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“The main line of activity of the Lithuanian Family Movement is the family. Families and children suffer from all the current problems. Why do children suffer? And how do you hate when there is no contact education in schools?
Parents who don’t get vaccinated are threatened with being fired from work. Then everything comes to the family.
The requirements of the Istanbul Convention are also important to us. They are the cornerstones ”, told Lietuvos Rytas Raimundas Grinevičius, a 55-year-old businessman from Marijampolė, a leader of this movement.
He considers himself a socialist
Since 1993 R. Grinevicius, who is engaged in business in the field of transportation, has previously belonged to more than one party. They repeatedly tried to enter the Seimas with them, but to no avail.
He has applied for the mandate of a member of the Seimas with the Civic Democracy Party, the Christian Union, and has been a member of the Order and Justice Party for more than five years. He withdrew from the latter in disagreement with the policy followed by the previous leader, a member of the Seimas Remigijus Žemaitaitis.
But R. Grinevičius denied being a politician: “My activity is public. I’ve been working on it for about twenty years. And you can also participate in elections to help other people. I no longer belong to any party. “
Marijampolė also does not consider himself an ideologue of the family movement: all decisions are made by the council.
“The evaluations of the political scientists mean nothing. We are satisfied with the Hungarian policy. The policy of the German” Alternative to Germany “party and the like-minded French and Spanish parties is also satisfactory.
All these European parties have signed a declaration on the reform of the European Union.
We send them congratulations on that. We sent a petition to the Hungarian Parliament in support of its policy, for which we have been thanked. That’s how we made friends, ”explained R. Grinevičius about the Family Movement’s relations with the European radicals who participated in demonstrations in the Vingis Park and near the Seimas.
He assured that the Family Movement will not maintain contact with the Russian radicals for the time being, but did not rule out the possibility of establishing them in the future.
Preparing for the strike
R. Grinevičius did not deny that the Family Movement is still looking for a leader: “But we are only starting to look for him now. We have received enough good offers. Meetings and interviews with potential candidates are currently taking place. So far, they are not political. “
Spreading speculation that the Family Movement would become a political party in 2024, a Marijampolė resident claimed that the Association Council had drawn a red line: “.
When asked how he plans to “force people to work” for the current ruling coalition, R. Grinevičius explained that he was preparing for a general political strike: “We are consulting with unions and public organizations. An association of 150 small and medium-sized enterprises will be established in Šiauliai, which will also participate in the strike.
Our requirements are maximum. Either the Seimas or the Government must resign. There is no other way out. “
You want to be an active citizen
The director of the Lithuanian Markets and Markets Association, Vytenis Butkevičius (36), a member of the Board of Directors of the Lithuanian Council of Small Entrepreneurs and Traders under the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, also participated in the so-called protesters’ demonstrations. . He is the son of Audrius Butkevičius, Prime Minister of National Defense after the restoration of independence, a signatory of the Law of March 11.
“I attended the rallies, of course, and as a citizen, because I support the Family Movement, because it supports small businesses, which have been hit hard during both quarantines. And, in general, it has been oppressed since the restoration of independence.
On the other hand, I hold the view that we must all participate actively in the life of society and the State.
The people who flock under the banner of the Family Movement express their discontent because the government does not want to talk to them, to discuss the most sensitive issues.
He decided that Lithuania needed the Istanbul Convention, and the point. But after all, there was no serious discussion with the public about its adoption. The fact that the government tried to impose that convention on the public from the point of view of force was its biggest mistake.
Likewise, the accumulated problems of the small business were addressed.
When business matters were discussed in government offices and corridors during both quarantines, or how a crisis triggered by a pandemic would be handled, no small business representative was invited. Former Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis didn’t need that, nor did Ingrida Šimonyte, who replaced her.
Nor do I understand that the representatives of the Seimas and the executive branch look for the slightest pretexts to divide and oppress society. When bitterness built near the Seimas during the August 10 rally, a great noise was made. And if similar bitterness were used in the decorations of some theatrical performance, would the government also get angry? ”- V. Butkevičius told Lietuvos Rytas.
– But at the rallies, various anti-Semitic signs starved to death on sight. Wasn’t the stick bent?
– I think the people who wore the yellow hexagonal stars wanted to show the authorities that this passport of opportunity had divided society, divided in the same way as in Nazi times, when Jews could only walk on the sidewalks.
Is it not possible to equate those who now have a passport with the Aryans and those who do not have it with them with the Jews? Such was the thought of those hexagonal stars.
– The rallies of the family movement include such controversial personalities as Algirdas Paleckis, representatives of the criminal world, Hungarian and German radicals who sympathize with the Kremlin.
– I don’t have detailed information on this and I don’t have friends in the Department of Homeland Security who can explain why those people were seen at Family Movement events.
On the other hand, there is a lot of public information available in Lithuania about former President Dalia Grybauskaitė and Seimas President Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen. Couldn’t the Kremlin use that information?
Let’s also look at the behavior of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who embraces Russian President Vladimir Putin. He accepts that two gas pipelines have been laid in the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The president of the United States, Joe Biden, did not object either. Is it not political corruption or the betrayal of Western geopolitical interests?
– Don’t you think the “protesters” are getting on a similar rake?
– It is well known that social movements have emerged in Europe that defend the values of families and traditional nation states. Perhaps because of this, German or Hungarian political figures who support similar ideas participated in the rallies in Lithuania.
However, in my head, the organizers of the rally near the Seimas made a big mistake by allowing A. Paleckis and Vaidas Lekstutis, who are famous for their pro-Russian and anti-state views, to speak at it. I whistled very loudly when they spoke, thus expressing my civic position.
– But doesn’t your own participation in events with such actors compromise your aspirations to help small entrepreneurs?
– There will definitely be mistakes in rallies or other protests, because basically there were no similar events of resistance to the government in Lithuania during the thirty years of independence.
There may be various provocations because we have hostile states in the neighborhood, but we must not attack them ourselves.
Lithuania should learn from Israel how to defend the state and its interests.
This country lives constantly as on the edge of a volcano, but it is always capable of defending itself against enemies, and in the face of danger or in peace, it does not divide its society.
– What, in your opinion, caused the riots after the August 10 rally in the Seimas and did not further serve the opposition of society?
– Those riots also asked me a lot of questions. I saw for myself how a provocateur threw a tricolor at Seimas member Sergejs Jovaišas. He then attacked law enforcement officers who revived the woman, kicking their shields.
It is unclear why he was not detained or arrested. Perhaps this was due to deficiencies in the work of the officers or they were following someone’s order not to interfere in the disturbances.
I have sent my description of the rally to Attorney General Nida Grunskiene. I would like to be interviewed, but I have not received an invitation to the interview yet.
– Do you know who finances the events of the Family Movement?
– When I started participating in them, I immediately asked the same thing to their organizer.
They told me that money is donated by ordinary people. Perhaps this is true, because if, say, one hundred thousand citizens who sympathize with the march donated one euro each, a solid amount would already be formed.
I think the spring rally at Vingis Park could have cost between $ 50,000 and $ 60,000. euros.
– There have been rumors that the “protesters” have the support of the leader of the Labor Party, Viktor Uspaskich MEP.
– Can be. If I were a millionaire, I certainly wouldn’t regret another million for a good idea. Especially if it would encourage people to come together and be more civic.
I would not rule out the possibility that there are several businessmen in Lithuania who support the Family Movement.
– Obviously, the movement does not yet have an attractive standard-bearer. Its leader R. Grinevicius also admits it. Who do you think could take on this mission? Maybe yourself?
– In my head, the face of the Family Movement could be a large family: a young mother and a young father. Such people may not be the leaders of the movement, but they should be entrusted only with the communication of the ideas of the movement, the content of the activity.
It certainly wouldn’t be right. My goal, as a representative of small businessmen, is to fight against the large shopping centers that have taken over Lithuania, because I do not want to live in a country where young people work as security guards or cleaners in large supermarkets, and those who do not agree to emigrate.
I am and will be working for people to build their small businesses here instead of leaving. That’s why I go to rallies.
– However, it is not clear what the real purpose of these rallies is. They speak against the Istanbul Convention, against the Law of Association, against homosexuals and against a passport to opportunity, and you are speaking out on the problems of small businesses.
– And I see that problem. There is a lack of constructive and professional capacity in organizing protests or rallies.
I am not against the Association Law or against sexual minorities. It is frustrating and worrying that these people’s problems are being exploited and that from them an ideology of protests is being created, which is only further fragmenting and opposing society.
