Why did Lithuanians stay quiet during the crisis and why Greeks don’t

Lithuanians in general are not into public protests

Today I was interviewed by a colleague journalist based in Latvia Talis Saule Archdeacon. He is writing a piece about what Greece can learn from the Baltics in dealing with their crisis for AP.

Not sure if I gave him the right perspective from Lithuania but here are some thoughts I shared with him and he seemed quite happy with them.

First of the differences between us and the Greeks is that Lithuanians in general are much less emotional nation than those living in South of Balkan peninsula.

My second insight was that during Soviet times Lithuanians learned to complain about governments in small groups of friends and families, but not in public. During the Soviet period it was dangerous, so till now Lithuanians just complain about their politicians while sitting at home with their friends and family, but not so much publicly. If they do it publicly, then they do it on news portals commenting articles anonymously. So more or less in the same hidden manner.

The other reason which could explain why Lithuanians did not go rallying as much (or almost not at all) as Greeks did and do, could be because we don’t have strong labour unions who could lead people, organize protests etc. Our labour unions are driven by different interests and ambitions.

Also Lithuanians already know what they need to do if things get tough at home – leave. The numbers of those emigrating went up during this crisis. Lithuanians left where they could get jobs and salaries. And this, in my opinion, had a good influence in the short term. These people not just took tension from Lithuanian labour market (even if unemployment became one of the main issues, but still not as big as it could be), but they also financially support their families and relatives who stayed at home. During the first 4 months of this year emigrants transferred 995 mln. Litas to Lithuania – that is 410 mln Litas more than last year during the same period. And it’s almost as much as Lithuania got from EU funds – during the same period EU supported us by 1,2 billion Litas.

I think that in some way being silent enough helped us and our government to deal with this crisis quite well. And on the other hand I agreed with Talis, that yes Greeks are more spoiled than us, our people (at least a larger part of them) still remember difficult Soviet times and not easy first years of Independence (with Russian pressure, including the economical blockade etc.). Lithuanians did not have the opportunity to become accustomed to the good life, like for example the Irish did. We had a very short period of the good life and even then it was not as good as in Ireland. So, I presume, this crisis was less shocking for us.