Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I know this sounds terrible but I wish the Baltic people would stop their victim mentality and look to the future. If they want to be Europeans in the EU, then behave like it! Leave the past where it belongs and move on! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Being bilingual with Russian will eventually turn out to be a huge advantage - if they don't take it someone else will.
This will never happen because the EU and the western human rights institutions approve such policy. The Baltic states constantly rate high at various democracy indexes, freedom ratings and so on, produced by Freedom House, Amnesty International and so on, despite having up to 40% of population stripped of their citizenship and having imposed harsh restrictions on them, strikingly resembling those the initial Nazi legislation against Jews. They not only cannot participate in elections, but also cannot occupy various positions such as lawers, firefighters or pharmacists.

It should be noted that the only way to get the citizenship for them is to pass the exams which not only include the language test, but also require them to explain the official interpretation of history, that is to call their parents "occupiers" and to count the Latvian Waffen SS as heroes. Not all people are ready to do so.

It also should be noted that all those people were not citizenship-less initially. In addition to the Soviet Union citizenship they had the citizenship of the respective republics which was guaranteed by the constitutions of the respective soviet republics. So loosing their citizenship was not a natural process of the USSR dissolution, but was organized deliberately by the legislative bodies which they themselves voted for.