Illustration: http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-love-Lithuania/124391247572076

Dear Aage

Your editorial of 6 June:
("How can Lithuania better attract and assist foreign investors?")
made depressing reading.

It also made me think of an analogy which helps me to understand why I and other don't give up and turn our backs on Lithuania. The analogy partly comes to mind because at the beginning of August I am visiting Lithuania with my son (age 35) who has never been to Lithuania yet. Anyway, the analogy is this: let's say you and your partner are parents who love their child very much, as is natural. Let's say that at a certain age, perhaps 10, for argument's sake, your child is kidnapped by a creep and undergoes all sorts of horrible experiences at which I won't even hint – a parent's nightmare. The creep keeps your child for 25 years. During that time you never know whether you will ever see your beloved child again and the worry is hard to live with. OK, finally after 25 years the creep who was jailing your son/daughter finally dies and your child is able to escape. Bewildered, he/she manages to get back to your house and say "Here I am, I'm still alive."

Now anyone can imagine what a horrible situation this is for the parents. Of course they never stopped loving their child and they are glad to have him/her back. But after 25 years, their child is automatically not the person they used to know and love, plus there are all the horrible experiences on top of that, and the damage done by 25 years of living with a creep.

I don't know how other feel about my analogy, but I personally find it useful to help understand our feelings. Our beloved country was kidnapped/hijacked by a bunch of creeps and held hostage for 50 years. They did horrible things to her. And the most horrible aspect of all is that the Soviet mentality lives on in so many Lithuanians and it is stopping Lithuania from becoming a normal country. Perhaps the sentence that upset me most in your editorial was: « "What's in it for me personally?" was the question that was often presented when we contacted representatives of local authorities and businesses.» It upsets me because it summarises the Soviet mentality that is continuing to do so much harm to my native land; and it upsets me because that mentality is still so widespread. It's why schools and hospitals continue to languish in their primitive state – because crooked politicians and businessmen can't make a "killing" out of them the way they do out of real estate development projects. Having a few skyscrapers and fancy shopping centres is no big deal. That's not a measure of civilisation. It's when the schools and hospitals come up to Western European standard – that's when we will be able to feel some progress has finally been made.

What keeps me from despairing is that unlike individual humans, fortunately countries are not mortal, they do not automatically die in less than a century. So Lithuania will go on, and my hope is that the forces of light (i.e. the West) will in the long term win over the forces of darkness (i.e. the East). Hopefully this process will be helped by Lithuanian immigrants (or their offspring) returning from Western countries, returning with Western attitudes, not prepared to tolerate the lingering Soviet way of doing things. Returning to my analogy, I guess the basic thing I want to say today is let's remember that our loved one is a torture and trauma survivor, and healing will be a long, slow process. It will require a lot of patience and understanding from us, and well thought-out forms of practical assistance.

Regards
Gintautas Kaminskas
Australia