Are Russian minority groups mistreated in Baltic states?, page 8


Emil 29 May, 2008, 02:11	Marzipan, that guy I know from another forum, he doesn't know ANY Russian. Not even enough to pass exams, he told me that by the time he got to high school he didn't have to learn enough to pass exams since it was already 1991. But he admitted that he went to grade school and middle school fine without Russian and he refused to learn it. He is gainfully employed now and has an education and is a happy little Estonian nationalist so it didn't effect his career at all. Which just shows how LITTLE russification there was in Estonia. In Georgia for example, where my mom went to school - the primary teaching language was Russian, and Georgian and Georgian literature were individual subjects. permalink quote 0 Emil
Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 11:07	Norman, you say you are asking some simple questions about minority groups. But the question turns out not being simple at all, because the bulk of the Estonia’s ethnic Russian population are part of a minority group unlike any on earth. How many nations of Europe do you know of – indeed, how many nations in the world – that were sovereign countries before WW2, but failed to emerge as sovereign countries afterwards? There are exactly three, and three only – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They suffered a fifty-one year continuous gang occupation, first by the Soviet Union, then by the Third Reich, and then by the Soviet Union again. WW2 finally ended for them only in August 1991, and their countries were extremely damaged as a result. Including demographically, as a result of the deliberate and force-backed social engineering policies of Soviet Moscow. During their long and entirely illegal period of occupation, a fate befell two of them – Estonia and Latvia – that has never befallen any other country on earth. They became the victims of illegal colonisation perpetrated by the occupying power which came within a whisker of rendering their legitimate population a minority in their own countries. No other sovereign nation has had to endure such a fate. And implications of the situation went far, far beyond a matter of mere statistics. The illegal colonists, whose arrival and presence was sanctioned by no legitimate authority of the target countries, knew literally next to nothing about their new lands of residence, and cared even less. Many of them genuinely didn’t even know geographically where they were – they just thought they were in another part of Russia, and they behaved accordingly. They cared nothing for the local language, local culture, local values, local traditions, local ways or local people, but absolutely required that everything but everything be re-organized to fit in with their language, their culture, their values, their traditions, their ways and their people and their colonial authority. They behaved as the consummate colonial master-race and had the full backing of the occupation authorities behind them as they continued the relentless process of marginalising the local culture in favour of their own, and for all practical purposes of turning Estonia into just a province of Russia If the Soviet Union and their attitude and behaviour along with it had lasted for perhaps another 20 years, the unique Estonian culture which is held by only a million people in a very small territory in the world would have been irretrievably destroyed forever. It is from this condition of social and cultural disaster (to say nothing of also environmental, economic and political disaster) that Estonia had to begin recovering itself in 1991. Approximately a third of the foreigners left fairly quickly. Another third began the process, for the very first time in their lives, of learning about the country where they lived, embraced its language, and applied for and were granted citizenship by naturalization, all in the face of torrid and ongoing opposition in Moscow. And about another third either doesn’t want Estonian citizenship, or are still only in the process of applying for it and being granted it at the rate of thousands each year – also in the face of Moscow’s opposition. It is against these realities that your simple questions must be answered in the context of Estonia. So – • Is a minority group a complement or a detriment to a society? In Estonia from 1940 until 1991, they were a detrimental and a destructive force, working whether knowingly or not, for the destroying of Estonian nation and culture. Since 1991, many who remain have become the opposite, and make an extremely valuable contribution to the country in many areas, including government, the civil service, industry, finance, enterprise, medicine, the police service, the arts, etc., but some who remain continue in the old colonial attitude. It is they who are the problem. • Does an ethnic group take up a significant part of the social services system? I have no statistics to back this up, but anecdotally it seems that Russians do comprise a disproportionate part of social welfare recipients, and certainly comprise a disproportionate part of the prison population. This is because an unwillingness to fit in with their country of residence led too many to not acquire the qualifications and education which would fit them for good employment. • Does the ethnic group create safety, health or criminal problems? Absolutely. HIV-aids, drug abuse and criminality generally are significantly over-represented in Estonia’s ethnically Russian population. • Do they work, even at the most basic jobs? Yes – as I already pointed out, many have very high level jobs, many more have standard employment, but for the reasons that derive from their life-choices, levels of unemployment are higher amongst those areas of the country where Russians have chosen to live in enclaves of their own, separate from the economic development of the rest of the country. It is these self-imposed enclaves that Estonia is trying to break down, and is trying to give their people skills to enable them to integrate throughout the country. Moscow’s policies of discriminating against Estonian trade has also hit many Russians particularly hard, because of obvious reasons, many Russians and Russian-populated regions had been heavily into trading with Russia, which trade Moscow has handicapped by its discriminatory policies. Norman wrote, “It sounds to me like the ethnic Russians want some basic civil rights and respect in Latvia and Estonia.” It sounds like that to him only if he listens to Moscow’s propaganda for long enough. There is no deficit at all to anyone’s civil rights and respect in Estonia, nor do I believe in Latvia. However, the long legacy of Soviet Moscow’s evil social engineering projects in Estonia and Latvia take a long time to turn around. Estonia is working very hard to do just that, with, I might add, no help at all from Moscow, which caused the problems in the first place. In not very many more years, all ethnic Russians from the Soviet era who want Estonian citizenship will have been granted it, and it will be interesting to see what Russia’s next criticism of the country will then be. Finally, Norman writes that he believes ethnic diversity makes a country great, and teaches tolerance. I absolutely agree. Estonia is the home to more than 100 different nationalities. Only some (by no means all) Russians – and Moscow – continue to complain, because only they seem to have difficulty in growing out of their one-time colonial master-race syndrome. permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 11:45	Regular_John, you appear to have some quite mistaken pre-conceived ideas about Estonia. You wrote that social problems can escalate “when you have within a society a large group of people who feel isolated living apart from the indigenous majority.” Which is exactly why Estonia is working hard to integrate those people linguistically, socially, educationally, politically and economically within the fabric of the overall society. Russians live in their own enclaves not because Estonians put them there, but because Moscow did. The Estonian city of Narva, for example, which is by the Russian border, used to be an ethnically Estonian city prior to WW2. It was a beautiful city boasting outstanding baroque architecture, but towards the closing stages of the war, Moscow bombed it to smithereens, not for any military purpose, but simply to terrorize Estonia into submission (it did the same in major raids against civilian targets in Tallinn). After the war, when surviving locals tried to return to Narva, they were forbidden by the occupation authorities to do so. Narva became a region of exclusive Russian settlement, from which Estonian residents were excluded. The city was rebuilt in the usual ugly Soviet style and populated exclusively by Russians. The exercise was one of classic ethnic cleansing, forcibly shifting the ethnic Estonian population westward and encroaching high-density Russian populated land westward from Russia proper. As a result, Narva is today somewhere around 90% ethnically Russian. In many other areas of Estonia during Soviet times (Paldiski, along the north coast is a place which comes to mind, but the same also happened in enclaves within other cities) Estonians were also excluded from housing areas and preference given to Russians, to establish new areas of high-density Russian residency, from which the planned Russification of the land could progressively spread out. It is precisely this policy that has resulted in today’s Russian enclaves in the land. Estonia is trying hard to break down the ghetto mentality of Narva and other Russian areas, is teaching children and interested adults the national language so that they may make a success of life anywhere in Estonia, and is trying to encourage more Estonians to settle in Narva. Your post suggests that it is Estonia that is responsible for the unassimilated enclaves. The truth is the exact opposite – but Moscow never tells you that. Let me assure you, there is no discrimination in Estonia in housing. Russians, or people of any other nationality, live exactly wherever they want to live, and no one persecutes them. The bully-boy mentality that seems to be a feature of areas of Northern Ireland has no equivalent in Estonia that I know of. I have seen none in my own visits there, and have never read about instances of it in the Estonian press. I do know that one of my brothers and his wife live next door to a Russian family, and they seem to get on quite well together. You mentioned rioting. The only rioting that you, or anyone else, has seen in the 90 years since Estonia became a modern nation is for two nights last year, by drunken Russian youths looting Tallinn stores, egged on by connections from Russia itself. That’s it. Nothing more. And you can go back another thousand years of Estonian history, and you won’t find any instance of pogroms initiated by Estonians against any other foreign community in their land. Estonians have risen up against German barons from time to time through their history, as part of their fight for freedom. But there has never been any ordinary inter-communal violence that I know of. Estonians aren’t that kind of people. Also, you will find any number of ethnic Russian policemen in Estonia. But they all have to be able to understand and speak Estonian as well as Russian, for the simple reason that Estonian is the language of the land, and the majority of the people speak Estonian. Not much use having a policeman who doesn’t have a clue about what 70 percent of the people are talking about. permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 12:01	Emil, thank you for your patience, I have got to your posts at last. The reason I provide verifiable correct information in response to some forum contributions is, because their posts happen to contain so many errors of fact. It is not my fault that this is so. If some of my posts are long, it is because some of the errors I'm addressing are big. Like in your earlier post, for example, where you wrote the following amazing thing: “You said someone wanted to KILL all Estonians.” Strange, but I don’t actually recall ever saying that. As for my supposed “bigoted comments on Russia,” I respect Russians as individuals and enjoy many aspects of Russian culture. But I have a fairly low opinion of policies, whether Russia’s or anyone else’s, that are based on untruths and that have death, destruction and misery as their fruit. Finally, about your Estonian acquaintance who refused to learn Russian: fine, maybe he did. I don’t know him, and you apparently do. But that does not change by one whit the forced Russification that happened in Estonia under Soviet rule, which every last Estonian from those times knows about and has personally experienced. And which is probably why your friend took the stance that he did. permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Alan 29 May, 2008, 22:04	Have you seen the film - The Singing Revolution: http://www.singingrevolution.com/ It describes the story of Estonia and gives some hints of how it regained its independence while the Soviet Union was crumbling. Will help clarify some common misconceptions. permalink quote 0 Alan
Sevodnya_Net 30 May, 2008, 11:22	Regular_John: With respect, the comparison between Estonia and Ireland is a dubious one at best. In particular I don't think you can correctly claim that the comparative peace in the Republic of Ireland during the time of the troubles in the North was because the Republic's government had an inclusive policy towards Protestants. The Republic was always governed with consensus, the North was not. That's the difference. As long as you have a section of the population that does not recognise the state you will always have problems, especially if the state reacts by discriminatory policies. In Estonia I do not think, from what I have heard, that the country's Russian minority aspires to break away from the majority. Although by analogy with other regions tho, perhaps we should watch this space :-) permalink quote 0 Sevodnya_Net
Regular_John 30 May, 2008, 12:17	Marzipan6 in your recent posts you have given a lot of information for me to think about and addressed my main concerns thankyou for taking the time to explain the situation from a Baltic perspective. And I agree one size does not fit all. Regards John. permalink quote 0 Regular_John
Marzipan6 31 May, 2008, 01:12	Alan writes, “Have you seen the film - The Singing Revolution?” I happen to have it on DVD, and I thoroughly recommend it to any who wish to genuinely understand Estonia’s recent past and current situation. Most commentators on this forum have really no grasp at all of Estonians’ experience of life under Soviet rule. Russians don’t, because Soviet rule was never a foreign invader of their land – for better or worse, it was their own thing, and to this day Russians still feel nostalgia for it. And foreigners certainly don’t understand, because not only is foreign occupation itself incomprehensible to free people, but foreign occupation joined with the bizarre, hateful and anti-human elements of Communist philosophy is so far outside of their experience as to be unimaginable. The film opens a tiny window into these realities. It shows a little of what life was like under Soviet occupation. It explains why singing and culture are so important to Estonia. It records, in original film footage, the provocative and anti-Estonian role which many of the vast number of Russian colonists played to try to prevent Estonia re-gaining its freedom. And towards the end of the film, it shows in startling footage the absolute non-violence which Estonians exercised towards Russians despite the Russians’ gross provocations against them. The film also provides an insightful grasp of the beginning point from which, in late 1991, Estonians set about re-building their shattered land and for the first time ever, truly integrating the country’s foreign population into the mainstream of the country. Apart from Latvia, I don’t believe there is another nation on earth that has been faced with a similarly daunting task. That task is not yet complete but in view of the starting point, the success they have achieved so far is nothing short of amazing. permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Emil 31 May, 2008, 06:45	Well Marzipan, no one forcibly russified "my friend" (he is not my friend), and he suffered no reporocussions as the result of his not being russified. That's that. permalink quote 0 Emil
Marzipan6 1 June, 2008, 00:08	SrpskiCrnogorac, you have some incorrect information about Estonia’s participation in WW2. For accurate statistical and historical information, please see the following sites: http://www.vm.ee/estonia/kat_509/5379.html http://www.vm.ee/estonia/kat_509/4738.html permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Marzipan6 1 June, 2008, 01:24	Sevodnya_Net writes, “In Estonia I do not think, from what I have heard, that the country's Russian minority aspires to break away from the majority. Although by analogy with other regions tho, perhaps we should watch this space.” It is correct that there is no push for any break-away movement, only some vague threats that emanate from a variety of sources from Russia. What there is in Estonia is some genuine difficulties on the part of some people Russian ethnicity to shake free of the legacy of their very strong Soviet-era conditioning – I have detailed that in other posts, and will not repeat it here. I do acknowledge, though, that this is a genuinely hard process for them to negotiate, as it involves revising a deeply-embedded world view and sense of themselves which the Soviet regime had instilled into them. That process is made harder by two other factors. First, because of the imperative to recover from their own even more grievous personal, national and historic wounds, many Estonians have simply lacked the energy, ability or desire to extend themselves to their Russian neighbours and to provide sufficient help with their process of transition. And secondly, Moscow’s on-going anti-Estonian rhetoric and its own inability or refusal to come to terms with its own Soviet past has made the reconciliation process harder for both communities in Estonia – for Estonians, it has justified their ongoing suspicion of things Russian, and for Russians it has justified them in continuing to embrace distorted views of recent history. But despite this, both communities recognise that they need each other for their peaceful and increasingly prosperous life to continue, and for their children to have a safe future. The couple of nights of unrest last year have genuinely frightened both communities, and have led to numerous initiatives for improved relations from both sides. Of particular note is a movement of young Russians and Estonians to reach out to one another through combined social and cultural activities. This is a particularly hopeful sign amongst people whose baggage from the past is mostly only second-hand, and who actively wish to forge a common future together. And Russian children sang side-by-side with Estonian children in 20,000 strong mass choir at the Youth Song Festival that I attended in Estonia last year. Another positive factor is, that there is no tradition or history of ethnicity-based personal hatreds in Estonia by any group. While room for further active integration is clearly obvious, over the years since re-independence I have also personally noticed a very significant growing together of the two communities, and I would expect this to continue, even if with some hiccoughs along the way. A lot depends on Moscow’s attitudes. If Russia comes to terms with its own Soviet history and seeks genuine reconciliation with the Baltics, reconciliation within the Baltic countries themselves will be greatly boosted. If Moscow continues on its current different path, internal Baltic reconciliation will still continue, but it will be more challenging. In either case, I do not believe separatism is realistically on the cards. permalink quote 0 Marzipan6
Giustino 1 June, 2008, 20:24	The RT story on the removal of the two monuments was wrong. One of the monuments was to Hans P permalink quote 0 Giustino
Giustino 1 June, 2008, 20:33	Just a point of fact. Estonia was a neutral country in 1940. No Estonian government ever allied itself with the Axis. There were Estonians in the SS and part of the civil administration under Nazi occupation, but there were also Estonians in the Red Army and Soviet puppet government, as well. Also, the issue of "liberation" is a moot point. It's not about the "liberation", it was about the decision to liquidate the sovereignty of the Estonian republic in 1940. After the Allies liberated France, the government in exile returned from London to Paris. After the Allies liberated Norway, the government in exile returned to Oslo. But After the Allies "liberated" Tallinn, the underground government was arrested and either executed or deported to Siberia. Getting arrested and executed doesn't particularly remind one of "liberation". And these were men who refused to cooperate with the German authorities. They tried to make Jüri Uluots, the head of the 1944 government, the head of the Nazi civil administration in occupied Estland and he refused. permalink quote 0 Giustino
SrpskiCrnogorac 1 June, 2008, 20:53	Marzipan6, I took most of the informations from this site which I posted already to you. http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/pdf/conclusions_en.pdf permalink quote 0 SrpskiCrnogorac
Regular_John 2 June, 2008, 14:52	Sevodnya I don’t think using the Irish situation as an example is a dubious one it highlights what can happen when a minority is mistreated I accept Marzipans detailed answers to my concerns, it seems Estonia will not make the mistakes the Protestants in Northern Ireland made. After the division of Ireland there was very little support in the north for a united Ireland the people were tired and just wanted peace the IRA were a spend force except for some minor actions in the mid 50s they had become irrelevant. In the 1960s because of discrimination in the north what emerged was a civil rights movement catholic were asking for fair treatment not a united Ireland they feared the protestant majority and at first welcomed the British troops. Again an opportunity was missed as the victimisation continued then after bloody Sunday in early 1972 when British paratroops killed 13 Catholics who were on a peaceful civil rights march it was then the catholic community fully turned to the IRA for protection and this then placed a united Ireland truly on the agenda. With good governance and equal treatment what we saw over 30 years of “the troubles” could have been avoided,( in my opinion) it’s a lesson from history that others can learn from. PS congratulations on the birth of your child (God Bless) permalink quote 0 Regular_John
Emil 2 June, 2008, 15:02	Oh Marzipan you paint everything in such rosy tones. Does the Estonian regime pay you to advertise and whitewash Estonia on the internet? I wouldn't be surprised, nothing else they can do. Tell Dmitry Ganin's family about what non-violent, lovely singers Estonian nationalists are. permalink quote 0 Emil
SrpskiCrnogorac 2 June, 2008, 20:18	Hey Giustino, why so much efforts? Does it make a difference, whether one or two of the monuments were Soviet heroes? The fact, that one monument was Pöögelmann, only shows from which corner that Jüri Limm comes. A typical fascist. And if RT would be a "HOWEVER, lazy English-language journalists copied this story from Russian-language state-controlled propaganda services." http://www.baltlantis.com/?id=27097 as you call it, do you think your post would appear here? permalink quote 0 SrpskiCrnogorac
SrpskiCrnogorac 3 June, 2008, 07:52	"There were Estonians in the SS and part of the civil administration under Nazi occupation, but there were also Estonians in the Red Army and Soviet puppet government, as well." It really makes no sense to discuss with estonians, as long as you can´t see the difference between the Nazis and the Soviets and as long as you see every deported or killed estonian after liberation as victims, although many of them were Nazi collaborators. Regarding the victims, I think that all people in the SU suffered equally from Stalin´s terror. permalink quote 0 SrpskiCrnogorac
Sevodnya_Net 3 June, 2008, 07:55	Regular_John Thank you for your good wishes :-) I agree largely with your assessment of N. Ireland - it's the bit about the Republic's government I didn't see eye to eye with. I still say tho, until someone comes up with some evidence to the contrary, the Russian minority in modern-day Estonia has a better deal than the nationalist minority did in N. Ireland. permalink quote 0 Sevodnya_Net
Marzipan6 3 June, 2008, 10:46	Giustino pointed out an inaccuracy in an RT article and wrote, permalink quote 0 Marzipan6

Emil 29 May, 2008, 02:11

Marzipan, that guy I know from another forum, he doesn't know ANY Russian. Not even enough to pass exams, he told me that by the time he got to high school he didn't have to learn enough to pass exams since it was already 1991. But he admitted that he went to grade school and middle school fine without Russian and he refused to learn it. He is gainfully employed now and has an education and is a happy little Estonian nationalist so it didn't effect his career at all. Which just shows how LITTLE russification there was in Estonia. In Georgia for example, where my mom went to school - the primary teaching language was Russian, and Georgian and Georgian literature were individual subjects.

permalink quote Emil

Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 11:07

Norman, you say you are asking some simple questions about minority groups. But the question turns out not being simple at all, because the bulk of the Estonia’s ethnic Russian population are part of a minority group unlike any on earth. How many nations of Europe do you know of – indeed, how many nations in the world – that were sovereign countries before WW2, but failed to emerge as sovereign countries afterwards? There are exactly three, and three only – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They suffered a fifty-one year continuous gang occupation, first by the Soviet Union, then by the Third Reich, and then by the Soviet Union again. WW2 finally ended for them only in August 1991, and their countries were extremely damaged as a result. Including demographically, as a result of the deliberate and force-backed social engineering policies of Soviet Moscow. During their long and entirely illegal period of occupation, a fate befell two of them – Estonia and Latvia – that has never befallen any other country on earth. They became the victims of illegal colonisation perpetrated by the occupying power which came within a whisker of rendering their legitimate population a minority in their own countries. No other sovereign nation has had to endure such a fate. And implications of the situation went far, far beyond a matter of mere statistics. The illegal colonists, whose arrival and presence was sanctioned by no legitimate authority of the target countries, knew literally next to nothing about their new lands of residence, and cared even less. Many of them genuinely didn’t even know geographically where they were – they just thought they were in another part of Russia, and they behaved accordingly. They cared nothing for the local language, local culture, local values, local traditions, local ways or local people, but absolutely required that everything but everything be re-organized to fit in with their language, their culture, their values, their traditions, their ways and their people and their colonial authority. They behaved as the consummate colonial master-race and had the full backing of the occupation authorities behind them as they continued the relentless process of marginalising the local culture in favour of their own, and for all practical purposes of turning Estonia into just a province of Russia If the Soviet Union and their attitude and behaviour along with it had lasted for perhaps another 20 years, the unique Estonian culture which is held by only a million people in a very small territory in the world would have been irretrievably destroyed forever. It is from this condition of social and cultural disaster (to say nothing of also environmental, economic and political disaster) that Estonia had to begin recovering itself in 1991. Approximately a third of the foreigners left fairly quickly. Another third began the process, for the very first time in their lives, of learning about the country where they lived, embraced its language, and applied for and were granted citizenship by naturalization, all in the face of torrid and ongoing opposition in Moscow. And about another third either doesn’t want Estonian citizenship, or are still only in the process of applying for it and being granted it at the rate of thousands each year – also in the face of Moscow’s opposition. It is against these realities that your simple questions must be answered in the context of Estonia. So – • Is a minority group a complement or a detriment to a society? In Estonia from 1940 until 1991, they were a detrimental and a destructive force, working whether knowingly or not, for the destroying of Estonian nation and culture. Since 1991, many who remain have become the opposite, and make an extremely valuable contribution to the country in many areas, including government, the civil service, industry, finance, enterprise, medicine, the police service, the arts, etc., but some who remain continue in the old colonial attitude. It is they who are the problem. • Does an ethnic group take up a significant part of the social services system? I have no statistics to back this up, but anecdotally it seems that Russians do comprise a disproportionate part of social welfare recipients, and certainly comprise a disproportionate part of the prison population. This is because an unwillingness to fit in with their country of residence led too many to not acquire the qualifications and education which would fit them for good employment. • Does the ethnic group create safety, health or criminal problems? Absolutely. HIV-aids, drug abuse and criminality generally are significantly over-represented in Estonia’s ethnically Russian population. • Do they work, even at the most basic jobs? Yes – as I already pointed out, many have very high level jobs, many more have standard employment, but for the reasons that derive from their life-choices, levels of unemployment are higher amongst those areas of the country where Russians have chosen to live in enclaves of their own, separate from the economic development of the rest of the country. It is these self-imposed enclaves that Estonia is trying to break down, and is trying to give their people skills to enable them to integrate throughout the country. Moscow’s policies of discriminating against Estonian trade has also hit many Russians particularly hard, because of obvious reasons, many Russians and Russian-populated regions had been heavily into trading with Russia, which trade Moscow has handicapped by its discriminatory policies. Norman wrote, “It sounds to me like the ethnic Russians want some basic civil rights and respect in Latvia and Estonia.” It sounds like that to him only if he listens to Moscow’s propaganda for long enough. There is no deficit at all to anyone’s civil rights and respect in Estonia, nor do I believe in Latvia. However, the long legacy of Soviet Moscow’s evil social engineering projects in Estonia and Latvia take a long time to turn around. Estonia is working very hard to do just that, with, I might add, no help at all from Moscow, which caused the problems in the first place. In not very many more years, all ethnic Russians from the Soviet era who want Estonian citizenship will have been granted it, and it will be interesting to see what Russia’s next criticism of the country will then be. Finally, Norman writes that he believes ethnic diversity makes a country great, and teaches tolerance. I absolutely agree. Estonia is the home to more than 100 different nationalities. Only some (by no means all) Russians – and Moscow – continue to complain, because only they seem to have difficulty in growing out of their one-time colonial master-race syndrome.

permalink quote Marzipan6

Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 11:45

Regular_John, you appear to have some quite mistaken pre-conceived ideas about Estonia. You wrote that social problems can escalate “when you have within a society a large group of people who feel isolated living apart from the indigenous majority.” Which is exactly why Estonia is working hard to integrate those people linguistically, socially, educationally, politically and economically within the fabric of the overall society. Russians live in their own enclaves not because Estonians put them there, but because Moscow did. The Estonian city of Narva, for example, which is by the Russian border, used to be an ethnically Estonian city prior to WW2. It was a beautiful city boasting outstanding baroque architecture, but towards the closing stages of the war, Moscow bombed it to smithereens, not for any military purpose, but simply to terrorize Estonia into submission (it did the same in major raids against civilian targets in Tallinn). After the war, when surviving locals tried to return to Narva, they were forbidden by the occupation authorities to do so. Narva became a region of exclusive Russian settlement, from which Estonian residents were excluded. The city was rebuilt in the usual ugly Soviet style and populated exclusively by Russians. The exercise was one of classic ethnic cleansing, forcibly shifting the ethnic Estonian population westward and encroaching high-density Russian populated land westward from Russia proper. As a result, Narva is today somewhere around 90% ethnically Russian. In many other areas of Estonia during Soviet times (Paldiski, along the north coast is a place which comes to mind, but the same also happened in enclaves within other cities) Estonians were also excluded from housing areas and preference given to Russians, to establish new areas of high-density Russian residency, from which the planned Russification of the land could progressively spread out. It is precisely this policy that has resulted in today’s Russian enclaves in the land. Estonia is trying hard to break down the ghetto mentality of Narva and other Russian areas, is teaching children and interested adults the national language so that they may make a success of life anywhere in Estonia, and is trying to encourage more Estonians to settle in Narva. Your post suggests that it is Estonia that is responsible for the unassimilated enclaves. The truth is the exact opposite – but Moscow never tells you that. Let me assure you, there is no discrimination in Estonia in housing. Russians, or people of any other nationality, live exactly wherever they want to live, and no one persecutes them. The bully-boy mentality that seems to be a feature of areas of Northern Ireland has no equivalent in Estonia that I know of. I have seen none in my own visits there, and have never read about instances of it in the Estonian press. I do know that one of my brothers and his wife live next door to a Russian family, and they seem to get on quite well together. You mentioned rioting. The only rioting that you, or anyone else, has seen in the 90 years since Estonia became a modern nation is for two nights last year, by drunken Russian youths looting Tallinn stores, egged on by connections from Russia itself. That’s it. Nothing more. And you can go back another thousand years of Estonian history, and you won’t find any instance of pogroms initiated by Estonians against any other foreign community in their land. Estonians have risen up against German barons from time to time through their history, as part of their fight for freedom. But there has never been any ordinary inter-communal violence that I know of. Estonians aren’t that kind of people. Also, you will find any number of ethnic Russian policemen in Estonia. But they all have to be able to understand and speak Estonian as well as Russian, for the simple reason that Estonian is the language of the land, and the majority of the people speak Estonian. Not much use having a policeman who doesn’t have a clue about what 70 percent of the people are talking about.

permalink quote Marzipan6

Marzipan6 29 May, 2008, 12:01

Emil, thank you for your patience, I have got to your posts at last. The reason I provide verifiable correct information in response to some forum contributions is, because their posts happen to contain so many errors of fact. It is not my fault that this is so. If some of my posts are long, it is because some of the errors I'm addressing are big. Like in your earlier post, for example, where you wrote the following amazing thing: “You said someone wanted to KILL all Estonians.” Strange, but I don’t actually recall ever saying that. As for my supposed “bigoted comments on Russia,” I respect Russians as individuals and enjoy many aspects of Russian culture. But I have a fairly low opinion of policies, whether Russia’s or anyone else’s, that are based on untruths and that have death, destruction and misery as their fruit. Finally, about your Estonian acquaintance who refused to learn Russian: fine, maybe he did. I don’t know him, and you apparently do. But that does not change by one whit the forced Russification that happened in Estonia under Soviet rule, which every last Estonian from those times knows about and has personally experienced. And which is probably why your friend took the stance that he did.

permalink quote Marzipan6

Alan 29 May, 2008, 22:04

Have you seen the film - The Singing Revolution: http://www.singingrevolution.com/ It describes the story of Estonia and gives some hints of how it regained its independence while the Soviet Union was crumbling. Will help clarify some common misconceptions.

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Sevodnya_Net 30 May, 2008, 11:22

Regular_John: With respect, the comparison between Estonia and Ireland is a dubious one at best. In particular I don't think you can correctly claim that the comparative peace in the Republic of Ireland during the time of the troubles in the North was because the Republic's government had an inclusive policy towards Protestants. The Republic was always governed with consensus, the North was not. That's the difference. As long as you have a section of the population that does not recognise the state you will always have problems, especially if the state reacts by discriminatory policies. In Estonia I do not think, from what I have heard, that the country's Russian minority aspires to break away from the majority. Although by analogy with other regions tho, perhaps we should watch this space :-)

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Regular_John 30 May, 2008, 12:17

Marzipan6 in your recent posts you have given a lot of information for me to think about and addressed my main concerns thankyou for taking the time to explain the situation from a Baltic perspective. And I agree one size does not fit all. Regards John.

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Marzipan6 31 May, 2008, 01:12

Alan writes, “Have you seen the film - The Singing Revolution?” I happen to have it on DVD, and I thoroughly recommend it to any who wish to genuinely understand Estonia’s recent past and current situation. Most commentators on this forum have really no grasp at all of Estonians’ experience of life under Soviet rule. Russians don’t, because Soviet rule was never a foreign invader of their land – for better or worse, it was their own thing, and to this day Russians still feel nostalgia for it. And foreigners certainly don’t understand, because not only is foreign occupation itself incomprehensible to free people, but foreign occupation joined with the bizarre, hateful and anti-human elements of Communist philosophy is so far outside of their experience as to be unimaginable. The film opens a tiny window into these realities. It shows a little of what life was like under Soviet occupation. It explains why singing and culture are so important to Estonia. It records, in original film footage, the provocative and anti-Estonian role which many of the vast number of Russian colonists played to try to prevent Estonia re-gaining its freedom. And towards the end of the film, it shows in startling footage the absolute non-violence which Estonians exercised towards Russians despite the Russians’ gross provocations against them. The film also provides an insightful grasp of the beginning point from which, in late 1991, Estonians set about re-building their shattered land and for the first time ever, truly integrating the country’s foreign population into the mainstream of the country. Apart from Latvia, I don’t believe there is another nation on earth that has been faced with a similarly daunting task. That task is not yet complete but in view of the starting point, the success they have achieved so far is nothing short of amazing.

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Emil 31 May, 2008, 06:45

Well Marzipan, no one forcibly russified "my friend" (he is not my friend), and he suffered no reporocussions as the result of his not being russified. That's that.

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Marzipan6 1 June, 2008, 00:08

SrpskiCrnogorac, you have some incorrect information about Estonia’s participation in WW2. For accurate statistical and historical information, please see the following sites: http://www.vm.ee/estonia/kat_509/5379.html http://www.vm.ee/estonia/kat_509/4738.html

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Marzipan6 1 June, 2008, 01:24

Sevodnya_Net writes, “In Estonia I do not think, from what I have heard, that the country's Russian minority aspires to break away from the majority. Although by analogy with other regions tho, perhaps we should watch this space.” It is correct that there is no push for any break-away movement, only some vague threats that emanate from a variety of sources from Russia. What there is in Estonia is some genuine difficulties on the part of some people Russian ethnicity to shake free of the legacy of their very strong Soviet-era conditioning – I have detailed that in other posts, and will not repeat it here. I do acknowledge, though, that this is a genuinely hard process for them to negotiate, as it involves revising a deeply-embedded world view and sense of themselves which the Soviet regime had instilled into them. That process is made harder by two other factors. First, because of the imperative to recover from their own even more grievous personal, national and historic wounds, many Estonians have simply lacked the energy, ability or desire to extend themselves to their Russian neighbours and to provide sufficient help with their process of transition. And secondly, Moscow’s on-going anti-Estonian rhetoric and its own inability or refusal to come to terms with its own Soviet past has made the reconciliation process harder for both communities in Estonia – for Estonians, it has justified their ongoing suspicion of things Russian, and for Russians it has justified them in continuing to embrace distorted views of recent history. But despite this, both communities recognise that they need each other for their peaceful and increasingly prosperous life to continue, and for their children to have a safe future. The couple of nights of unrest last year have genuinely frightened both communities, and have led to numerous initiatives for improved relations from both sides. Of particular note is a movement of young Russians and Estonians to reach out to one another through combined social and cultural activities. This is a particularly hopeful sign amongst people whose baggage from the past is mostly only second-hand, and who actively wish to forge a common future together. And Russian children sang side-by-side with Estonian children in 20,000 strong mass choir at the Youth Song Festival that I attended in Estonia last year. Another positive factor is, that there is no tradition or history of ethnicity-based personal hatreds in Estonia by any group. While room for further active integration is clearly obvious, over the years since re-independence I have also personally noticed a very significant growing together of the two communities, and I would expect this to continue, even if with some hiccoughs along the way. A lot depends on Moscow’s attitudes. If Russia comes to terms with its own Soviet history and seeks genuine reconciliation with the Baltics, reconciliation within the Baltic countries themselves will be greatly boosted. If Moscow continues on its current different path, internal Baltic reconciliation will still continue, but it will be more challenging. In either case, I do not believe separatism is realistically on the cards.

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Giustino 1 June, 2008, 20:24

The RT story on the removal of the two monuments was wrong. One of the monuments was to Hans P

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Giustino 1 June, 2008, 20:33

Just a point of fact. Estonia was a neutral country in 1940. No Estonian government ever allied itself with the Axis. There were Estonians in the SS and part of the civil administration under Nazi occupation, but there were also Estonians in the Red Army and Soviet puppet government, as well. Also, the issue of "liberation" is a moot point. It's not about the "liberation", it was about the decision to liquidate the sovereignty of the Estonian republic in 1940. After the Allies liberated France, the government in exile returned from London to Paris. After the Allies liberated Norway, the government in exile returned to Oslo. But After the Allies "liberated" Tallinn, the underground government was arrested and either executed or deported to Siberia. Getting arrested and executed doesn't particularly remind one of "liberation". And these were men who refused to cooperate with the German authorities. They tried to make Jüri Uluots, the head of the 1944 government, the head of the Nazi civil administration in occupied Estland and he refused.

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SrpskiCrnogorac 1 June, 2008, 20:53

Marzipan6, I took most of the informations from this site which I posted already to you. http://www.historycommission.ee/temp/pdf/conclusions_en.pdf

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Regular_John 2 June, 2008, 14:52

Sevodnya I don’t think using the Irish situation as an example is a dubious one it highlights what can happen when a minority is mistreated I accept Marzipans detailed answers to my concerns, it seems Estonia will not make the mistakes the Protestants in Northern Ireland made. After the division of Ireland there was very little support in the north for a united Ireland the people were tired and just wanted peace the IRA were a spend force except for some minor actions in the mid 50s they had become irrelevant. In the 1960s because of discrimination in the north what emerged was a civil rights movement catholic were asking for fair treatment not a united Ireland they feared the protestant majority and at first welcomed the British troops. Again an opportunity was missed as the victimisation continued then after bloody Sunday in early 1972 when British paratroops killed 13 Catholics who were on a peaceful civil rights march it was then the catholic community fully turned to the IRA for protection and this then placed a united Ireland truly on the agenda. With good governance and equal treatment what we saw over 30 years of “the troubles” could have been avoided,( in my opinion) it’s a lesson from history that others can learn from. PS congratulations on the birth of your child (God Bless)

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Emil 2 June, 2008, 15:02

Oh Marzipan you paint everything in such rosy tones. Does the Estonian regime pay you to advertise and whitewash Estonia on the internet? I wouldn't be surprised, nothing else they can do. Tell Dmitry Ganin's family about what non-violent, lovely singers Estonian nationalists are.

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SrpskiCrnogorac 2 June, 2008, 20:18

Hey Giustino, why so much efforts? Does it make a difference, whether one or two of the monuments were Soviet heroes? The fact, that one monument was Pöögelmann, only shows from which corner that Jüri Limm comes. A typical fascist. And if RT would be a "HOWEVER, lazy English-language journalists copied this story from Russian-language state-controlled propaganda services." http://www.baltlantis.com/?id=27097 as you call it, do you think your post would appear here?

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SrpskiCrnogorac 3 June, 2008, 07:52

"There were Estonians in the SS and part of the civil administration under Nazi occupation, but there were also Estonians in the Red Army and Soviet puppet government, as well." It really makes no sense to discuss with estonians, as long as you can´t see the difference between the Nazis and the Soviets and as long as you see every deported or killed estonian after liberation as victims, although many of them were Nazi collaborators. Regarding the victims, I think that all people in the SU suffered equally from Stalin´s terror.

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Sevodnya_Net 3 June, 2008, 07:55

Regular_John Thank you for your good wishes :-) I agree largely with your assessment of N. Ireland - it's the bit about the Republic's government I didn't see eye to eye with. I still say tho, until someone comes up with some evidence to the contrary, the Russian minority in modern-day Estonia has a better deal than the nationalist minority did in N. Ireland.

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Marzipan6 3 June, 2008, 10:46

Giustino pointed out an inaccuracy in an RT article and wrote,

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