Europe.view
Stirring the pot
From Economist.com
Geology not ethnography is the problem
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“ETHNOGRAPHICALLY, it’s ours.” This was one of the most dismal phrases of the early 1990s, as countries freed by the cold war’s end explored their buried history and geography. Sometimes it made tragic if impractical sense. Nationalistic Finns (previously thought to be an extinct species) explained the legal case for recovering Karelia from Russia. Hungarians gloomily analysed the borders drawn by the Treaty of Trianon. Poles insisted that at least half of Belarus was really theirs, while Belarusians laid confident claim to all the lands of the ancient Grand Duchy, stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Estonians and Latvians mourned slivers of lost territories (while not actually wanting them back: they are now mostly Russian-populated). Lithuanians hurriedly changed the subject: it was the Soviet occupation that returned their capital, Vilnius, from Poland and their seaport, Klaipeda, from Germany. Ukrainians explained that Kievan Rus had nothing to do with Russia, while Russians asked, reasonably, how Nash Krim (our Crimea) had ended up in Ukraine thanks to a Kremlin pen-stroke three decades previously. The Crimean Tatars pointed out (with even greater justice) that the balmy peninsular was theirs long before it was Russia’s.
For all the sentiment and heartbreak, the arguments were dangerous, even lethal, as Yugoslavia’s tragic disintegration proved. Some never stopped their poisonous bubbling. Is Kosovo “ethnographically” Albanian because of its recent past (recent in this context meaning a century’s worth of history), or Serbian because of its role in the Middle Ages?
But the great unsung triumphs of the 1990s were the conflicts that did not happen; these dwarfed the few that did. The desire to look respectable to outsiders trumped the desire to swagger in front of voters. Hungary and Romania buried the hatchet. The Czechs and Slovaks never quarrelled seriously about the divided villages on their (previously unimportant) border. Lithuanians and Poles became best friends. Germans digested the “new federal states” released by the collapse of the Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic and stopped hankering after Silesia and Königsberg. The new rule was that nobody with historical quarrels outstanding could join the European Union or NATO. And it has worked marvellously.
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A rabble-rouser in Moscow |
But nothing is more dangerous to a great achievement than complacency. As EU expansion stalls and its willpower weakens, old squabbles are returning. Romania should be best friends with Moldova. Instead the two countries (or at least their presidents) have been indulging in a pointless game of historical tit-for-tat. There are low-level rows between Croatia and Slovenia, and between Bulgaria and Macedonia.
Russia has already shown it can stir things up in Estonia—this spring it encouraged a riot over a war memorial in Tallinn. In Ukraine, Crimea could be an even nastier mess: it has Russian nationalists plus a Kremlin naval base and increasingly cross Muslims (Tatars, whose patience has got them nowhere) including a small but ominous Islamist presence. Even if Ukraine had a strong and sensible government, the situation would be tricky. And amid the current mess in national politics, a smouldering problem could blaze up (or be stoked) all too quickly.
Certainly no one should rely on the Kremlin wanting to behave nicely, as it mostly did in the Yeltsin era. Russia’s new submarine expedition to claim the North Pole (or at least a chunk of territory the size of western Europe running up to it) is a clear sign of a newly assertive foreign policy. Countries such as Canada and Denmark (which handles foreign affairs for the 50,000 inhabitants of Greenland) are scrambling to protect their interests. Thankfully, this row is about geology, not ethnography, and affects more polar bears than people. But the same approach applied elsewhere could be incendiary.
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126 comments
Ray D. Noper
August 9, 2007 at 2:07 pm (UTC 0)
It’s a wonder how smoothly some people here manage to not hear the information about Nazi-Soviet Pact… No answer about that, eh ? OK, explain Katyn, please ? The occupation of Baltic states even before Germany attacked SU ? You do understand, that the pact made Soviet Union an ally of Nazis ?
So?
August 9, 2007 at 2:15 pm (UTC 0)
Dear “ray d. hoper”,
Please do not slander the fine German nation. They signed the pact with the devil out of sheer necessity, to delay the inevitable Soviet attack.
Jens-Olaf
August 9, 2007 at 2:24 pm (UTC 0)
This discussion is almoust without any German opinion. So no opinion but a quote from a survey about the German occupation in Latvia. Uldis Neiburgs has the source in “Western Allies in Latvian Public Opinion and Nazi Propaganda”:
‘German security institutions surmised the pro-Western orientation of Kurelian officers. After the liquidation of the Kurelis detachment on the orders of the Supreme Commander of SS and Police in Ostland, SS Obergruppenführer Fridrich Jeckeln, a court martial trial was held in Liepaja prison on 19 November 1944, and eight staff officers were executed in the coastal dunes near Liepaja, while three accused received reduced sentences. The court verdict stated: ” You maintained contacts with Anglo-Saxons and secretly prepared a revolt in order to bring back the year of 1919. On behalf of Führer Adolf Hitler we can assure you: it will never repeat. We shall exterminate you and your nation to the last man.”
Rein Kuresoo
August 9, 2007 at 2:50 pm (UTC 0)
The “patriotic” Erna-game you have. What it was back in 1944? -
Pobre idiota cabrero,
The Erna game is dedicated to the participants of the Finnish Winter War, who came to Estonia prior to the withdrawal of Soviet Army and fought the murderers and rapists of the NKVD Defeat Batalion (Istrebitelskii bataljon), helping about 2000 civilians out of siege.
TErr
August 9, 2007 at 3:57 pm (UTC 0)
2 Abu-Al-Valid
Yeah, pendejo,
That’s what German Abver, was actually dedicated to: dispatching sabotage troops to help estonian peasants…
Ya, ya, mein furer, naturlih
Giustino
August 9, 2007 at 4:41 pm (UTC 0)
That’s what German Abver, was actually dedicated to: dispatching sabotage troops to help estonian peasants…
We who live in the nordic countries don’t want to get sucked into your massive life ending conflict with Germany, Cabrero.
Estonia is proud of its sons who teamed up with its Finnish brethren at a time of great catastrophe. It was not Finland nor Estonia that attacked first, it was the USSR.
People who attack countries, rape women, deport children, and assasinate political leaders deserve to die, cabrero, whether they wear the uniform of Germany, the USSR, or Walt Disney.
Trust me, if you had managed to fight Germany somewhere else, like in Antarctica, there would have been no Estonians there.
As it is, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark — they are all ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place.’ If both of these large countries disappeared tomorrow, we would miss Octoberfest and your sexy Russian Eurovision entries, but there’s always Austria and Poland to keep the party going.
TErr
August 9, 2007 at 5:57 pm (UTC 0)
People who attack countries, rape women, deport children, and assasinate political leaders deserve to die, cabrero, whether they wear the uniform of Germany, the USSR, or Walt Disney.
- you are right about that.
But in the case we politely discuss with Agu it was no longer SU-Estonia issue. It was already a WWII issue. In that war there were only three sides: coalition, axis and neutral. No matter what motives you pick joining one of them, you share all responibility and merits with your part. If someone goes under german command he becomes a german serviceman and his actions should be judged equally as actions of any other german serviceman in any other part of the “war theatre”.
Erna was no different then Otto Scarzeni’s sabotage troops operating against allies.
Rein Kuresoo
August 9, 2007 at 7:16 pm (UTC 0)
Me cago en la leche de tus cabras!
Erna troop fighted the murderers of civilians. There is no law, coalition treaty or convention that would justify war crimes. Remember, that Russia has not apologized for these.
Dont waste your life in trying to justify ordinary and evident crimes.
Giustino
August 9, 2007 at 7:16 pm (UTC 0)
In that war there were only three sides: coalition, axis and neutral.
When the history books were written, I guess this was the most convenient way of coloring the maps.
In reality, Erna wore Finnish uniforms and were considered part of the Finnish army. They were loyal to Finland, which had been attacked in 1939 and lost a good piece of its territory to an aggressive USSR.
They also began training for their activities in the spring of 1941, at a time when the USSR had not yet joined the Allies.
Finally, the Erna raids are international competitions. Norway sent two teams this year. Why don’t you have Lavrov ring up Jens Stoltenberg to tell him to stop his compatriots from participating.
AndresS
August 9, 2007 at 7:38 pm (UTC 0)
Finally, the Erna raids are international competitions. Norway sent two teams this year. Why don’t you have Lavrov ring up Jens Stoltenberg to tell him to stop his compatriots from participating.
Not only Norway but Czech, Germany, Sweden, ,Denmark, Portugal, Finland and the USA are all participating in the Erna raid this year. Odd how no one mentions that ever.
TErr
August 9, 2007 at 10:10 pm (UTC 0)
2 Agu,
claro, cagar es lo que puedes hacer mejor…
it’s you dont waste yor life trying to whitewash evident and ordinary criminals…
However, who cares, they all got what they deserved… All that is left for you to do is to continue playing games and gravedigging…
Tiamsuu
August 10, 2007 at 12:38 am (UTC 0)
I liked the Russian TV news claiming over and over that ERNA group was ‘surrounded and destroyed’. I wonder who those ERNA veterans are, then?
Anyway, a tiny tip to the ‘nothing is free’ bot: estonian languague isn’t indo-european, but oh wonder!, russian is;)
Giustino
August 10, 2007 at 4:49 am (UTC 0)
Ok gentlemen. Much like the Estonian-Russian dialogue, this one is going nowhere or somewhere, but a ‘where’ with no destination.
It’s been nice to exchange ideas, and I have enjoyed reading your posts, even you Rusak.
I would conclude with three points:
1. Estonia was founded in 1918
2. I also hate statlessness and believe more should be done to end it.
3. Estonia is part of the nordic economic and cultural space, and to some degrees, the nordic political space.
So?
August 10, 2007 at 5:02 am (UTC 0)
Anyway, a tiny tip to the ‘nothing is free’ bot: estonian languague isn’t indo-european, but oh wonder!, russian is;)
Liar! Russkie babble is mongolized Polish. Hardly anything european left. Estonian is a Nordic language, you Nashist provocateur!
rusak
August 11, 2007 at 4:07 am (UTC 0)
That’s your opinion. One might consider a state that deports school children based on ethnicity to be a fascist state.
What state does that? It certainly didn’t happen in Russia. A few thousand illegal immigrants were deported to send a message to Georgia, but unfortunately the vast majority of them (illegal immigrants) were not deported.
The lexicon does need to be tweaked. In this article, they call themselves Narva Venelased.
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070808145831.8lupnwbe&cat;=null
This article obviously has an agenda from beginning to end. It doesn’t resemble anything objective, as it presents only one kind of viewpoint, with a particular purpose. It’s funny how this guy says “I don’t like it when we speak about inhabitants of Estonia as Russians and Estonians.” So who’s this “we” and why are they absent from the article? As for the “more in common with” – he doesn’t actually explain how that is. I was born outside the RSFSR myself (not in the Baltics) and I consider it BS. As for that jackass talking about “only 10 broken windows” in Narva as if that shows that the ethnic Russians there are happy with the situation in Estonia – why the hell would these Russians want to destroy their own Russian town? This whole argument that since they haven’t started an armed insurrection everything must be OK is crap.
Boy, you really are dense aren’t you. Estonia was founded in 1918. All of its political institutions evolved from the Estonian awakening and from the first period of independence.
Just because goose-stepping Red Army goons killed most of the Estonian political class and disbanded those institutions, doesn’t mean that they died.
Instead they remained underground.
That’s not true. Those institutions were destroyed and the current situation is not a result of those original institutions but rather of the policy of the last 15 years. Lithuania was also a state in 1920 but Lithuania granted citizenship to everyone. I think that if the Russian minority in Estonia was as small as the one in Lithuania, they probably would have done so as well. So you can knock it off with this “they had to do it”, “it’s the original institutions” nonsense. I’m not suggesting that the should have given everyone citizenship, I’m just pointing out that they didn’t “have to” do anything — they CHOSE to, it was all conscious choice.
Ask yourself, did they solve anything? Did conditions for persons of African descent get better in LA after 1992? Or did the gates in Orange County just get higher?
I don’t know if they “solved” anything. Los Angeles did get its first black chief of police right after the riots and another soon after that. White juries probably started thinking a little more about the consequences of their actions.
My position changes because I am a thinking individual, not some cardboard caricature of an evil Estonian nationalist. I mean I’m not even Estonian.
As I think over time new ideas come to mind, like the idea of a conflict over public space. That’s my interpretation, as relevant as yours, perhaps more so because I live here and you don’t.
Well, at least it’s good that you are open to new ideas. As for a “battle over public space” – what the hell kind of battle can it be when one side has all the political power in the country, enough to even go over the heads of the local administration to get their way, and the other side has practically nothing? Open your eyes already.
The Estonians started to care when they saw small children brought there with communist symbols on their clothing. No one has problems with old vets. I think that children were being brought into the mess made the choices a bit more stark.
“Care” about what exactly? You’re now saying it was a “battle over public space”.
Of course the opinion of Sweden doesn’t matter. You get to decide who is who.
The Ests as a people historically are not “Westerners” any more than the black slaves.
Is Ireland part of the West, Comrade Rusak? The language (English) isn’t theirs. The religion (Roman Catholicism) isn’t theirs. They were slaves of English barons for many centuries. What right do they have to associate with the European Union and NATO? What right do the shanty Irish have to be considered Western?
Being part of various associations created in the West is not the same thing as being part of the West. Let me put it this way, Estonia is not a part of the West that matters.
So did Estonian victory over the Red Army in 1920.
So did Soviet annexation of Estonia.
All Georgians, all at the same time, some in Russia legally. As ‘punishment’ for Saakashvili not being your stooge.
All Georgians, all at the same time? Where do you get this stuff? Please, show me even one source that supports any of this BS. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, don’t even say anything.
Giustino
August 11, 2007 at 10:36 am (UTC 0)
That’s not true. Those institutions were destroyed and the current situation is not a result of those original institutions but rather of the policy of the last 15 years.
The Soviet Union succeeded in killing the Estonian state founded in 1918 as much as they succeeded in killing Christmas, Rusak.
They could outlaw it, punish people, prohibit displays of adherence to it, but somehow they weren’t able to kill Christmas. Ditto with the Estonian state.
The Soviets also couldn’t make the sun rise any earlier in Tallinn. They changed the clocks to Moscow time, but that damn sun kept coming up over Tallinn the same time as it came up over Helsinki.
As a sidenote, Christmas here is great by the way. There’s nothing like getting loaded on glögi, the traditional Christmas drink of the nordic countries.
So?
August 11, 2007 at 11:35 am (UTC 0)
giustino,
Totally agree again. Totally. Estonians are fine Nordic people, totally unrelated to the mongrels across the pond. Estonia has Ingmarg Bergman, Legend of Calve, amongst other things. What is the cultural content of Russia? Cossack dancing? Drinking horse milk? Horseback archery? Puhlease! IMO, Hitler was totally right. Leningrad should have been turned into a lake and given to Estonians. Ruskieland has no culture.
Giustino
August 11, 2007 at 2:21 pm (UTC 0)
A few thousand illegal immigrants were deported to send a message to Georgia
You deport people to ‘send messages’ to countries? Why not have your foreign minister ring up his counterpart in Tblisi instead?
He could also send an e-mail. I hear that Saakashvili has managed to modernize his country quite a bit in these precious few years since his election.
why the hell would these Russians want to destroy their own Russian town? This whole argument that since they haven’t started an armed insurrection everything must be OK is crap.
They haven’t left Estonia either, even though moving from Narva to Ivangorod, formerly known as Jaanilinn, would take about 15 minutes.
Those institutions were destroyed and the current situation is not a result of those original institutions but rather of the policy of the last 15 years.
We already addressed you allegience to Dzerzhinsky.
I’m just pointing out that they didn’t “have to” do anything — they CHOSE to, it was all conscious choice.
Yes, it was a choice to require stateless persons to naturalize. As pointed out previously, Soviet citizens held their citizenship until Dec 25, 1991, when their state ceased to exist.
As for a “battle over public space” – what the hell kind of battle can it be when one side has all the political power in the country, enough to even go over the heads of the local administration to get their way, and the other side has practically nothing?
That’s not true. Three-quarters of the support of the Center Party are ethnic Russian. The Center Party holds the second most amount of seats in the Riigikogu. Not only the Center Party, but Rahvaliit, and the Social Democrats also opposed moving the statue to a military cemetery.
But they lost and Ansip won. I have to say, the statue looks better where it is now than it did before. Maybe the former mayor of Tartu was right?
So did Soviet annexation of Estonia.
So did the Nazi ‘annexation’ of Austria and Denmark and Poland. I guess you are on the side of ‘might makes right’.
Despicable.
So?
August 12, 2007 at 7:51 am (UTC 0)
They haven’t left Estonia either, even though moving from Narva to Ivangorod, formerly known as Jaanilinn, would take about 15 minutes.
Actualy most of the Russkie North-West used to belong to Esstonians untill the ruskie mongoloids invaded. I believe it was known as Chuhonia at the time.
Giustino
August 12, 2007 at 8:01 am (UTC 0)
We’ll let’s not delve too deep into the sad tale of the borderline extinct Ingrian Finns (nice work, Stalin!)
Speaking of which, I saw a lady with an Inkeri hat at the beach yesterday. My daughter befriended a young native-Russian-speaking girl, and they had a great time playing.
Believe it or not, the beaches in Eesti aren’t segregated
So?
August 12, 2007 at 8:58 am (UTC 0)
LOL. Sure, I’ve got black friends too, but I hate niggers.
Anyway Chuhon was the name of the Great Kraken that resided in the lake. Krakens were big in mythology at the time. Krakow derives from kraken, for example. Cthulhu is bastardized Chuhon. Anyway supposedly Kalev slayed Chuhon. Of course, once the ruskie horde overan the area, they appropriated the myth. Instead of Kalev and his polish gold front teeth that dazzled the kraken and allowed him to land the fatal blow, the russkie changed the hero to Ylya Muromen or something, who was a lazy bastard that inherited his father-in-laws magic clay stove… which was capable of locomotion (I kid you not!), and the stove pipe de-elevated and fired hot logs aka the Bulawas. And they changed the kraken to a multi-headed serpent. Of course the magic stove was useless. But Muromen spent so much lying on top of it in typical ruskie lazy stupor regardless of weather conditions, that he built up quite a B.O. As he jumped of the stove and ran from the serpent, he lost his left lapot (wooden shoe). Big mistake! for the serpent, who was overcome by the stench. In typical russkie fashion, can’t win without massive casualties.. on your side. So according to the legend, half the village bought the farm at the same time. So of course the rouskies had to name a city after this mass-murdere. Murmansk.
OK, the history lesson is over for today. I’m gonna read some LaR. Apparently the russkies faked the polar landing. Typical.
Giustino
August 12, 2007 at 11:26 am (UTC 0)
LOL. Sure, I’ve got black friends too, but I hate niggers.
A Chris Rock fan I see.
So?
August 12, 2007 at 12:11 pm (UTC 0)
A Chris Rock fan I see.
Too racist. But Dane Cook is great!
rusak
August 12, 2007 at 9:22 pm (UTC 0)
The Soviet Union succeeded in killing the Estonian state founded in 1918 as much as they succeeded in killing Christmas, Rusak.
They could outlaw it, punish people, prohibit displays of adherence to it, but somehow they weren’t able to kill Christmas. Ditto with the Estonian state.
Christmas wasn’t outlawed in the Soviet Union, you clown. It was driven out of public life and replaced with New Year’s Day, but it wasn’t outlawed, and neither was the church itself. In fact, Easter remained a major national festivity, although with minimal reference to religion.
You deport people to ‘send messages’ to countries?
This is a country openly hostile toward Russia. And the people deported were illegal immigrants.
They haven’t left Estonia either, even though moving from Narva to Ivangorod, formerly known as Jaanilinn, would take about 15 minutes.
Again, that’s not a valid argument. Why should they just give up everything they’ve spent their whole lives building? Because the Ests want them to?
We already addressed you allegience to Dzerzhinsky.
What allegiance is that? Get it through your head already, one doesn’t need to like anything about the Soviet Union in order to not like what’s going on in Estonia now.
Yes, it was a choice to require stateless persons to naturalize. As pointed out previously, Soviet citizens held their citizenship until Dec 25, 1991, when their state ceased to exist.
Stop evading. I brought up the example with Lithuania, why don’t you address that? Feel free to admit that I’m right.
That’s not true. Three-quarters of the support of the Center Party are ethnic Russian. The Center Party holds the second most amount of seats in the Riigikogu. Not only the Center Party, but Rahvaliit, and the Social Democrats also opposed moving the statue to a military cemetery.
But they lost and Ansip won. I have to say, the statue looks better where it is now than it did before. Maybe the former mayor of Tartu was right?
You are such a hypocrit. Just a little while ago you were claiming that they sooooo “had to do it”. Now you’re bringing up the fact that the law to have the statue moved barely, just barely, passed — and it wouldn’t have passed if a couple of ethnic Russian traitors had done what their constituents elected them to do. Clearly, this wasn’t any life or death issue for the Ests at all. Feel free to admit you were wrong.
So did the Nazi ‘annexation’ of Austria and Denmark and Poland. I guess you are on the side of ‘might makes right’.
Despicable.
What’s wrong with the Nazi annexation of Austria? The absolute majority there supported it. As for might makes right, that’s what we’re seeing in Estonia today: a rancorous Est majority trying to push around and “stick it” to a disenfranchised minority.
Giustino
August 13, 2007 at 6:58 am (UTC 0)
In fact, Easter remained a major national festivity, although with minimal reference to religion.
Most accounts of ‘Christmas’ from my wife’s family include the curtains being closed so as for the KGB goons (your president among them) couldn’t see.
My wife’s baptism was held in secret as well. Again, the metaphor for you, my dense friend, is that institutions — like prewar fraternities that play a pivotol role in Estonian social life — survived despite Soviet attempts to destroy them
You argued that they were destroyed. You are wrong.
This is a country openly hostile toward Russia. And the people deported were illegal immigrants.
Um, last time I checked Georgia wasn’t dropping missiles on Russian territory. Their big mistake was parading around your spies on TV. That, I admit, was probably a bad thing to do.
Then the Russian baby responded with deportations, banning wines, cutting transit links, and — oh look — Georgia wants to integrate with the West more than ever. A lot of my friends and acquaintances
have visited Georgia over the past year. It’s becoming “open” to normal people. Unlike your buds in Minsk.
Again, that’s not a valid argument. Why should they just give up everything they’ve spent their whole lives building? Because the Ests want them to?
You argue that Estonia is an apartheid state. Then I provide you example after example of Russian-speakers saying its not, and you say that they don’t count. Then I say that if Estonia was so bad, it might behoove some people to move back to Russia (considering they only moved from there in some cases 25 years ago) and again its not a valid argument.
What I understand is that unless it doesn’t agree with what you are saying, it’s not valid. And if Estonian Russians don’t vote the way you want them to vote, then they stop being legitimate.
What allegiance is that? Get it through your head already, one doesn’t need to like anything about the Soviet Union in order to not like what’s going on in Estonia now.
The Soviet Union created Estonia’s social problems. Countries that can control immigration can make sure that newcomers are integrated over time. Dumping 400,000 new people in a country over a period of 50 years creates some big problems.
The Soviet Union was able to ‘neuter’ the older generations of Estonian society through mass murder, rape, and deportation. But the generation that grew up under the Khrushchev thaw and Brezhnev stagnation could look openly around and see what a messed up situation was being made.
The equivalent, if I may use a metaphor again, is if someone flagged you down on the road, beat the hell out of you AND your car to the point that it barely started, and then yelled at you all the time for not being able to drive it home fast enough.
This person might suffer from temporary amnesia, and say that your driving only *really* started
the moment after he let you go, and that that vicious assault on your person and vehicle was “just history.”
Stop evading. I brought up the example with Lithuania, why don’t you address that? Feel free to admit that I’m right.
Lithuania is much larger than the pre-war Lithuania as well. Estonia could have done what Lithuania did but it didn’t. Instead it did what Latvia did, perhaps because the immigration/linguistic problems there were more severe.
Believe it or not, these are all different countries, each sovereign, with its individual right to do what it pleases.
What I don’t get is why the Russian Federation never granted all its successor citizens in Latvia citizenship. It could have ended their statelessness quite easily AND brought them back to replenish the stock of the population-imploding motherland. Instead, I have come to believe that the Russian Federation quiety supports statelessness in Latvia, because it provides a nice cover for any human rights accusations.
“Sure, lots of journalists gets killed in Russia, but Russians in Latvia have to take a humiliating language exam to get citizenship.”
You are such a hypocrit. Just a little while ago you were claiming that they sooooo “had to do it”.
They didn’t have to do anything. As I said previously, I really don’t care that much about “holy” Soviet war memorials. BUT, it was ugly, AND it did have 13 corpses buried under a sidewalk.
The square looks much better now.
Now you’re bringing up the fact that the law to have the statue moved barely, just barely, passed — and it wouldn’t have passed if a couple of ethnic Russian traitors had done what their constituents elected them to do.
I love how any ethnic Russian who disagrees with you is now a “race traitor.” Got to love that Russian racism. You can join up with Dmitri Linter who is so afraid of “Estonianization” — a fear as legitimate as English-speaking Quebec-residents worrying about being Gallicized.
Clearly, this wasn’t any life or death issue for the Ests at all. Feel free to admit you were wrong.
It’s really sad that you don’t live in a democracy, Rusak. Then you would understand how things work. Things are put to a vote, and he (or she) with the most votes makes the decisions.
I didn’t agree with my country’s decision to invade Iraq. But I can’t deny that the public supported it. And I can’t say Congress didn’t give him the power to do it. So I was sold out by my representatives. But they get to do what they want to do after I elect them. That’s the downside of democracy. Perhaps why your country always prefers a tsar to a vote.
As for might makes right, that’s what we’re seeing in Estonia today: a rancorous Est majority trying to push around and “stick it” to a disenfranchised minority.
That’s not true. If it was there would be
a) no Russian version of Postimees
http://rus.postimees.ee/
b) no Russian version of Eesti Päevaleht
http://www.epl.ee/?lk_id=257
c) no Russian version of Eesti Televisoon
http://www.novosti.etv24.ee
c) no position of Population Affairs Minister
http://www.rahvastikuminister.ee/
d) no president who visits the most Russian-speaking county in Estonia as his first internal visit as president.
http://www.president.ee/en/duties/press_releases.php?gid=84352&mida;=narva
“You should also not be ashamed that your home language is not the Estonian language, just as I was not ashamed in front of my friends that my home tongue was Estonian when I was living in Sweden, USA or Germany.”
President Ilves, whose grandmother Aleksandra had come to Estonia after the Bolshevik coup d’etat, said, “her family and she personally knew very well what it means to live as a representative of another nationality among the indigenous population.”
“In the same way I also understand those people and their descendents who in the second half of the 20th century came from different parts of the Soviet Union and settled in Estonia,” the Head of State said.
“I do not want you and your parents to feel as strangers in Estonia,” President Ilves said while speaking at the Narva Humanitarian Gymnasium.
“Living in Estonia you are our fellow countrymen. Namely our countrymen, not countrymen of the Russian government. That means that your problems are not the problems of the Russian government or the President of Russia, your problems are our problems.
We cannot do without you. Estonia is too small a country to allow itself to be indifferent towards its fellow countrymen.”
He called on the students to be politically active, to join interest groups and political parties, to run as candidates in the elections and to vote.
“It is worth to remember that no political party can represent the interest
s of all Estonians as people are different, neither can any political party take the role of a spokesman of all non-Estonians,” President Ilves said.
Georgina
March 28, 2012 at 3:12 am (UTC 0)
hm What could be the reasons for bad sevrice in Estonia?- when dealing with employees or business partners you easily bump into people with find the attitude: hey, before I do anything or a bit more, you need to pay me far more. In the US by the way people with my qualification earn 4000 $ a month. Well, doesn’t it usually work like this that the party that renders a sevrice (as employee or sevrice provider) FIRST needs to do a good job and AFTER it is rewarded?Bottomline, I see an upside- down view of how reciprocity works as one reason for bad sevrice.- Effects of Soviet Union. In Soviet Union nobody really cared how well you did something, since everything belonged to the state. Taking away from the state was considered a normal attitude as I have heard.Bottomline, I don’t care attitude form Soviet Union.- Too small population. Let’s face it Estonia has too few inhabitants to strongly promote professionalism through mere availability of work force and competition within.- Easy available credit. Through a deadly spiral this led to an increase in salaries without the necessary increase in productivity.
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