Everything indicates that the Society Integration Foundation (SIF) will not be liquidated. It is impossible to build a solid structure on wrong foundations. SIF is based on the incorrect left-liberal idea with the word 'integration'. Integration policy has been based on the denial of truth and justice – the redefinition of the USSR's colonization and Russification crime against Latvia as an 'ethnic minority' issue, which has served Kremlin propaganda in local and international society. The USSR's goal was to destroy the Latvian people's identity and their majority position in their own homeland. From 77% of the state's population in 1935, the number of Latvians was reduced to 52% by the late 1980s, and in the largest cities Latvians became a minority. Historical minorities in Latvia were remade into a new category – 'Russian-speaking people' (russophones). This is well known to nationalists. Since the Third Awakening, nationalists have emphasized the consequences of the USSR's crimes and called both for decolonization and for stricter language and loyalty criteria for obtaining citizenship, as well as for the status of Latvian as the only state language in all spheres of public life. Meanwhile, left-liberal forces took over and, from the late 1990s, introduced multiculturalism policy, copying Western practices, such as the Canadian model of English- and French-speaking relations. In place of Latvian interests came the 'idea of civic society'. In 1998, the state program 'Integration of Society in Latvia' was officially formulated and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. It declared that 'the time has come to develop and implement a unified long-term strategy that would promote the formation of a cohesive civic society in Latvia.' Such documents made the consequences of occupation crimes the responsibility of the Latvian people – to be 'more understanding', 'include', and yield. In the schizophrenic integration policy, the cult of war on May 9 had to coexist with November 18. SIF was created to implement this policy. This institution, of course, completely failed, because in Latvia's case it is not about some historical ethnic minority but about colonists brought in by the occupation forces. The occupation's goal was to destroy Latvian Latvia – this fact integrators have stubbornly denied, building 'cohesion' on the basis of injustice and falsehood... The 2012 language referendum, everyday conflicts over the use of Latvian in public space, and the support of a large part of Latvia's Russians for openly pro-Kremlin parties and politicians during wartime are a monument to SIF's previous activity. In the context of new waves of immigration, SIF, of course, cannot act adequately, because in integration policy the stranger is always the 'misunderstood victim', while the titular nation is the one that 'stubbornly refuses to yield and include someone'. Liberals' laments about misunderstanding Muslims and theses about the 'inevitability' of mass immigration show what SIF's role will be in the upcoming challenges to the Latvian people's position in their own land. But the SIF case also shows the problem of previous national-conservative forces – the left are the ones driving the overall trajectory of society and the state with major state policy planning documents, conventions, institutions, and media influence, while conservatives are those who react, try to do cosmetic repairs, but never fully repeal harmful policies based on injustice and falsehood (neither SIF, nor the Istanbul Convention, nor the institution of partnership). The left act – conservatives preserve their policies... That is exactly why 'Austošā Saule Latvijai' (ASL) was created, because without a reversal process, without bold and sweeping decisions that repeal the previous left-wing policies, it will only get worse. ASL believes that SIF must be liquidated and then a new organization must be created from scratch with a different legal basis, different people, and a state program focused on strengthening patriotism and family values. The new National Cohesion Fund (NSF) will take over those individual positive SIF programs that have so far justified the overall bad work of the institution – family support measures, support for Ukraine, etc. NSF will be a smaller institution to save state funds.
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