and that ‘it ‘can be done’, irrespective of the magnitude of the perceived challenge.
Therefore, let the Lithuanian decision makers brace themselves to this privileged task and recognize that this tenure is not only a challenge but also an opportunity to help both the EU concept and also the Lithuanian nation. The strengthening of the idealistic concepts of European Union would also enhance Lithuania’s global credibility and fundamental concepts of national unity abroad and at home.
It is my sincere hope that through this governance process, during and after Lithuania’s term has expired, the experiences gained and results obtained will include a greater recognition, by all Lithuanians, the importance of political unity and greater national bonding. That also political leaders and other Lithuanians of national influence will gain a greater recognition of the importance of differentiating between what is essential and what is not and what should change and what should remain the same in both the short and long term national best interest.
Such comprehensive endeavours would provide a further stimulus for Lithuanians to better understand their obligations and more effectively address the many challenges within and outside this relatively small, yet very gifted Baltic country. Therefore, irrespective where we reside or are separated by either large or small geographical distances and irrespective with what accent we speak, nevertheless as Lithuanians and associated descendants, let us all boldly and passionately support this undertaking.
Therefore at the end of Lithuania’s EU presidency, the judgement should not be a polite whisper by some but boldly proclaimed by all:
“WELL DONE LITHUANIA!”
Dr. Rimas Slavickas
Director
Energy Infrastructure and Partnerships
Power Center for Utility Explorations
Department of Electrical Engineering
University at Buffalo
332 Bonner Hall
Buffalo, NY, 1420-1920
Direct: 905 – 735 – 5600
Can. Cell: 905 – 932 – 5127
USA Cell: 716 – 361 - 7570
Office: 716 – 645 – 1052
Email: lpa@collaborative-research.com
http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/Research/PCUE/PCUE/Home.html
Vice President
Energy Initiatives and Collaboration
Global Energy Institute
Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Innovation Center
640 Ellicott St
Buffalo, NY, 14203
Direct: 905 – 735 – 5600
Can. Cell: 905 – 932 – 5127
USA Cell: 716 – 361 - 7570
Office: 716 – 645 – 3064
Email: lpa@collaborative-research.com
http://www.bnmc.org/energizebnmc/global-energy-institute/
Adv. Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman, an attorney to the Supreme Court of the Republic of South Africa and Israeli advocate, who attended the World Lithuania Economic Forum in Vilnius earlier this month. Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman (MS) currently serves as Chairman of the Israel-South Africa Chamber of Commerce. |
South African attorney Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman:
Lithuanian Impressions 2010
15.05.2010
I am in Lithuania now and described my thoughts last night when I went along to the Shabbat dinner hosted by the Vilna Chabad Rabbi Krinsky: ones of belonging and identity.
I described these thoughts and feelings to the guests there - a community of English Jews who came as part of Jewish Journeys, a Canadian Rabbi and his wife, the Israeli now living in Lithuania and studying at its universities, and to the very elderly community members who were there (a meager amount of people). This followed the short lecture by the Rabbi as to Shavuot, and numbers - and how people were and are counted and the meaning of numbers in our life. He spoke of the being part of the Jewish people and how some no longer want to be a part of it and of the many dead.
I started telling the people about my feelings on landing in Lithuania – one of sadness in what was – the rise and fall of Yiddish civilization and how much had been and how many had lived and then also the feeling of belonging, something in me of belonging here. There was a part of me that was here.
I also very much felt a sense of belonging that night – interestingly enough juxtaposed to what was expressed by one person – his sense of alienation in Lithuania.
Adv. Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman, an attorney to the Supreme Court of the Republic of South Africa and Israeli advocate, who attended the World Lithuania Economic Forum in Vilnius earlier this month. Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman (MS) currently serves as Chairman of the Israel-South Africa Chamber of Commerce. |
Adv. Marcelle Juliet Saul Sheiman: Lithuanian Impressions 2010
15.05.2010
I am in Lithuania now and described my thoughts last night when I went along to the Shabbat dinner hosted by the Vilna Chabad Rabbi Krinsky: ones of belonging and identity.
I described these thoughts and feelings to the guests there - a community of English Jews who came as part of Jewish Journeys, a Canadian Rabbi and his wife, the Israeli now living in Lithuania and studying at its universities, and to the very elderly community members who were there (a meager amount of people). This followed the short lecture by the Rabbi as to Shavuot, and numbers - and how people were and are counted and the meaning of numbers in our life. He spoke of the being part of the Jewish people and how some no longer want to be a part of it and of the many dead.
I started telling the people about my feelings on landing in Lithuania – one of sadness in what was – the rise and fall of Yiddish civilization and how much had been and how many had lived and then also the feeling of belonging, something in me of belonging here. There was a part of me that was here.
I also very much felt a sense of belonging that night – interestingly enough juxtaposed to what was expressed by one person – his sense of alienation in Lithuania.
I may go the synagogue tomorrow. I land up doing things that I did so many years ago and am not sure of the fit anymore. How does this relate to how I am feeling today, personally? It feels strange to know that there is a time for everything, maybe because I always felt timeless. There is a time for everything and there is timelessness to everything and that includes a time to live and time to die. Who makes that choice? In what way are we G-d’s messengers and in what we do, G-d’s will? Is everything G-d’s will? Even the greatest of horrors? And then how can they be horrors?
I spoke of souls to the Rabbi last night – that I believe that when Jewish souls get too many, something happens to the Jewish people, and that our strength lies not in numbers. Everything is as it is meant to be. I question this place then of free choice and then there is this place of natural - of no decision – not to do and not not to do – where it simply is. [Maybe that is the place of free choice]. That is the feeling that I have now – is it the empty, or is it the missing? Is it the abundance or the lack thereof? There is no sense to anything in the literal meaning of sense.
IT IS SOMETIMES SO DIFFICULT TO KNOW THAT EVERYTHING CAN BE – probably because then we realize just how powerful we are - that our thoughts do create our reality; that things can lead one way or another based on our thoughts; and that we are the creators of our thoughts and lose touch with what is natural. But if our thoughts guide our reality, then anything can be so why is there so much suffering? Is it because we resist? resist what? How do our thoughts and its influence on reality have anything to do with G-d?
What is the natural way of things?
I looked at the Rebbitzin last night . She looks young, people say and she has 10 children. She is probably younger than me. I see her beautiful children. When I said to the Rabbi – wow you have 9 children (as I thought) he said – 10, but who is counting. I remember and recalled for him the story of the Palestinian woman whom I met and who was called Enough.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I went to the Choraline Synagogue yesterday (Shabbat) – the only synagogue left standing in Vilna. I started off my day by going into the Vilnius cathedral, a huge white marble cathedral opposite my hotel. I then walked down the streets on the way to the synagogue. Magnificent little coffee houses and medieval architecture and then arrived at the Gates of Dawn - very ornamental, gold, Christian - making my way through them to another part of the world it seemed. A part that is old, decrepit and run down, in the direction of the synagogue. It had locked gates but I managed to get in with the help of an elderly man that was also entering. There is a bell though.
I took a prayer book and sat down in the section separated for women by a lace curtain. I started praying and crying – an overwhelming feeling of being in a place which in my imagination had been filled with so many people. I could imagine my family and then - all of them being killed. Maybe herded in this shul before being taken off somewhere to die. Life and death together. I could feel the death so palpably interwoven with the life.
The Cantor's wife - came to talk to me. She had on what seemed to be a beautiful short wig. She struck me more like a beautiful doll. She told me of herself, her family. Whereas the Chabad rabbi had told of 1000 people at his Seder, she tells me of the dying community - mostly assimilated or very old. There are these two old women praying in the Shul. They must be in their 80’s. they must have been very beautiful and still seem as such – blond but with hunched backs and walking sticks. I wish them Shabbat Shalom and they smile at me through their toothless mouths. There is also this Rabbi (brought in from outside the community) with a menacing look - a huge beard and everyone seems to be a bit frightened of him. He peers through these round rimmed spectacles and rants and raves in the Shul. I walk on through the Jewish quarter with the UK crowd of people I met Friday night at the Chabad rabbi. We are doing a walking tour - the one concentrating on the life that was – the Vilna Gaon, the scholastic dynasty. Later on a tour will be taken in the same parts - the ghetto and the Holocaust. The Rabbi who is guiding the UK troupe on its Jewish journey says that it is very confusing to do the Life and Death parts together. I leave them after a while to go off to Trakas castle on my own.
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I take a guided tour to Trakas on Saturday afternoon. The guide, a young Lithuanian woman is amazed to hear that as a Jew from South Africa and now in Israel, I had grandparents born in born Kovna (Kaunas) and Ponevys. On the way to this beautiful castle we pass Ponerai. There is such beautiful countryside, farms, trees amidst the difficult pictures I have in my mind.
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16.5.10
This is a beautiful country – they look like cherry blossoms on the trees, I think they may be apple. And then the little beginnings of pines. Everywhere. A land soaked with blood. It is a big country here – once spreading from the Baltic to the Black sea. There is a declining population and it has a different energy to the one I know in Israel. The Jewish community is also dead.
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17.5.10
I went for a walk this morning to find the Green House. I eventually found it, confusing it originally with the Museum for Genocide Victims, based on Russian atrocities on the Lithuanians during their occupation. I walk up a small hill and make my way there through a 7 roomed little house. You ring a bell and a woman answers. The first exhibit that strikes me is an excerpt from the “Jaeger report”. I copy it down:
Secret Reich Business:
I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned. Those working Jews and Jewesses still available are needed urgently and I can envisage through the winter will be required even more urgently. I am of the view that the sterilization programme of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If despite sterilization a Jewess becomes pregnant, she will be liquidated.
Today I can confirm that our objective to solve the Jewish problem of Lithuania has been achieved by EK3. In Lithuania, there are no more Jews apart from Jewish workers and their families.
These total: In Schaulen c4,500
In Kauen c15,000
In Wilna c15,000
I copy down other references to Stahlecker ‘s Reich secret document on Jews. A poem – Never Say by Hirsh Glik. A reference to a book by Solly Ganor – Light One Candle. Rabbi Ephraim Oshry’s - The Annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry (translation by Y. Leiman).
I have come to the museum although I did want to follow the life of the Jews not so much for their deaths as for their life. But I find them so inextricably interwoven in this place. I read a letter from a woman to her brother in South Africa just before she and as she says – her babies are going to be killed. She is writing to her brother and tells him that her husband has been killed and now she and her children are about to be killed. She asks for blood to be avenged. I read and write various things and some are too sickening to read, so I don’t. I exit the museum and am met by the Cantor's wife. She is in pants this time and dons that beautiful - what seems like – coiffed wig. She takes me home - we meet her husband who is on the way out to get a cucumber for our meal. We walk up the stairs and she kisses the Mezuza on the inside of the house. Don’t you have mezuzot on the outside of the door - No she says – it is too dangerous. Even her husband wears a cap and not a skullcap. His beard also sometimes arouses speculation. He comes home and we talk. I ask him why he still lives here. He is from Minsk. He tells of his wife’s elderly parents but this is not the only reason – he belongs here he says. In this place where the Vilna Goan and a thriving Jewish community lived. It is not always necessary to follow the Kehila he says, even though living amongst a Kehila is also important. There are only old Jews here he says - they come to Chabad and to the synagogue for help. The rabbi who I described already - he says - comes to take the services.. This Cantor is a man who opens the heavens with his singing and comes from generations of Hazans.
We speak of Israel and I mention the calling for our spirit as Jews. And he quotes from psalms – a piece which reiterates the sentiment that the Jewish spirit is the shtetl Jew and we sit and talk and I eat. Would you believe.. Herring, Chopped Herring - just as I know it is made – with apple, and onions and eggs. It feels like home. His wife has set us a feast of chopped herring, bread, cheese, eggs for me, coffee and for me especially she brings out the Amarula – South African liqueur. She accompanies me back to the hotel, past a few more of the forgotten Jewish sites. I tell her that I learnt there was only one tree in the Ghetto – I wonder where that tree is?
I find myself attracted to her vivacity, her liveliness and that of her husband. I am Lithuanian, a Lithuanian Jewess it feels. I don’t feel loved and am wary of being the outsider but in many ways as with the Cantor, we belong.
19.05.2010
I wake up this morning with a frightened feeling. This is not Vilna, this is Kaunas - Kovna for me. This is what the guide on Saturday called the dead place. The bus ride to Kaunas brings me to a station which is replete with older cars, townspeople, something that reminds me of the towns or other cities in South Africa – not Johannesburg. There is even one man dressed in complete Russian soldier attire. It really feels strange – I see lots of open spaces, greenery, places where I have a sense one could have hid a lot of bones. My imagination.
What was here before? I want to be able to trace back the life and I feel frightened because somehow I feel alienation here [Yet from my few experiences since arriving here, the people appear friendlier than in Vilna]. Then I sit down at breakfast and in another moment I taste the way the omelets are made and I want to tell my father that no wonder he makes such great eggs. He obviously must have learnt that from his father. Does he remember what he ate way back when he was a little boy. Maybe his dad cooked for him. I have to learn to make omelets the way they do here.
I walked quite some way yesterday just to find and then touch some vestige of Jewish life. I come to the Synagogue. The gate is open and I ring the bell. A man who speaks Yiddish lets me in and I take pictures. I am reminded of the Jewish rivalries between the various synagogue factions and am told that “Kalmanowitz” you know, the mafia one from Moscow who was killed, is/ was a part of this synagogue. My "Zeida" on my father’s side was an atheist and a communist, a “difficult” man who was at once, a great artisan being able to carve the most beautiful pieces of wood and at same time, a man who could kill to protect his family. I think at once of the Jews. Those people of whom the Baal Tefila spoke. And I realize just how strong these Jews were. They were educated and strong in spirit. Who has the audacity to say that they went like sheep to the slaughter. Are these the same Jews that have guns and tanks – not that we shouldn’t have guns –– but there is strength in spirit.
I think of modesty and realize the gift of simplicity and modesty. Something it seems I have forgotten or with which I am not in touch in my milieu. Too much money, big houses. This place seems denuded of money. It is very much country. I think of my yesterday’s reading up on the flag of Lithuania – Yellow, Green and Red. The colours of the Lithuanian flag – Yellow, green and red – represent sum, light and prosperity; the beauty of nature, freedom and hope; and earth, courage and blood shed in defending Lithuania’s independence. At the moment it has been only green and red for me.
Vilnius – some excerpts:
Before WWII there was a saying among European Jews: if you are keen on earning money, go to Lodz; if you seek wisdom, Vilnius is the place to go.
“I live in this city with a feeling that it does not belong to me and that I have only come here for a visit – as a human being, a poet and a Lithuanian. In this respect Vilnius could be compared only to Jerusalem. Only Jerusalem is the city of G-d, whereas Vilnius is the city of a dream. Trivial as it might seem, it was founded after Gediminas has a dream. It’s as if Vilnius was not created by man – you have the feeling that Vilnius has risen from the ground, from the confluence of the rivers, from the landscape – it rises on its won, possibly with some support by man. It is also in the details that the beauty of Vilnius lies. On the one hand, the Vilnius of the dream lets its citizens merely touch it; on the other hand, Vilnius sucks them in and swallows them”
AIDAS MARCENAS poet
Market day in Vilnius
The soul of a bearded Jew
Is weighing memory
SIGITAS PARULSKIS
POET and WRITER
There is only one Jewish house of prayer in Vilnius at present. Not too long ago, however the Lithuanian capital was called ‘a city of a hundred synagogues’. On the even of WWII, Vilnius, which was then called the Jerusalem of Lithuania, had over 110 Jewish houses of prayer, the majority of which were destroyed during the war.
“I sometimes think that Vilnius was invented by a jolly maiden, that it is a dream she dreamed about – the flood, the boats, the two rivers, the mountain and the temples, lots of temples and little streets.
In the evening, when people disperse into their homes, and darkness walks the streets of Vilnius, I see how, in the shelter of their sleeping houses, their dreams alight – the dreams about something different, about how good it would be if it could be. Wrapped in silence, the streets of Vilnius… are dreaming.
Vilnius speaks with every stone of its cobble roads, every window bathed in soft light at night, every roof of a church, the happy laugh of students: once we were here, it was here that we that we were happy and sad, we built, we searched, we lost and found our path again. I myself am dispersing into the streets and the faces of passerby, I start flickering among the leaves of trees in the park and become a tiny part of the big dream of Vilnius…
They say that there are no stairs to heaven. Yet I can feel them here. Oftentimes in a narrow land, an old courtyard, in the glance of a passerby, in the sweet aroma of fresh bread rolls lingering in the air after the bakery opens in the morning. Sometimes autumnal leaves brush against them gently and whirl upward to our cherished dreams.”
Text and photos: Aage Myhre
It is considered that around 90% of the approximately 80,000 Jews living in South Africa are of Lithuanian descent (the so-called Litvaks), which thus constitutes the largest pocket of Litvaks in the world! You are hereby invited to learn more about this unique Jewish community that still holds Lithuania alive in their hearts, museums and synagogues.
The Jewish Museum in Cape Town is more Lithuanian than Lithuania itself.
The Jewish Museum in Cape Town offers visitors a journey back in time. Most museums do. The striking feature of this museum, however, is that the journey to the past also brings us to a completely different part of our world, from Africa's southern tip to a seemingly modest little country far to the north, to a country where around 90% of South Africa's Jewish population has its roots (there are today about 80,000 Jews in South Africa).
The museum's basement is dominated by a village environment (shtetl) from the late 1800s. A few houses are reconstructed in full scale, and you can clearly see how people lived and co-existed at the time. The village is called Riteve. It was recreated in the museum on the basis of entries made in the 1990s by a group of experts who went from South Africa to Lithuania to find traces of the family of the museum's founder, Mendel Kaplan.
The village is called Rietavas in Lithuanian. It is there to this day, less than a half hour drive from Klaipeda, at the highway direction Kaunas and Vilnius. The Kaplan family emigrated from here in the 1920s, while the village's population was still 90% Jewish. Today, no Jews live in Rietavas.
Inside of former synagogue. Used for storage (Photo: AFP)
Lithuania's wooden synagogues, the vestiges of a Jewish presence which was wiped out in the Holocaust, are falling into ruin from a lack of funding and support.
Hidden behind a row of houses, the wooden synagogue in the eastern town of Alanta looks more like a barn than a former house of worship.
This rundown building, which served as a fertilizer warehouse during the days of state farms, is now used for storage by Algis Jakutonis, a farmer living next door.
"I store my stuff there, and we still find traces of the Soviet era," said the 60-something Jakutonis, while displaying the large iron key to the former synagogue, which he acquired before Lithuania's independence in 1990.
By Aage Myhre
aage.myhre@VilNews.com
American-Lithuanian Rima Gungor (25) will reside in Lithuania throughout this summer to conduct a series of interviews and recordings that will crystallize in a movie planned launched to a worldwide audience in March 2014. The film bears the name GameChanger, and will shed light on Lithuania's postwar fights against occupying superpowers from the start of World War II until the final independence in the early 1990s. An important point will be Lithuanians remarkable nonviolent and successful uprising against the Soviet invaders in 1990-1991.
“Yes, the idea is to chronicle and analyze the history of resistance movements in Lithuania and show how and why they developed into the final and successful non-violent resistance movement,” she tells us.
“While at North Central College in Chicago I won a Richter grant which allowed me to research and complete a paper on Lithuania’s resistance movements. I wrote my thesis on nonviolent resistance movements and how they can be successful using Lithuania’s nonviolent movement as an example. The nonviolent resistance movement in Lithuania is one of the least recognized and least talked about freedom movements, however, it was one of the most successful in several decades.”
The film will analyze Lithuania’s freedom movements starting from the armed resistance during and after World War II, the protests during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and finally the nonviolent movement in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The goal is not only to tell Lithuania’s story, in a historical, but also personal and intimate way through interviews with participants both inside and outside of Lithuania, and to apply it to a global context to inspire other movements around the world.
VilNews e-magazine is published in Vilnius, Lithuania. Editor-in-Chief: Mr. Aage Myhre. Inquires to the editors: editor@VilNews.com.
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