Tomas Venclova on Lithuania's intellectuals

The Lithuanian writer Tomas Venclova explains in the online newspaper Delfi why he thinks Lithuanian society is backward-looking. The background to this is a recent decision by the Lithuanian parliament to prohibit the public portrayal of violence and homosexuality: "I fear the problem that we already had in the Soviet era still exists. People are afraid of public opinion: 'What will Mr X say? Will I lose my reputation? Even if I'm an intellectual, am I really different from the majority of people?' So much on the subject of homosexuals: I'm surprised that none of our thinkers has spoken out against xenophobia. One or two of them may have done, but only with a lot of ifs and buts.That is depressing. For in the West fighting xenophobia is one of the most important issues for intellectuals. It is more important than fighting for one's own people, because the people will find something they wish to defend even without intellectuals. Let us compare it with the issue of the Holocaust. Why do Jews not bring accusations against the younger generation of Germans? Because German intellectuals have taken a very clear stand on the Holocaust. Our intellectuals simply shout. "Don't you dare accuse us of anything!"

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