by Geoff Vasil
One of the only things independent Lithuania didn’t reject from the Soviet Union was the name of the country as the Republic of Lithuania. Of course the pre-war Lithuania was also a republic, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was as well. All in name at least.
In truth, though, a republic is supposed to serve its people. Specifically, a republic is supposed to serve and protect the minority. This was the major concern of the founders of the United States of America: they wanted democracy, but limited democracy, not mob rule. They wanted to protect minority opinion, minority religions, ethnic minorities and so on. This is why the idea of a state religion was poisonous to them. As was a state-controlled media, the press, and no one until recently even wanted America to have an official language.
Lithuania has failed to protect its minorities. The state mouths the right words about Roma and Jewish rights and even adopted IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism, as full of problems as their latest definition is, but is unwilling to provide increased protection for Jews at least in the face of a rising tide of virulent anti-Semitism engulfing the entire West. Ireland, Canada, Australia, the UK, the USA–the anglosphere is under siege from rabid pro-Hamas supporters aligned with Communists and hardcore jihadists. It’s even worse in continental Europe, where the mobs have taken over the cities in the past week and burned down government offices, attacked police and attacked random people for their color of their skin, in this case, for being white, at least in France. Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain will probably see an uptick in racist Islamo-Communist riots still to come.
The most fragile minority in Europe remains the scattered Jewish communities. If average French citizens are immune to rampaging pogroms, the Jews certainly are not. Nor is it an accident that Jews are being targeted. Jews in the West stand on guard for all the values the West cherished: rule of law, education, morality, fairness, freedom of worship, plurality of opinions, ethnicity and religion, the value of open debate in the marketplace of the mind. The new French revolutionaries are against all of this. They want one-party dictatorship, which will come down to Communists assimilating to the Caliphate or vice versa.
France calls herself a republic. You know who else does? Iran, or Persia as they still marked it on maps when I was young. The ayatollah and the revolutionaries claimed they had adopted republic values and made them compatible with Islam through a whole series of mental contortions. Does Iran offer protection to its minorities, to its opposition, or even to the majority? Not a chance.
Sadly, if Lithuania doesn’t step up to the plate, doesn’t wake up and smell the smoke of the burning dumpsters,. it, too, can join the RINO countries: Republics In Name Only. Greater security is needed for the Lithuanian Jewish communities to avert several possible catastrophes lurking just around the corner. Greater attention is needed to stop these eventualities before they happen. It’s unfortunate that the Lithuanian Jewish Community receives security alerts about credible upcoming threats from overseas organizations rather than from Lithuanian police and security services.