Dr. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga was the President of Latvia from 1999 until 2007. Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga enjoys high popularity among her people. She played a crucial role in Latvia’s accession to the European Union and NATO in 2004.
In 2006, Baltic countries nominated her as candidate for UN Secretary General.
Dr. Vīķe-Freiberga earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She was a professor and researcher at McGill University, has written many books, and received many prizes.
Following are excerpts of remarks by Dr. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga at the IWD2024 conference in Paris.
Dear Mrs. Rajavi,
Distinguished guest, Ladies and gentlemen,
I come with greetings from my country, Latvia, which knows all about tyranny, knows all about oppression, and this is why I’m happy to be here and greet you in this day for women and for those who resist against tyranny.
My country was the victim of theocratic authoritarianism since the Middle Ages. In the 12th century, a pope in Rome declared a crusade, not in the Holy Land, but against the last pagans in Europe. The Baltic peoples, the Baltic tribes, of whom I am a descendant, were these last pagans in Europe. And Christianity was brought to us with fire and sword and the taking of our lands and reducing our people to slavery in the form of serfdom, the denigration of our culture, of our language, and of our ethnicity.
And I’d like to tell to you, ladies and gentlemen, men and women, the flame of freedom, when it burns in your heart, inevitably leads to liberation and to getting a milieu, a country, a system that recognizes we are all human beings equal under nature and God.
Nobody is privileged to have a special line to heaven, a special communication, a telephone line to the Supreme Being himself or herself, as it happens.
But the flame of freedom is what maintains the will to be the human being that the creator has made us. And it is not the imposition of holy scripture interpreted by certain individuals in their own particular individual way, but the direct contact with any kind of sense of the sacred of the numinous that everybody should have the right to have. And this is part of freedom, of conscience that we have when a state does not put religion as part of its structure.
Separation of church and state is a fundamental requirement. A recognition of the equality of every human being since the moment of birth, since the first breath they take, that every human being is equal before nature and before God. And it is a crime against humanity to oppress them in any way for any reason.
You will prevail, those who sit here and who have been working and laboring for the freedom of your people and nation. You must prevail because humanity cannot afford to lose you. You will prevail; just keep up the courage.
My people had to wait a long time for freedom, but we finally got it because we never forgot that we wanted it.
Good luck to you all. Thank you.
