Recently, Estonia started to work harder on strengthening its talent pool by trying to make it more appealing for foreigners to come and work in Estonia. But what’s peculiar about this is the fact that whenever you mention the issue of accepting immigrants – no matter why they would consider coming to Estonia – the average Estonian starts to protest very vocally against it.
Recently, Estonia started to work harder on strengthening its talent pool by trying to make it more appealing for foreigners to come and work in Estonia. It’s understandable, because the Estonian workforce is aging, there aren’t enough specialists around to hire and altogether the country needs to attract thousands of new talented workers to keep its economy running and viable.
Estonia has many perks that should appeal to this new talent, eg low taxes, high-speed internet, reasonable living expenses, beautiful countryside, four distinct seasons, and a great geographical location. It’s not surprising that the country has already appealed to many foreign specialists and could, in future, attract many more.
But what’s peculiar about this is the fact that whenever you mention the issue of accepting immigrants – no matter why they would consider coming to Estonia – the average Estonian starts to protest very vocally against it. “Everyone should live in their own home” is a loose translation of the Estonian “iga roju oma koju” slogan that has recently been voiced more often than before.
Overt racism
The most recent issue for Estonia is the question of whether or not to accept refugees. While the European Union is contemplating how to help people who have been forced to leave their homes, have nowhere to live and nowhere to go, and have lost everything, a very vocal opposition exists in Estonia – much more vocal than the supporters – who are engaged in an aggressive campaign against accepting any foreigners who, in their bigoted minds, only want to come to Estonia “to steal our jobs and live on welfare”.
This Wednesday a protest against accepting refugees was held in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital. Two T-shirts caught my eye. One of them had the slogan “The Negro lives in Africa”, and the other one, even more outrageous, said “Negroes to the oven”. These are Estonian citizens who have become walking billboards for outright racism.
Not long ago, Kristiina Ojuland, the former foreign minister of Estonia and a former MEP, now a leader of a new party that, fortunately, didn’t win any seats in parliament, said in a Facebook post that the “white race is threatened” by dark-skinned immigrants.
I don’t even want to mention the commentary sections of daily newspapers and online portals. The online outpour against people of a different race, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity has exceeded every human limit possible, and yet seems to be only getting worse.
Would you want to live among people who hate you?
In all that blatant xenophobia and racism, sadly so prevalent these days in Estonia, why would any foreigner want to come to this little bigoted country, either voluntarily to work, or as a refugee? Why would anybody choose to contribute to a nation that so openly and obviously hates them?
Some people have told me I generalise the Estonian population – or general population, as I’ve put it – too much. Truth be told, I don’t think the absolute majority of the Estonians are like that. But the issue is, a considerable amount of the people – the most vocal majority – actually do think and feel this way and they’re not afraid to express their thoughts out loud, be it via demonstrations, social, online or print media.
Not long ago a programme on TV asked viewers whether they would support accepting refugees. Over 90 per cent of the respondents said “no”. During parliamentary deliberations of the cohabitation act – the new law that allows both same and opposite sex couples to register their relationship – 67 per cent of the population were against it, according to the opinion polls at the time.
And, as a cherry on top, almost 50,000 (8.1 per cent of the votes given) people gave their vote to an obvious Nazi party at the last election. The same party whose supporters and/or members wore T-shirts with slogans such as “The Negro lives in Africa” and “Negroes to the oven” at a recent demonstration against refugees.
A change in the thought process
I’m an ardent supporter of freedom of speech and thought. I sincerely believe freedom of speech is one of the main basic rights of a human being – and I strongly oppose the so-called hate speech laws many European countries have enacted. I oppose these laws because people must have the right to be idiots. If this right is taken away from us, it takes away a part of what makes us human. Human beings have the right to say stupid things.
Hence my problem is not the fact that people vocally express their opinions, one way or the other. If an idiot wants to write something stupid on his T-shirt, the idiot must have the right to do so (and if someone wants to punch the idiot in the face for it, then that someone should have the equal right to do exactly that). My problem is that this idiocy among the general population – yes, yes, that general population again – is so overwhelmingly taking over that one must ask the question, what the hell is wrong with you, people?
The key to… civilise, for the lack of a better word, the general population is not through legislation, nor through banning the freedom of speech. It can only be done by the people themselves changing the way they view the world around them. By starting with asking oneself the question, why do I feel this way? Why do I hate someone whom I haven’t even met just because he’s from a different religion, ethnicity or skin colour? Do I really believe if a foreigner settles in Estonia, they’re going to steal my job? What if they’ll contribute to job creation instead? Do I really think they’re coming here to live on welfare? Or maybe, just maybe, the Estonian social welfare system (with the jobseeker’s allowance being a whopping €2.11 a day) isn’t really so appealing that anybody would settle in the country just for that?
Perhaps, if we could all process this basic maths and logic and come to the conclusion that those economic fears don’t really make sense, we could also overcome our fear of people being different from the homogenous population of the country? Because, if we can’t, then we should admit to ourselves we’re just plain old racist.
It’s seriously about time to grow up and see further from what’s right under your nose. Otherwise Estonia will face the prospect of becoming a pariah among nations. Can you really afford to be in the same club as Russia and Belarus?
I
Note from Estonian World
Estonian World strongly condemns racism and prejudice – there should be no place for any form of xenophobia or racism in Estonia. Estonian World also supports a new initiative, Tolerant Estonia.
I
Cover: An anti-racism poster.
Grow up, Hankewitz and start seeing real world!
Europe has two problems. Too less native people to support the old age social welfare and too much immigrants. With attitude like that why would you even get people who are so capable to keep you alive in your old age by paying taxes in your country. You also get real, you don’t have big military strength to scavenge on other resourceful countries like US or UK in coming 40-50 yrs.
Problem for most Estonians, as I see is that refugee gets 1000€ of support, a roof over it’s head and 3 meals a day (total expense to Estonian tax-payer is ~1700€ per month per refugee; not counting possible schooling expenses because they are allso offerd free courses/training). They can claim thows supports u to 6 years. At same time if you are a Estonian who is for example down on his/her luck you get 2.11€ a day (that’s 63.30€ per month) and in you need more you have to jump through hoops to get extra support.
Second thing is that avarage waige in estonia is bit over 800€; So why has to, some refugee, get more money to cover it’s (allmost nonextisting) living costs than estonian who has to pay for his/her own home food and mayby studis?
For example, in Vao vilage, where is one spot for refugees, locals have much worst situation in housing allso avarage waige (among working people) there is allmost 500€.
That is why Estonians don’t want refugees to Estonia – first we should invest in our own people
If they oppose it for economic reasons, then why aren’t people wearing t-shirts like “More social services for Estonians” instead of “Negroes to the oven”?
People aren’t. It was just the one guy in the picture, and he was asked to leave the demonstration immediately (along with two others, who had somewhat provocative messages on their shirts/signs). Most people were, in fact, holding up signs pointing out economic reasons.
I am surprised, how you put it. Your own ex-foreign minister says things like that. It was sad to see the Klan’s popularity in Estonia. Two losers in the demonstration are less relevant.
That’s because our ex-foreign minister…how do I put this….isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. She occasionally has decent ideas, but that’s me being generous.
Even though the line is thin, there’s still a difference between and nationalsocialism and radical-conservatism. Just as there is a difference (not a big one, but still…) between thinking of ourselves as superior with others being inferior and overboard-grown distrust and hate against foreign people. Don’t get me wrong, both are still racism because of the ignorance that blinds them, but still…
This is even a bigger mistake than mixing up fascism and nazism (yes.. there is a difference in those too. Fascism, nationalsocialism and communism are three biggest radical-totalitarian ideologies. The first one controls the politics, second both politics and free speech/belief, and the third one, besides politics and speech, economy as well.)
Nice way of taking what one nut is doing as representative of the whole group. Too bad about that one asshole, I’m sure the Russian press will have a field day of reprinting that image. They have been reporting about “open parades with nazi symbols” for some time.
bruv, estonian ARE nazis and russophobes. TRUST ME FAM
Dont try and pretend its not there, if you have spent
any time with your eyes open you have seen hundreds of t-shirts
brandishing kkk or white pride slogans and people openly wearing nazi
tattoos. I was in a random party in Estonia with what seemed to be reasonably
intelligent people, when all of a sudden people started celebrating
Hitlers birthday.
Even tho this is only a small(ish) percentage. Its not fucking small enough.
Tat Roberts: That is so true. I have been trying to fight these, “I am not a racist, but see Sweden, UK, all the crimes are committed by them” people. It is indeed strange that people take facts from media coverage hours. Official statistics show different story. Emotions, and media engineered brains are too strong for the facts I assume. The feeling I get from most comment here is, they would not join the KKK but somewhere inside they align, at least partly, with what these group’s public agendas are. These things evolve slowly, and before one realizes what a moral mess one is, it’s too late. At least that is what I understood from the verbal/written accounts of former Nazi members.
Yeh i think the scariest thing is that its not just the extremist idiots, its way to many normal clever people, and i just hope that with time and integration things can be solved. Estonia took on the KGB without guns, they were clever enough to win without violence, i just hope the integration fears are resolved when people get to know the immigrants on a personal level, but for people to do that, they have to first give them a chance.
Yes, I must agree to a part, it’s many clever people turning racist, but it’s also not very thought out articles like this and the attitude of the west to be partly to blame. It is also a propaganda war (“the fight for the people’s belief” if you will, with two sides and the liberals have just been doing it sloppy, as in this article and some others on this site. It’s I think mostly the reason I ended up commenting on them, because they seem generally dumb, not that they are fighting for the wrong cause somehow, just because I think they are mostly making things worse. While people have powerful images of Charlie Hebdo, the Swedish class full of girls found circumcised and they have lists of statistics about the negative effects of immigration, the liberal articles are mostly only on an emotional level, seeming naive, not giving powerful enough positive images of the refugees and usually only saying things like “the statistics disagree” without ever giving any link to any such statistics and just crying “OMG racist! Grow up!” Not before yesterday have I seen articles from the pro-immigration side in Estonian press (European sponsored or other) done somewhat well (perhaps I have missed the previous, but I also haven’t heard them mentioned), but I think you are pulling youself together. Before the immigration debacle and passing of the law towards allowing same sex people to adopt each-other’s children, etc, the ads to change people’s views were mostly done lumping different colored people, homosexuals and disabled people together. It was weird. People with disabled children started asking “Are homosexuals disabled? Is it like having been born without legs?”. Having the slogan “Diversity enriches” on posters with blind people as well as on those with homosexuals, wasn’t making things any better I must say. You know, because for example a mother with a son without legs might ask “How do they mean having no legs enriches his or my life? I can’t do anything, don’t have money for anything, to live my life, I have to watch out for him all the time.” People start to identify with the homophobic and racist crowd because of campaigns like that, more. Yes, dumb people often, who can’t make a distinction between a botched campaign and a general agreeable cause, but the big crowds of regular folk in any other country don’t seem to be exactly overtly intelligent either. People also start turning christian more, because they see, – “here’s a group of people who seem to share some of my ideas, perhaps we should stick together some, because our beliefs are under the same attack. I’ve never thought about religion much and never gone to church. Perhaps I’m also a christian. The campains also are against racism. I’ve never thought about the issue, but perhaps I am, I mean these issues are lumped together. If I end up expressing myself against such campaigns, well I end up fighting for the racist side anyway, let me at least enjoy the freedom of bashing n****s while I have the chance, i didn’t think I had before”.
Yesterday it was finally a good news article about a refugee studying for a masters degree, and an image of a sad looking refugee girl at the end of the piece, and it didn’t look like overt propaganda. It is the time to bring out the success-stories of refugee firefighters saving cats and the actual positive statistics often mentioned, but rarely exactly showed, now in front and center. Wikipedia (one of the main sources of infomation for many in this day) still gives articles like this about immigation and crime statistics in Europe first:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime
Google in general does that aswell.
If that correlation is true, then I ofcourse don’t want it to be censored, but there surely are some positive verifiable statistics about immigration to be shared more online and through news sites, I mean front and center, not “there is some statistic, I don’t know, somewhere”. Just saying “there are statistics.” or “doing statistics about how large percentage of rape perpetrators are immigants is racist. We do not do racist statistics, so it’s up to your imagination to make up the numbers.” one isn’t exactly assuring the people in more conservative countries that west hasn’t gone mad with their unhealthy obsession with political correctness, libeal views, and disegard for any sort of common sense, science and facts. People have the tendency in situations like these to adopt racist beliefs and other things they, or their fellow countrymen are accused of, because if you hear that using “this kind of science” is racist, you might start thinking “If that is racist, I wonder what else will be racist soon. Perhaps the fact we have too many christian churces compared to muslim churches and then they start blowing them up to fight the racism and inequality shown by the number of churches.” Your mind is the limit.
well, I haven’t myself and in these days you can’t really count on comments like yours on the internet, because it’s pretty much a proven fact, with even the paynumbers and addresses of some of these establishments known, that paid Russian cyber warriors are at work in their punkers at Moscow’s office buildings or their homes contaminating comment sections like this with half truths and perhaps even extreme racist comments to make the Baltic states look bad. There definitely are some truly racist Estonians, but you can’t really rely on anecdotes here. If you really are a liberal, I think you have to agree that the terrible plague of Estonians celebrating the birthday of Hitler in their basement isn’t quite as wide spread, as say celebrating the 9th of May, namely the International Rape Celebration Day pretty openly in Russia. Yes it happens to be the celebration of the end of WWII, but conveniently that and the heroic rape by Soviet soldiers of up to 2 million German women between the ages 8 and 80 (some proven that repeatedly by more than 60 men) are the same thing, so go figure, I’d think that some hyprocracy like that would get at least some critique from the extreme liberals, but you know to each his own, we all have to choose our battles, open celebrations of mass rape of millions or some guy wearing a shirt and some nutcases celebrating Hitler’s birthday in their basement, contrary to the state policy in a very small country. The liberals have a history though of concentrating on the splinter in their eye, while not seeing the other guy running towards them with a bazooka. And by bazooka, I ofcourse mean whatever Russian-Chinese technology the Russians mainly have, that tends to break down during military parades. I don’t think we should be quite dismissive of their technology though, because they recently declared they are buying new INTERCONTINENTAL nuclear warhead carriers, that couldn’t be detected by even the most advanced anti-missile systems. So that is Russia declaring they are increasing their nuclear capacity, and also USA started bringing their heavy military technology here. If that isn’t a sign of new cold war being on, I don’t know what is. I do hope we have the chance to reach somewhere with accepting the immigrants and deciding how awful a guy with a t-shirt at a meating must be, but I’ll go and try to be ready for a possible general mobilization in the meantime. Peace out!
Oh, and here’s an article you can read in the meantime.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31528981
It’s from February, and I must tell you, the atmosphere has intensified somewhat in the meantime and in Latvia people are known to have their car windows smashed in and spraypainted during night if they have Latvian flags on their windows and other stuff like that.
Yeh i am really worried that the situation in Ukraine could spread. Im not saying i know Russias next move, Its so difficult to understand and pick apart the media’s propaganda from the truth. Especially when it involves Super Powers threatening each other.
well yeh im sure, Russia definatly has people on the internet posting and monitoring activities all with all the ‘super powers’. I’m not a Russian spy, although thats one of the madest things i have ever been accused of ha, you do have the right to dismiss my comments.
I agree with you in a way, i remember talking to an Estonian couple about this issue and she said, that because they had suffered so badly under the communist occupation, she genuinely believed that things would had been better for her family if The Germans won the war. And that is the most understandable explanation for the high numbers of young far right extremists i have found.
But the real issue hear is that its not just the extremist Nazis that have been against the immigration of 1065 refugees, as far as I can tell on the internet, as im not in the country, massive majority are against it.
Yeh there were horrific acts in the war, funnily enough i didn’t celebrate this day?? in fact i didn’t know about it. It sounds awful, however irrelevant. Does the horrific acts of Russias/Past/Present/Whatever mean that its now ok for Estonia to pick on someone weaker than them?
well, yeah, people are generally against it, but it has to do with many things, one is, we have been readily helping EU countries thus far, when asked and this came as a threat of mandatory quotas and for the majority it was totally out of the left field. we were taking small numbers of refugees thus far, but to my knowledge, we weren’t asked to take much more, we were helping Greece with our money, though in our country the minimum wage is far lower, and now this. one reason also is we aren’t shown clear reasoning of how these 60 000 had they’re background checked that they are indeed from the regions they are said to be from and that they are not from the warring side. That is on top of the escalating Russian issue and the fact internet and news outlets are filled with horror stories of integration gone wrong. Yes, some of them are fabricated, but to my knowledge Charlie Hebdo happened and also there was a class full of girls found circumcised horribly in Sweden. We already agreed on the unreliable nature of media outlets and the internet these days.
Oh dear. “Estonian helping EU countries”. In what ******* planet do you live? Estonia will have received over 10 billion euros from the European Union by 2020. 10 billion for the nation of 1.3 million. Plus countless of other funds and NGO support systems since 1991, easily counting another 10 billion. Italian and Spanish pilots flying from Ämari and protecting Estonia’s skies, anyone? Please, don’t make me laugh.
Um, it seems you misread me a bit. I wasn’t denying we have had very big support from EU, or indicating we were not greatful, I was talking about the mandatory quotas and that we haven’t, as a country, by the people’s general knowledge, said no to giving help by what we could, when asked. We have taken part in foreign missions, we have given loans, we have taken refugees, we are one of the few countries that are following many regulations to the T. Weren’t we the only country who was investing to our military as big a percentage of our state budget as was asked? I’m not sure, but definitely at least one of the very few. To the general population the commanding mandatory quotas came out of nowhere and I’m saying it influences Estonians perception of the situation. I, myself am definitely not against taking refugees, but sending them forcfully to a country that is not ready mentally, nor has made the right preparations, isn’t wise, if having Estonia as an evolving economy and a healthy envirovment loyal to EU is a priority. Also, giving a loan to Geece, as much as I know, counts as giving help, you may laugh, as you seem to be doing, of our size and capabilities because of our slight misadvantage when starting our development as an evolving capitalist country, but to my knowledge it can be technically consideed as giving help, if the concept of a loan hasn’t changed lately, however laughable this help might seem to you.
That is so true, thats why we don’t want any refugees. I’m not racist but placing refugees at first place than estonians sounds so wrong. No wonder why estonians become racists..
Classic: I’m not racist but…..
I’m Estonian and while I absolutely agree that this kind of blatant bigotry is disgusting, I think that you concentrated more on bashing and left out the pretty obvious reasons for why many Estonians feel this way. I assume you’ve heard of the quotas that the European Commission has planned for Estonia in terms of the number of immigrants? Then you’re also aware that it’s way too large of a number for the Estonian economy and social services structure as it is in its current state. Furthermore, let’s keep in mind that Estonia already has a significant number of non-citizens (and even citizens) of the Russian nationality, who we have been unable to integrate into the society. Many are afraid that what has happened in Norway, Sweden, the UK and France, will happen in Estonia – namely the accumulation of a large population of immigrants who have no ties to the country, will not be properly integrated and will start imposing their own culture. Many relate that to the time of russification during the Soviet occupation. The nazi party EKRE is playing to those fears, and we all know that emotions trump logic every single time. I must say that while the bigotry and general idiocy going on among my fellow Estonians is a lot more scary to me than any kind of immigration issue (and here I’d like to take a moment to express the shame I feel for being of the same nationality as the guy wearing that stupid shirt), I myself am also against for mass immigration – for the reasons I already mentioned. But I firmly believe that a reasonable person should be able to express these concerns calmly, without resorting to insults and bigotry and talk facts, not emotions. And the fact is – we should accept refugees. We absolutely should. But by the current EC plans – certainly not, because our system can not handle it right now. We should accept refugees, but with thourough background checks and conditions for staying in the country, and gradually, in numbers that the country can actually handle.
” I assume you’ve heard of the quotas that the European Commission
has planned for Estonia in terms of the number of immigrants?”
judging by your response i’m going to assume you havn’t. 1064 has been proposed as far as i can see. There is more Estonians than that working in warehouses in Manchester. Look, since the collapse of the Soviet Union and The Joining of the EU, Estonia has had to catch up fast with the west. Alot of young people, often encouraged by their parents, have left Estonia and to live and work in other countries in the EU, thus reaping the benefits of the EU.
“Then you’re also aware that it’s way too large of a number for the
Estonian economy and social services structure as it is in its current
state. Furthermore, let’s keep in mind that Estonia already has a
significant number of non-citizens (and even citizens) of the Russian
nationality, who we have been unable to integrate into the society.”
Of coarse they haven’t been able to integrate into society. Since Estonia has gained independence, the country as a whole, have punished the Estonian born Russians for the atrocities that happened in the Soviet Union. A common argument is that the Russians haven’t bothered to even learn Estonian. Hang on. wasnt it only 23 years ago since Estonians were forced to speak russian because they were living under the Soviet Union, that means anyone over the age of 30 be that Estonian or Estonian-Russian grew up speaking Russian as a first language. Do you realise how hard it is to learn Estonian as an adult? Do you think they should learn to speak Estonian Soviet style, like Estonians had to learn Russian??? Forced, like some kind of sad revenge, treating every Russian like he is Stalin himself.
“People are afraid that what has happened in Norway, Sweden, the UK and France, will happen in Estonia – namely the accumulation of a large
population of immigrants who have no ties to the country, will not be
properly integrated and will start imposing their own culture. Many
relate that to the time of russification during the Soviet occupation”
What are you talking about? You are talking about some of the Richest countries in the world. The minimum wage in these countries are much much higher than in Estonia. That is because they have a better Economy.
Take the UK for example. After world war two they needed workers in order to keep the industries alive, since so many men were lost in the war. So they took a more lenient approach to immigration. More people created more ideas, more ideas created more jobs which in turn has left a nation, which in comparison the Estonia, has a much better attitude towards people of other cultures and religion, Its a nation built on immigrants, infact you would find it hard to meet someone who has an English bloodline going back hundreds of years. That is unless you hang out with the Royal Family….. Oops wait a min, they were German 300 years ago.
If these countries were all doing so badly because of constant mass immigration. Then why are there so many young Estonian immigrants living and working in them?
1065 people coming from war-torn parts of the world, were they have suffered severe violence, to the point they have had to flee there homeland and often loved ones in fear of death? I think that’s something Estonians should empathise with, not reject.
Look I agree with most of the second half of your post and you are obviously not a brainless Nazi.
FEAR. that is what all this animosity boils down to. That is understandable an natural in a sense for such a small country who has been constantly invaded and whos people have been exploited, abused and killed by invaders.
But things have changed now in Estonia. Estonians no longer have to be scared of anyone. Estonians are strong and clever and have proved this by keeping their language and culture alive, even through times when their was nothing but pain and violence. Estonians are free now, and its up to every Estonian to think about their own freedom and how good it feels and to welcome these workers, not reject them.
Mixing of cultures is part of our evolution, it breeds new jobs, new ideas, new answers, new food, new music, and a better Economy.
Estonia is beautiful. I love Estonia and Estonians, but i feel greatly disappointed in the attitude towards these people, humans, just born in a different place.
Lose the bitterness, Lose the fear and i believe Estonia will thrive as a nation.
I have an all economists as well as the foreign ministry have estimated that Estonia’s limit in the current state is no more than 180 over the course of 2 years,
I agree that some older people might feel like we need “punish” Russians, but you’re wrong in saying that it’s the country as a whole or that’s not the reason for not integrating. You need to understand that when a Russian in Eastern Estonia is talking about the President, they’re not referring to T.H. Ilves, but Putin. I’m not making this up – this is literally what Estonian Russians have said in interviews. The problem here isn’t any kind of “punishing”. The problem here is the fact that most Russians in Estonia live in Easternmost cities like Narva and Kohtla-Järve, where, by statistics, 94-96% of the population is Russian. So all of the schools are Russian. All of the jobs, all of the stores, all offices, all of it. Therefore, they don’t need to learn the Estonian language. It’s state mandated and they learn it in schools, but they don’t really use it until going to university, and not necessarily even then (depending on the chosen major). Therefore, if they don’t speak Estonian, they can’t follow the Estonian media – but no need, Russians channels and information space has got that covered.
I must say that it is getting better, the younger generations of Russians no longer stay just in these regions, but move to other parts of Estonia, where they actually interact with Estonians and use the language. But what we have here is essentially self-segregation. And it’s really tragic, because there’s really nothing the state can do about it. We can’t forcibly relocate people and force them to take part of the Estonian information space and community, now can we.
As for the “Norway, Sweden, UK” comment, I’m not denying that they’re economically successful. But statistically, Norway and Sweden now have the highest rates of rape in Europe, and 94% of those rapes are committed by men of Middle-Eastern decent. As for the UK, it suffices to only turn on the news once in a while to see what’s wrong with it. Most notably, the Muslim protests to try and ban alcohol sales in the entire country. And let’s not forget disturbances in Paris suburbias that have become so common that international media doesn’t even report them anymore.
I sympathize with refugees on a human level. Really. And so do most of Estonians, I’m sure. Just as I’m certain that by far not all refugees are criminals. But seeing other countries’ experiences, we just can’t be so naive anymore. I’m sorry, but we can’t. I’ll highlight again that I’m all for accepting refugees, but only once the infrastructure is in place, with very strict policies (such as immediate deportation upon commiting a crime) and in numbers that our system can actually sustain.
That estimation is based upon the general opinion that all refugees are going to do is cost the state money. They have come for a better life, not to bleed Estonia dry.
I come from Manchester in England, I have an English Mum and an Irish Dad. I have grown up surrounded by Muslims, and im not saying that Manchester is some sort of Utopia, and there have been race related problems in the past, but all cultures here are integrated. The group you are speaking about consist of 20-30 deranged radicals. Who get chased around London by a similar amount of English Nationalists, who are equally as stupid. You are talking about a city 12 times the population of the whole of Estonia. The problem is and this is a big problem, is that your right about turning the TV on, the Western media has targeted Muslims for the last 20 years, but the reality is very different. We have to pick apart the media ourselves to try and differenciate between propoganda and reality, and the reality is that ive learnt alot from growing up in a multicultural society, infact my Doctor is an African, my Dentist is a Pakistani and the Manager of the building i work is a Jamaican. They are not exactly costing the state money.
My wife is Estonian, she is beautiful and clever. I love her and her Family and her Country. If i hear an Englishman tell her to go back to her own country, I will make sure the next thing he says, he has to spit his teeth out first. She works here and lives here and has as much right to be here as me. I have lived and worked in both Parnu and the forest south of Lake Peipus, were the nearest villages, please excuse my bad spelling, Kallaste, Alatskivi which were, like you say predominantly Russian speaking. So i have experienced both sides of the Estonian segregation, and i do know its complicated, but one thing i definatley noticed in my experience is that in the Russian areas people were alot poorer. This isnt because they are any less intelligent than you or me, this is because Estonia as a state are isolating them, and that in turn promotes hate and fear in the Russian-Estonians, which only perpetuates the problem. Maybe the refugees may even help the Eesti/Russian intergration, once more cultures and races have settled in Estonia maybe it wont feel like such a bitter stand off between the Estonians and Russians.
The media here is the problem. Estonia is thriving at the moment, it’s becoming the internet captital of Europe, and i have learnt great things from Estonia and Estonians that have made me who i am. The system can easily sustain 1000 extra people. Come on think about it, what would the government have done if all the Estonians working in other countries hadnt left??? Probably they would be better off for it. People create buissness and jobs and money, not the state, they just spend it. It doesnt matter if your from Sarramaa or Samalia, if you open a buissness, you need staff, which in turn, creates jobs.
any crime?? what about crossing the road in the wrong place? having a piss on a tree? should people be sent back to their probable death for this?
Alright, I misspoke. Not ANY crime. Let’s say a crime that harms another person or property.
Russians in those areas are poorer for two reasons: 1) The one that I already mentioned, many of them don’t speak Estonian, so it hinders their education prospects (by law, all education from high school and up is in Estonian. There are some higher education establishments that provide some courses in Russian, but that’s about it) and career choices. The only somewhat decent-paying career options are public sector ones, but any person holding an official job is required by law to be proficient in Estonian – and the higher up the job, the greater the language skill required. 2) People in general are poorer outside Tallinn or Tartu and, with reservations, maybe even Pärnu. I agree, it’s somewhat out of balance, because many people in the powers that be have somewhat given up on Narva and Eastern Estonia. It’s like.. “they don’t like Estonia, fine, let them live on their own”. And while I think that’s stupid, we should treat all of the people living in this country with the same respect and dignity, I can’t say that I don’t somewhat understand this position. The last time I was in Kohtla-Järve and a man heard me talking in Estonian, he looked at me, said “Devotshki v Tallinn..” and drew his finger across his throat. And let’s not forget the Bronze Night, when the idiots ran around screaming “vsjo nasha” It’s a self-perpetuating situation where they aren’t exactly invested in being a part of Estonia or it’s people, listening to Kremlin media telling them that this is just temporary, Mother Russia will soon come and fix this and dowright threaten Estonians and they don’t want to be part of Estonia because they feel like Estonians don’t want to include them in anything. Gee, I wonder why that is.
Now, in no way am I saying that that’s everyone. Not by a long shot. The majority of Russians living in Estonia are completely peaceful towards the country and sometimes bigger patriots than Estonians themselves. But the Easternmost areas are, as you said, isolated (I still maintain that it’s not on purpose by the state), and that’s a bit problematic. All attempts to instate Estonian language immersion classes and push for more education delivered in Estonian in these regions (so that the students there would have more options higher education-wise), have failed on the most part, because apparently, that’s “Estonians wanting to repress the Russian culture”. Of course, as I said, I’m optimistic, because the younger generation, who have been born and raised in Estonia, rather than the USSR, understand that it’s in their interest to learn the official language, and no longer stay isolated in one corner of the country. And the younger generation of Estonians don’t have this historic resentment towards Russians and understand full well that Russians today are not in any way responsible for the crimes of the USSR. And in my opinion, that’s the only way integration can be achieved – through communication and mutual respect. I, too want to say to some of the older Estonians to snap out of the Russian-hate, but at the same time, I know full well where this pain and resentment is coming from. And Russia, annexing the parts of its neighbouring countries with the aid/pretext of helping Russians living in those areas, is not helping.
I agree, the media blows everything out of proportion, that’s what I said in my original comment, but I can’t really blame the average Estonian, who doesn’t have that personal experience as you (or I, I currently live in France) have, to understand and call bullshit on that.
Yeh i agree, i am definatly not saying not saying that it is all one sided. I know first hand how some of the Estonian-Russians can be the perpetrators. I just think that since Estonia is independent it is in their hands, for the first time in most people lifetime that they are in power, and they are in the position were they have to make the moves towards change. I think its complicated and sad that both are so segregated, but i do know lots of middle aged Estonians who enjoy Russian beers and watch some Russian TV. And i have also had Russians in the villiges in the east approach me and ask me for a lighter in Estonian language, probably because they can tell im not local. I think you need to apply your thinking on how Russian-Estonian integration can happen, to the refugees which are going to arrive at some point soon, they are people too, who you should be able to identify with in terms of suffering violent occupations. It will happen, even if they dont come, and i think its important that the general populous welcomes them, forget the Nazi idiots they are in every country, but the general working communities needs to welcome these people or they dont stand a chance.
Estonia is now in a position when they are in control of peoples lives, rather than people being in control of theirs and i think its important they make their decisions based upon humanity and strenth, rather than fear.
They want welfare and to exploit the population. If Russians are struggling, these blacks are screwed.
Oh tough guy eh? I thought for sure you were female before writing ” my wife “. You are a bitch either way. Emotional and illogical. Either that or hasbarat.
soz hardman. Maybe if i name myself after a rapist serial killer like you i would appear more male on the internet???
Don’t worry ur name “twat ” says it all. Tat??? What kind of name is that? That has sjw written all over it. He
These Jewish code words like hater and Nazi are losing their sting. Nazi is an honor and hx will prove Hitler was right.
Get out of the eu and round up the parasites.
Reading the rhetoric from the anti-immigrant camp you’d think the EU was doing to drop 500 refugees into every small village and town in Estonia. Not so, they are talking about 1000 refugees over a period of many months.
It would seem that a country of 1+ million that has seen an exodus of 10s of thousands of residents over the past 20 years could handle 1000 new residents.
Yeah. The entire 1,000 people would fill up only about 1/3rd of one of the large apartment buildings in Lasnamae. It’s not like the country is going to be overflowing with immigrants.
Why someone who doesn’t even live in Estonia opens his big mouth on this matter?? It doesn’t concern you, you don’t have to live with those immigrants.
It is indeed sad that the immigrats will eventually have to live with Assholes like you. Like all Estonians live in Estonia and is nowhere other than Estonia.
Opinions are like assholes, and yours stink
Your one smell after Hitler!
Since when an usual illegal immigrant has suddenly become a refugee?
That’s a good one! Excellent knowledge of history right there!
This article is sooo irritating. And if you have no idea what are you talking about then why are you doing it. I have friends in Italy and they have told stories about those “poor immigrants” who are stealing from small children and mothers who are in playgrounds with their child, cuz immigrants know that they cant run away or do anything. The only thing those poor immigrants do is stealing.
Wow, really? What about non immigrant native italian mafia who drug kids, kill innocent people in and outside of italy.
Let me stop you right there Rambo….you’ve gone off the topic again…Italian maffia has nothing to do in this discussion.
I can see that you lack the ability to politely discuss the matter as you have demonstrated on several occasions throughout this thread.
You have a very simple minded view of this…everyone should be nice to each other and the world will be a better place. If only…
Apparently you don’t seem to understand how the world actually works.
What you also fail to see is that Estonians are not against immigrants.
What we are against is how it was delivered to us, the cultural difference, forgetting our own people, the fact that Estonia is not ready for this, we have our own thing with our beloved neighbour (it’s russia…just in case mentioning), and also fear..seeing what is happening in other parts of EU…yes..that makes us a bit cautious. AGAIN…learn Estonian history to better understand the reaction from the people rather than tossing in some random comparisons between a white man from EU and black man from Africa or the Italian maffia…(really?).
You have clearly failed to understand the root cause for this reaction from Estonians and force your simplistic view of things on others and calling them immature…ignorant and my favourite – Assholes.
“It is indeed sad that the immigrats will eventually have to live with Assholes like you.” – I think you just proved to everyone how narrow and small minded you actually are.
Immigrants don’t have to live with us…or are you saying that they are forced to come here ?
Oh, you really think this is it? You honestly believe the flood of refugees would stop with this 1k ? Accept 1000 of them and then there is no way to stop EU from enforcing more and more immigrants. I have nothing against foreign specialists, educated people who come here to work, regardless of race, but this is a totally different story. I’m not Estonian, but here I support them 100%
Why would an educated person come to you if your country has so highly outspoken xenophobia. How will you from looks decide, if to smile at a person or hate him before reading his/her CV. Its the environment you are creating, which is dangerous.
Please stop barking on every comment You don’t like, Rosh Verdan!
In my small hometown called pärnu. I know ppl from UK, California, India, thailand. I never ever had problems with them and every other estonian is geniuinely nice to them. There isn’t any misstreating. You speak like we hate foreigners. We love to have ppl who respect our culture, our language and love Estonia in general. Estonia is mostly not religious. We surely don’t want anybody to force their religion onto us like Islamic state does. We don’t need ppl from Africa who don’t even know what and where estonia is. Estonian language is one of the world’s hardest and the language barrier will be a huge problem in order to offer “poorly educated” ppl some work(jobs that our own ppl need). In general, i don’t mind other ppl coming here, but it’s not a good time for Estonia to deal with this.
Well educated IT-specialist from UK for instance came to live in Pärnu because of the violence and crime rate in UK that the “immigrants” did. Our crime rate is low, we want to keep it that way.
And i got a Question for you Rosh, Can you or someone else show me a Country Where Immigration has had good effects?
USA, where silicon valley is run by immigrants. Immigrants are their economic success. If you remove the east and the west cost, the mid USA where most European migrant americans live will become the biggest third world country.
Rosh, but they do come here all the time. A lot of them actually.
Guys/Ladies, you should really check out your own state audit offices before just throwing out your private fabricated idea as facts. Apparently it seems that “a lot of them” is not enough!
Quoted from your own state sources: “According to the report, the number of people in employable age will shrink by 50,000 in the next five years. By 2040, the number of taxpayers will shrink by 165,000 people while there are more pensioners than employees and one employee will have to provide in average for 1.1 pensioners.”
Why don’t you understand, you are not a superpower that you can just go encroaching on other country’s resources when things fall. Your only capital can be people, which xenophobia will eliminate.
It seems apart from lacking facts you are also a hypocrite who him/herself being an immigrant rants against it.
I’m not going to argue. I have been working side-to-side with foreigners here for several years and I can only vouch for what I see with my own eyes. Immigrants without education, but with a need to be dressed, fed, taken care of will definitely not help this country’s economy (any country), on the other hand educated young immigrants are a fresh blood we do need. The problem is that lots of locals live in poverty – we should take care of them first, before helping anyone else.
“I’m not going to argue. I have been working side-to-side with foreigners here for several years and I can only vouch for what I see with my own eyes. Immigrants without education, but with a need to be dressed, fed, taken care of will definitely not help this country’s economy (any country),”
There are estonians without education and there are immigrants without education. There are estonians who state should educate and make them useful and same goes for immigrants.
I have met a lot of immigrants, and non I could see wants to be taken care of. They have come from countries where state don’t give handouts. They know very well, either you work hard or you stay hungry. European countries does not give them free money after a certain time. I think your worries are misinformed. On the other hand I have seen more natives, living on handouts from state. So does the statistics say.
“on the other hand educated young immigrants are a fresh blood we do need.”
As it is clear from your earlier text that you are not an estonian but an immigrant, where, “WE” means some sort of integration. Why you assume others are incapable of that? Think about immigrant’s strength: they come 1000s of miles away from home, live in a xenophobic society, work without, language, connection, money, or local people support and sometimes it doesn’t work. The one’s for who it does not work becomes the model for integration’s failure. Depends on what your media feeds you. Smart people do not like xenophobic society, which profiles people based on their social or educational status. Shit happens! and it can happen with anyone. Profiling based on uncertainties like financial status, education, family background, illness, is mere reflection of intellectual bankruptcy. It creates a culture that is very suffocating! You know if environment is right, people with zero education can become a job creator billionaire as in USA OR like in a xenophobic country like Saudi Arabia where even if you are well educated and have great entrepreneurial skills, you simply cannot make it.
“The problem is that lots of locals live in poverty – we should take care of them first, before helping anyone else.”
I agree, that’s the point! Now there is poverty when there are taxpayers, imagine what is the case after 40 years when every working person has to pay for more than 1 person’s pension. Poverty will go high. Here, with 1.3 million population 1000 immigrants will add nothing or reduce nothing significant to this projection.
Part of the problem is, we already have a huge amount of non-Estonians from the Soviet era, who are getting more and more vocal about their support for Putin and his marching into democratic countries to “help” Russian citizens, ala Ukraine. It is a bad time, Russia being aggressive, the killing of Charlie Hebdo, news from Sweden about a class full of girls being circumcised ruthlessly, statistics of the rise in rape in many countries, that has been associated with immigration. Accepting refugees is the humane thing to do, but the eastern climate is threatening and the western countries show the fruits of not so well achieved integration. Ofcourse we’re terrified. Mostly because of Russia, but also because Europe is doing very little to actually deal with Russia, instead just assigning more immigrants to us. It is a frightening climate.
Russians are your citizens. Its not a wonder you are panicking. You cannot integrate your type looking russians into your country yet. They are lawful tax paying citizens of Estonia. How dare you call them immigrants. If you alienate them, hate them, make them feel different, or your news media that you buy does it for you. Of ‘course someone (putin) will benefit from it. Its your fault. You understand that Sweden, Germany, and UK east Europeans are also associate with crime, car stealer and backward.
You are proving your backwardness!
Who the hell is Rosh Verdan?
He/She knows exactly, what’s right for estonians, immigrants and almost everything
Yes, the unsuccessful integration of the Russian citizens is definitely at least partly our problem, let’s face it, many politicians are pretty unwilling to even consider doing something for the Russians in our country to get their votes or backing, but Russians also are citizens of a big country, many of them believe still our fatherland should be part of their Great Russia and that Estonia was separated from the Soviet Union illegally by some rebels and it’s temporary, they are unwilling to put the effort to learn the language or acknowledge the fact that Estonia was forcibly invaded, not freed, by the Soviet Union, just as it was by Germans before them and that by the Soviet Union staying here for almost half of the century, the regime committed far more atrocities than we have Germans to blame for. Estonians are definitely at least partly to blame for the failed integration, but Russians not bothering to learn the language or customs and not willing to respect our ancestors having been raped, pillaged and mass-deported from our lands to be replaced with them, – the glourious “Soviet workers” -, they are not exactly doing their part to make the integration easy. Anyway it is a difficult situation and if they insist being treated like the offsping of the great saviours of our nation, they remain immigrants. Certainly there were heroes among their ancestors, like there probably have been on every side of every war ever fought, but my god, did the Soviets ever commit atrocities. You only have to read about the systematic mass rapes of millions of German women when Russian “saviours” finally got to the “freeing” of Germany itself, to get some idea. They didn’t exactly hold themselves back before getting there and cetainly didn’t stop after that.
Yes, you are right. C’mmon its just 25 years. Its not too much. The people who had russian in their schools are yet young. It takes time for social change. I just don’t understand how media and government can be so emotionally compromised for their own good. They should understand that now it is to them to handle this huge diaspora and use them for good and make them feel home. Private people will keep their grudge. But if they really love their country and want to see its good in future, they have to be wise and integrate. You either live together or you all suffer together.
War crimes as you pointed out did happen and yes Soviets did it. But Germany did it too. And you know how many rapes, enthunasia, and ethnic cleansing germany did.
EU/US coalition forces are doing such war crimes in Afghanistan, same is happening in Iraq right now for oil or power. Think about it once, why is that Europe having no resources is rich, whereas Africa with the highest amount of resources is poor. Poverty which was not there before European colonialism. Western companies are exploiting africa’s rich resources through asymmetric trade deals. And all that you worry about is that russians don’t speak estonian. C’mmon Switzerland has 4 official languages. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNYemuiAOfU
I appreciate you understanding that 25 years is not a long time. Look at how long it has taken for USA and European former colonial powers to deal with the attitude of the victims of their invasions. It isn’t so much the not speaking of the language though, it’s partly of the western attitude towards it. It’s about different perception due to geographical background. The west pretty much sees the Soviet Union as a lesser of two evils, because they mostly physically had to deal only with Germany and have powerful visual images of concentration camps freed, while the Soviet Union collapsed internally and everyone had the time to burn documents and clean up gulags and KGB cells. From the perspective of a country between them, the Soviet Union is the dark lord taking over and ruling for half a century. Estonia is in a difficult space, because we had few jews and Germany largely spared us. On the other hand, Soviet Union, for us being spared by them, was much more cruel, when “saving us”. Now if the Russians want their ancestors to be regarded as heroes, it’s like if in 1970 Germans in Poland would have wanted German as a second national language and them declared as heroes, also with the public opinion of the west saying “it’s been 25 years, get over the holocaust” to the jews. Now, I agree, we have to get over it probably faster than many other countries have had to, but since Russia now pretty much officially denies Soviet crimes, we are in the position I guess jews would be if Germany suddenly on a state level started denying holocaust. It’s a big f”cking deal and hard to overlook. and now the west liberals seem to think we should start sharing in the white guilt for the colonial times, when we were technically among the colonised and had slavery here. Our part in Iraq and Afghanistan is pretty much involuntary. It’s the part we have to pay for being under the “NATO umbrella” and if we are protected here in turn, we’ll probably gladly participate in 10 more, because that’s what you do when your family is on the line and you don’t have a choice, so no one should worry, we’ll probably take the refugees and continue helping to pay for what the western countries have done, but when it’s getting dangerous for us, we hope we’ll be given some wriggling room and choice.
It would not be a generation before Estonia would no longer exist as we know it because 1000 immigrants very quickly becomes 10,000. Humane yes, but . . .
You are correct
There are 72 Islamic countries in the world,most of them very rich.Why don`t they take a large part of these so called refuges.
probably because half of them are providing US with oil and the other half is where the immigrants are coming from? sorry bro but your owner (US) already made a decision for you
I think immigration is fine but do know that you will lose much of what makes you unique if you don’t have certain requirements for assimilation in place. Surely you know that from the Russian occupation.
There is nothing that makes you unique. The most unique thing is being nice. Europeans has caused biggest genocides everywhere they went, killing the unique human populations and wildlife. I am surprised of this sudden awakening.
That`s hate speech.
i am sorry, if that sounded so. But as someone you don’t really know is obviously bad, then why not see what you and your so to say people you feel comfortable with has done so far with the world. You know, I mean, we all are equal, because we all are equally bad. Therefore, the only unique would be to be nice regardless of if you are native or an immigrant. Which I initially said
So if I’m white European, I´m automatically responsible for the acts of my ancestors?
No, absolutely not. but that is the point. If one is african, or a middle eastern or say anyone who is non caucasian white is also not by default a criminal as most of the commentators here are trying to portray. If they are based on some incidents, then white european who estonians seems to feel comfortable with should also be blamed for the atrocities committed by them?
I think what you are missing is the cultural difference here. Also…how many times have you been occupied, slaughtered…forced to relocate…also…estonians are no strangers to slavery. We’ve seen quite a few things throughout our history which has made us cautious. Racism has nothing to do with it.
That’s where it comes from…there’ve always been someone that want to take the land and drive the population to the sea or make them slaves etc. Check the history. I’m actually surprised that we still survived all the slaughtering and now we were told that whop…you’ll get X amount and that’s it. No one asked if our economy could withstand this….there’s our own people first that need the attention rather than someone else from 1000 miles away.
And looking the comments you’ve written…I can say they are full of hate, narrow mindedness and just ignorance. I understand that some of the comments made by Estonians are quite random and off topic and a bit rational but reading your comments where you express tremendous amount of knowledge etc….I can only say that you should study the history first to try to understand where is it all coming from rather than writing some hate speeches here and asking people to grow up. These examples you’ve written above….none of them fit here.
So, if they are non white, they are automatically criminals? Its the same logic there!
I think your statement is rubbish. Main genocides were due to religion (yes we all know about Mr. Hitler as well). “The most unique thing is being nice.” – right…ever heard the expression: if you want to make an omelette you have to break some eggs” ?
Im not estonian but i absolutly agree with them. My country was also “ordered” by EU representatives to accomodate a few thousands of refugees. We are small country with corrupted goverment. People pay tax out of tax. Those who really need some support barely get some.Where does refugees get the money support? Yes from tax payers again. I would like to know how many refugees will go to financielly well situated country such as Germany.
I lived, worked and paid taxes in Germany. I will suggest you to read real official book keeping documents than getting your news from Sean Hannity or likes. For example: In average, a foreign citizen in Germany brings 3300 euros more in tax per year than they receive. At the same time, neo-nazis waste about 100 billion euros every year, because most of them are good for nothing other than living of welfare and lifting stones.
STEN HANKEWITZ is either paid journalist by people who have this master plan of overfloating EU with africans or he is just an idiot, and that’s why he can’t see the whole picture!
He has taken the only (other) idiot out of the crowd and made it look like all the Estonians are like him?!?!
Was he at that meeting at all?
Discusting!
Estonia is very very very very poor country one of the top poorest country in the world. nobody can’t realize it. and now immigrants are just living off of our payments. our hard work and hard earn money, they are living with it. and hell they will not get a job, they are not gonna work for their money, why should they. they get massive income yeah.also Estonians are very patriotic.
another thing. top of this article clearly says “WORK IN ESTONIA” immigrants are not gonna work ← that’s the problem.
No. No. Aaaand no. 1. Get real, Estonia isn’t poor. Within the European Union, taking into accont the smaller salaries and unproportionately high living costs, okay, maybe, depending on who you ask. But one of the top poorest countries in the world? The fact that you even say that just shows how sheltered and spoiled you are. Estonia is ranked 45th world’s richest country out of 184. Not the richest, but sure as hell not one of the poorest either.
2. Please, don’t speak for the whole nationality. This patriotism/nazi-stuff going around recently is what’s making me want to never come back to Estonia and renounce my citizenship.
3. Most immigrants DO work. They have more motivation than anyone to work. We only ever hear about those who don’t because it’s the only time media reports about it. It’d be fun to have headlines like “An Egyptian gets up in the morning. Goes to work without any incident.” But it’s not click-bait, so we don’t get to hear about it. By the way, an Estonian sawmill near the Vao refugee center employees several of these refugees and the management says that they’re very hard-working. As for Ojuland commenting that immigrants in Italy aren’t working, okay, maybe that’s true, but what she conveniently left out is the fact that it’s general unemployment that has been a huge problem in Spain, France and Italy ever since the recession. Even for a “native” it’s very difficult, not to say impossible, to find a job, let alone an immigrant. I know several French and Spanish people who have moved to Estonia and given for the reason that there’s no work back home, even though all of them are very highly qualified and educated.
4. Nobody can empathize with our problem, because THERE IS NO PROBLEM. It’s just premature freaking out over something that hasn’t even happened yet and for all we know, will never happen. Believe it or not, a nation isn’t going to die off the second an immigrant steps foot on its land.
Well, You can come and try to live on Estonias 270 euro retirement pension, or 70 euro welfare money per month.
I agree that the retirement pension is too small, it should be lot bigger, but as for the welfare… Here’s a radical thought – get a goddamn job, then you won’t have to live off welfare. And anyone can get a job, if they really want to. Maybe not the most glamorous one, but beggars can’t be choosers. I’m also confused as to why are you even bringing it up.
Ur wrong. I’m from Estonia and i do not know anyone who gets 800e per month…maybe in capital city. It is def. poor country…belive me. Those ratings u have been reading are just some crap.
I am immigrant in Finland, because the salary in Est is so small.. My friends and family lives still in Estonia, they have pretty good education and good jobs but salary isn’t that good (,lawyer, custom officer, police etc.).
Dear, I’m from Estonia too, which you would know if you bothered to read the comments above. And I still stand by that Estonia isn’t a poor country and anyone who says so has never been to an ACTUALLY poor country. Yes, I agree that our income levels and prices are out of balance, and outside the public sector, out salaries are way way too low, that’s definitely something that should be dealth with. I also understand that Estonians might feel poor, given the fact that we’re compared to the average income levels of the EU. However, lining up all the countries in the world, Estonia is not poor by any standards. I’m sorry to bust your bubble of self-pity.
Don’t jump to conclusions so fast. I am sure its news media which tells you lies like that. I lived in Germany for a long time and now in Malmö. You have absolutely no clue how the city is. Also I will suggest you to read real official book keeping documents than getting your news from Sean Hannity or likes. For example: In average, a foreign citizen in Germany brings 3300 euros more in tax per year than they receive. At the same time, neo-nazis waste about 100 billion euros every year, because most of them are good for nothing other than living of welfare and lifting stones.
You living in malmö doesnt change the fact that malmö and gothenburg are the worst cities in sweden… I am a long haul truck driver and have been to every part of sweden thus far in my carreer and the afforementioned cities are the only places where i have to park my truck in guarded and fenced parking lots to avoid having my fuel tank drained or something else removed … And dont tell me random criminals did it ive caught people in the act many times, can you venture a guess how many of them were these so called law abiding immigrants… Dont get me wrong i am no racist and have many aquaintances from different countries, races and cultural backgrounds… But to sit there with blinders on and say crime wont go up and diss us in the process i would call you a biggot instead…
oh and this so called backwards attitude you so hatefully put us estonians down for is the same attitude that kept us from being swallowed whole by these magnanimous economic superpowers in days gone by because everyone with a military has tried to take these lands for themselves and met with stubborn estonians reluctant to adopt foreign power…. Long story short let them come within reason but if anyone of them starts shoving their backwards religious dogma down my throat andor threatens me or my family for thinking differently, i for damn sure wont run away i will defend my standing and ideology fith force if necesary
Polish, estonian, Latvians and Lithuanians are considered car stealers as a stereotype in germany. As you might already know the similar stereotype exist in UK as well. I wonder what race they are? As you are a truck driver, you might know the oil that you use in your truck which keeps you employed and feeds your family does come from people who you are ready to fight. So grateful of you. Your own news tabloids are full of heinous crimes committed to little babies and animals every day, in Estonia by Estonians (your fellow brothers) right now. Why don’t you understand, criminals are criminals, they don’t have any color. If you have unemployment, poverty, people will resort to criminality to keep themselves alive. Think about it, Europeans have killed more humans in past and right now in the name of false wars everywhere. Does not that make you a genocider?
Nobody shoves any religion in your throat or something and of ‘course you have full right to defend if anyone does. I am an atheist, I dont even consider this an issue.
As you bring Estonian stubborn Estonian spirit. If this kind of romanticism makes you happy, then good for you. In reality, Yes, and No both. I do not want to be too harsh, but the history is full of occupations, and estonians have always been under one or the other super power. Danes, Germans, Swedes, Poles, Russians, Germans, Russian, Germans, Russians, European Central Bank/EU. You have not seen a sovereign state for more than 25 years in a millennium, I do not understand the power in your stubbornness.
You just dont want to see the forest for the trees do you… First of all not once did i mention the race and or nationality on the criminals in question… I just said immigrants. You on the other hand resorted to a personal attack on my nationality straight away.
Secondly how does the fact where the oil used in my truck came from make a single difference in my argument about immigration. You might not have noticed but the people making the oil arent migrating away from it.
Thirdly about the religious dogma i mentioned… ( btw this is the only case in my point whitch has to do with a specific cultural identity, the open extremely violent attacks by muslims on ppl who say anything they dont like about their religion) you saying nobody shoves their religion in your face is utter bullshit in this case coming from a lack of knowledge of VERY recent events in france or just the fact that you do not want to see anything that would hurt your argument.
And finally europeans have killed lots of people i know. But dont point your finger at everyone, most of those killings were done by your magnanimus ” immigrant friendly” countries by means of our old friend f-ing religion again ( german crusades in europe and the english crusades in “the holy land” oh and lets not forget ww1 and ww2 – germans again … Hmm)
My point is: Im not saying all immigrants are criminals but just pointed out that mass migration drags with it the criminal sort, so saying crime rate does not go up with lots of immigrants is a blatant lie, because criminals are parasites that feed off other people, and if people are moving to another place then they move with them.
Oh a lest i forget the heinous crimes you mentioned in estonia are also heavily due to the migration issue, because most of the violent natured crimes tend to be commited by the russian speaking population.
So dont go saying we are biggots or whatever for looking at the “facts” presented to us by the media, when you are doing the same thing towards us.
No, I don’t see it! You justify on human and moral terms being under the contract of NATO should allow you to kill innocents and you will do 10 more of them. If you are so keen on enforcing contracts, then why are you so upset now, its the EU contract that mandates you to take the refugee. Its probably morally less challenging than actively killing innocent people and children, which you trump by 10 times if needed.
Germany and Soviet: I think I have said already what I had to and its less relevant to anything right now.
Again most of your logics to me sounds like an emotional outcry. Because the numbers don’t agree to your argument.
Record low falling crime rate in European countries:
Sweden: Crime has fallen by to 1/3 of 1970s
Germany: since in last 13 years, crime fell to around 10%
England and Wales: 15% drop, the lowest in 33 years
Estonia: sine 1995 murder rate dropped by 70%
EU average: is falling down too.
Check the official statistics! The immigration at the same time in those years have gone up, immigrant’s kids has grown and multiplying.
In your opinion crime and immigration should be correlated, the numbers, however show that they rather have anticorrelation. Which of ‘course shouldn’t be misunderstood as causality. Its just a curious thing to think about.
I would really like that people read official documents than have the numbers assumed from media coverage hours as their data to form opinions.
Ok, so you say in Estonia most of the criminals are russians! I don’t know the official data so I take your words.
You brought in France case. A henious criminal act indeed. I was wondering, if you did hear about the killing of a a muslim in Germany by Neo-Nazis/pegida. Did you also hear the mass muslim grave mutilation in Denmark by as the local media put it “hulligans”. How much did you hear about chappel hill shooting in US. Did you hear that some swedes burned mosque in Malmö. They all are relatively recent events, with very little to no media circus.
well i have to admit that i haven’t heard about the cases you mentioned in detail but i’m wondering if the grave desecration and mosque burning was backlash for shooting up a city or two because someone drew something “you don’t like” … as for the neo nazis they can go drink drain cleaner or something they are as bad if not worse then the terrorists ( i view those people as another type of terrorists) oh and lets not forget america hmm what to say about that … well i’m going to have to blame the americans for that : a gun in the hands of every citizen regardless of mental health or a below normal iq … good plan.
Pls forgive me if it sounded like i made it sound that most criminals are of Russian decent… what i meant to say is its seems like most violent crimes seem to be committed by Russians …
about crime rates dropping, in Estonia’s case at least is very simple… in the beginning of the nineties the fall of the soviet union left a huge hole in the job market, when the redundant jobs were liquidated, that left the unemployed people looking for a way to feed themselves somehow, these means were more often then not on the illegal side of the law, which eventually gave birth to the maffia who spearheaded the high murder rates and such, but they have since been annihilated due to heavy policing at the end of the 90’s hence the drop in murders.
Again i have to ask if you do not see my point in Estonia’s case, being a very low population country on the world stage, you can create an almost identical situation to the beginning/mid 90’s by
forcefully sending us more mouths to feed and basically asking us to donate at first a 1000 simple jobs to refugees witch are needed by the local population (lets say some are leaders in their own fields but most are simple “worker-bees”… i get your point that they may become valued members of the workforce at some point but until they get to that point someone will have to feed them, and we cannot afford it also the fact that jobs are declining … (not everyone is an IT specialist)… due to processes in manufacturing and other fields are becoming more automated and efficient and having seen forced job creation in my home town by way of the government bomb on a spectacular level i don’t see a logical and reasonable way of accommodating these people.
P.S have to mention those numbers again … crime rates are simple averages per capita … basically if the crime rates go up but at the same time you increase the population, the numbers stay the same or even decrease if the spike in population growth is high enough.
Again, violence of any kind cannot be justified on any ground. But it is strange that you say the grave mutilation and Mosque burning is retaliation. Well, the Islamic terrorist attacks also give reasons like 1000s of children and women killed by drones in Northern Pakistan. Presence of american Army in the Holy Sudi arabia, Atrocities on muslims in Iraq. Think about it, if the number matters 1 million people are killed in Afghan and Iraq war and all that you see that some crazy guy killing some 12 journalist. Again, this does not mean, either way violence is justified. This is just for the shake of argument. If you bring “retaliation” element into the discussion.
I don’t understand what you mean with Americans with guns. I think its not relevant to current discussion. So I let it slide.
I understand the problems related to job market and criminality correlation to poverty. These people are escaping for their life, and the EU contract mandates Estonia to accommodate this. Good and bad things come in a package of the contract. I hope if Estonia cannot choose who they get then atleast they are less hostile to their future countrymen.
It is not per capita. It is the total record filed by police that would qualify for criminal act. This means, if the population increases the population normalized crime may stay constant but if the total absolute criminal act count falls down despite of rise in population then it is apparent that the crime is falling down. Again, I will suggest you to check the proper official documents.
For a moment there, Rosh, I started considering you not a troll. Well, I’m still not sure. Perhaps you’re not and just a really dedicated liberal warrior, who’s just unraveling fast. It seems you’re answering to me and Kalev both in this comment. I don’t know, but if you did address me aswell, then I have to clarify, I’m not against refugees. It would be great to accept them, but I think you’d agree that having a nice stucture in place to educate them, have them housing,possible work options, would be a good way of them not having to resort to crime. But that structure is not in place. It is partly because the politicians have been too busy fighting for votes to take the time to put it in place. We do not have many teachers, who could teach in two languages well, such, who could teach young kids in English there are probably a few, and those especially, who could teach children, who do not speak English, Russian, Estonian or any other European language, we probably have none. Such infrastructure in place is a bare minimum. You seem to be fighting a horde of nazis or something, but that is the problem with this article – it found some nazi nutcases, put one photo front and centre and started just swinging blindly. The “nazi party” (who by the way, totally denies that shirt representing their ideas), EKRE, has still nowhere near considerable support to get any play in doing anything in the parliament (perhaps it was 7% by last poll, I’m not sure, but that even despite all the commotion with the EU trying to push mandatory quotas on us). Yes, the mandatory quotas actually coming to effect might raise their popularity, but the general consensus seems to be that they are freaks and we should support EU by accepting refugees, which we have done so far, but the sudden requested rise in the numbers and the commanding tone of them, although we have been very cooperative to this day, is not only offending, but also making EU seem slightly more like the Soviet Union or nazi Germany, who had the power to just social-engineer and send whichever people to live wherever they wanted. The value of the choice to voluntarily accept, is sometimes easily overlooked, but still pretty damn important in a union of “free” states.
Klaatu: What I have been fighting is not much political or economic parts in the discussions here. I have been mostly talking about prejudice against people who one hasn’t met and blaming them for all the bads. As I wrote before, if NATO contracts can encourage you to kill innocent people 1000s of miles away who has done nothing to you and who you do not know. Then how come EU contract for accepting and hosting people who do not have homes to live is so disturbing?
You are right in pointing out the technical hurdles towards smooth integration and financial limitations attached to it. But that is a problem that now needs to be solved with diplomacy and bargaining with EU. Public hostility, prejudices are the opposite of what one needs right now. Remember they are the people who have no where to go, if an average estonian is not friendly to them they will eventually form a ghetto where they will feel welcome. Same that happened with guest workers with special travel document from turkey in Germany in 50s and 60s.
In Denmark people’s party are at 20% now. I wouldn’t be surprised if this issue will make them more popular in estonia as well. If that happens, it will be an awful place to visit again.
I’m Estonian.
I’m not a racist.
In modern world I don’t even see why person’s skin color is worth mentioning.
What differentiates people nowadays is the ethnic origin and I truly believe Estonia is not ready to offer economically and culturally convenient environment to people who have different cultural background.
Estonians really struggle with specialists deficit but I don’t agree that people who came to Europe over the coast of Libya can fulfill those vacant jobs.
Estonia has a long way to go until we can catch up economical strength which we lost during soviet occupation. We’ve done really really well so far.
Also be noted that Estonian population has the highest percentage of foreigners in Europe.
By loosening migration policy is a high risk making Estonians as a minority in their own country.
When UK accepted 10 000 Pakistani citizens in ’50s they were warned that the number of Pakistanis will multiple. Their fear was ridiculed.
By today 1.1 million Pakistanis live in UK.
What if Estonia accepts 1000 immigrants? Our population is 1.3 million today and less than a million are Estonians. What will happen with the population in 20-30, 50 years?
We cannot let Estonians extinct!
Before coming to Estonia, I heard the country was in extinction, first I thought it was joke, since I see many kids here, but it’s kinda true. Birth rate is lower than death rate and, this is normal to a modern country. But like you said, the population is less than a million, time by time if the population will vanish.
I think it’s a great idea open the country to foreign people, since Estonia is a growing country in economy. How do you expect to expand a company if you don’t have enough people?
We don’t have enough people in IT-area.
I don’t believe softening immigration policy will grow IT-competence resources.
Estonian IT-companies are already hiring people from foreign countries and noone in the country are being xenophobic against those foreign people.
Also be known that the foreign community in Estonia is quite high and none of them are refugees. They’ve voluntarily immigrated to Estonia because of it’s European environment and without being scared of freedom of speech.
Modern freedom of speech is already backfiring in Sweden since noone dares to step into an immigration discussion.
How will you choose to hate a person (immigrant looking) who you see on the street. Should they carry a yellow star on their arms or their CV? Hate is very simple but very dangerous, do not try to hide it within smart sounding comments.
Europeans has caused indigenous extinction wherever they went. The brutality that you choose not to know or find out. It is good you are thinking about it.
Im from Manchester and my wife is Estonian. When we have children they will speak English and Estonian. And we don’t quite no yet were i want to settle. Am i part of the breeding out of Estonians?? or can two people not meet and love each other and have children if they are from two different cultures???
considering there are so few of you and the death rate is up. do you think it’s wise for Estonians to only shag Estonians??? do you want your future reletives to be to turn into some weird inbred viking with six toes?
If Estonia finds a way to keep its native talent from leaving, they could absorb immigrants easily and painlessly with a net boost in brains, culture, and that indefinable “hip-ness.” This is a no brainer, really. As it is, Estonia is an incubator for talent to other countries who….welcome immigrants!
Exactly. Smart people are leaving and stupid people are shouting. Non Estonian smart people will come and leave this hateful country, Non Estonian stupid people will have nowhere to go. So they will keep fighting and hating, because thats what stupid people do.
I am a Latino, a Jew and a Communist and never felt any animosity directed towards me in these last three years in Estonia. On the contrary, I received nothing but kindness from the local people.
Curiously, I had the oppotunity to meet one of these so called ‘Estonian fascists’ in a party and ended up being sorry for him even though his kind was not exactly wonderful to my people in the past. I have tried hard to feel angry, but he is just a bitter man with a drinking problem and an enlarged liver. But above all he does not represent Estonia by any stretch of mind.
I do not know where you come from Sten, but racism in America, UK and even Sweden is much more prevalent than it is here in Estonia. I consider this remarkable taking into account that this county has managed to evade a huge economic crisis recentely and has no history of receiving immigrants. On the contrary, Estonia has been brutaly colonized over and over but fortunately not again.
In short, I think you are being extremely arrogant.
I have heard estonians talking and profiling russians. With mentality like that, things change fast. You can be the next. If they alienate people who are born and paying tax there for half a century, don’t be too happy too fast.
It is a difficult situation Rosh. The situation is just going to better when the Russians start to get educated in Estonian ‘en masse ‘and when the Estonians start to realize that they are not the only country in the world that is formed by two types of ethnic groups. Still it is going to take decades to feel the effect of these policies and to get over the resentment. Unfortunately the Estonians way of pretending that things that hurt are not that important is not helping a lot in establishing a dialog.
On the bright side, the coexistence between Estonians and Russians is not catastrophic either. Let’s not forget that Russia colonized Estonia and that even under these dreadful circumstances, they get hate each other less than the Flemish and the French in Belgium.
Also, there is no real benefit in creating walls between people in such a small country. I feel hopeful that sooner or later the locals are going to realize that they need to lean on each other if they want to fulfill their goal of turning Estonia into the new Finland.
I really hope so. In history things have changed for worst many many times. Most of the time, the political groups have harnessed on engineered public opinion. Here media is engineering the public opinion and right extremes are harnessing it. Media is doing it by asymmetric reporting of immigrant criminality. Europe has seen a massive rise in right wingers in recent elections. This cycle can continue, which will be suffocating, also for natives. Before they realize it, its too late. People like conflicts, in multi ethnic like in US there are conquests whereas in monoethnic china or russia there are mass murders. The point is, if the public opinion be engineered by political group and or media towards the direction of hatred or conflict.
There should be media education here in Estonia. People really do believe that news cast refers to facts when all they want is to get ratings at any cost and repeat what the ones in power say, no matter how stupid and odd it is. I keep on telling people here that Pravda, CNN, the West, and the former Soviet Union are one and the same but they think I am exaggerating. Unfortunately I am not.
I’m happy you have this kind of experience in Estonia. Thank you for sharing it.
I’m glad for your experience. You need to share more of your objective views on Estonia.
Dear All,
I am the one that needs to thank you for receiving me so well in your country.
No economic crisis because no dumb immigrants. Easy math jewboy.
Dear Teddy,
The conversation did not arrive at the trailer park yet. If you are angry because your super smurfing scheme failed, it is your problem. Please manage your own frustrations by yourself like and adult.
The name is Ted. And I didn’t think it was a whales dick honey.
Very “flat” article, Sten, you didn’t even want to look for any logical reasons why people who live in Estonia (there are other nationalities as well) don’t want to accept refugees. Economical reason is one of the biggest. However there are others: check Germany, Sweden, UK, France and any other countries that started accepting refugees. Live in Malmo (Sweden) for a week or too, take a walk in Clichy-sous-Bois area (Paris), etc. I guess only then you’ll get to the missing part of your current article.
Dear KM, I am sure its news media which tells you lies like that. I lived in Germany for a long time and now in Malmö. You have absolutely no clue how the city is. Also I will suggest you to read real official book keeping documents than getting your news from Sean Hannity or likes. For example: In average, a foreign citizen in Germany brings 3300 euros more in tax per year than they receive. At the same time, neo-nazis waste about 100 billion euros every year, because most of them are good for nothing other than living of welfare and lifting stones.
im an immigrant in estonia. what the article doesnt say that estonia has the most immigrants in the eu, in form of russian population that moved in during the soviet occupation
how can people be immigrants if they were born in the country?
You stupid, most of them have russian passports. They don’t speaks Estonian and demand that Estonian national language should be Russian.
Your not an immigrant if you were born in independent Estonia. No matter what language you speak, if you were born in the last 23 years on Estonian soil, your not an immigrant. But, saying that, any Russians who did migrate from Russia during or after is an immigrant.
how is this relevant to 1000 refugees coming, when the general opinion of both cultures is in agreement, that they dont want them to come?
considering that any migrition of Russians into Estonia during the soviet union was completely illegal under international law, i don’t really see the similarities in taking on 1000 refugees fleeing horrific environments.
“in accordance with Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the settlement of Russians in the Baltic States during the period was illegal under international law” (“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”).[5][6][7] The convention was adopted in 1949, including by the Soviet Union.
Well, regardless of if you talk about foreign-born, immigrants or second generation immigrants (there actually is a term like that for children of immigrants, look it up!), we have a lot of them. This graph ( http://goo.gl/LNhlmB ) shows some statistics about that and Estonia and Latvia are among the member-states of highest percentage of population in both immigrants and foreign-born of outside of an EU country , well above the numbers of Sweden, UK, Norway, Spain, Germany, Greece and other “very immigrant-friendly” countries. Yes it is not a statistic of “people who do not identify themselves as part of the main population” that should be a main means of deciding if to accept other immigrants, but there is a problem currently with the integration of some of our immigrants and foreign-born, both of which, as that statistic shows, we have more than other EU countries.
Maybe re-read what he said and what i said.
‘im an immigrant in estonia. what the article doesnt say that estonia has the most immigrants in the eu’
again, No you dont have the most immigrants in the EU. You might have a high percentage compared, but you definatly don’t have the most immigrants in Europe.
If you are working based on a percentage and not on actual figures, other things have to be taken into account. Over half your country is a forest. The Majority population live in one city. And many many more factors.
The problems of the integration with the Russians, has absolutly no similarities whatsoever with refugees your so scared of.
1. The Russians moved in by force.
2. They was not fleeing Death.
3. The anomosity felt by both Estonians and Russians is understandable and based on a long occupation, resulting in a division.
4. Russia did not provide you with billions of euros to set yourself up as a thriving country.
5.The Soviets forced you to join the Soviet Union. You wanted to join the EU.
If you are going to correct me, please first make sure you read the comment in which my reply was directed.
i wasnt born in estonia. i am an immigrant here. im not russian. nor slav. whats unclear?
I feel this article views immigration only as a positive matter, pretty much ignoring the known negative aspects, this has brought along in Western countries with histories of immigration: far-right parties, ghettoization, crime, separation of communities, etc. In the very least, nobody has come up with a good solution on how to integrate people from Africa or Middle East. And this kind of hurrah type optimism doesnt help. It’s also really intolerant towards diverging opinions – I’m pretty sure I’m an idiot in mr Hankewitzs opinion. And I guess criticizing Estonian general population as idiots is okay but you can’t say nothing about the Berlin imam, who says women should stay in the kitchen.
The crime rate has globally fallen down in last 40 years despite of the growth in immigration. The fear in people has grown… Must be the media!
In Berlin, people who would like to kill all non “Aryan” also exist and are vocal about it. You missed that.
..the brain can be same sized, but it can be empty…
The author is bit confused. There is no obvious Nazi parts in Estonia. I’m in the Estonian info space and there haven’t been any “iga roju oma koju” vibe. Europe is a bit messe up with their immigration politics. Biggest EU countries have very long history of colonial politics and along with it comes some controversal colonial politics and some quilt for things done in the history. So there are European liberal view on immigration. Estonia hasn’t been part of this so forgive us thinking some things bit differently. You have hard times by doing this and you Play a racist hatred card on us? Shame on you.
No you have been reaping the benefits and have massively profited as a country from being part of the EU for years. Let me ask you this. Was it pressure from the West that ultimately ended the soviet occupation or was it all that singing you did? Have Estonians not massively benifited in the last 10 years since joining the EU and NATO?
Considering the current climate in Ukraine, and fears of Putin, would it not be wiser to shut your racist mouth and open your fucking eyes.
What would you rather to leave the west and go it alone, Estonia vs World!! or to accept that a 1000 people are going to come to your country were so many more Young Estonians have left to live and work in other countries.
You never know they might be able to teach you something. They might actually know things you dont know. What are you so afraid of?? I thought Esonians were strong and fearless???
You sound like angry little hobbit. EU is not about slavery as you describe it. NATO is not immigration organisation. We have been very loyal partner to our partners in those organizations and giving our fare input to those organizations. But you sound like arrogant little person from a big country.
Of coarse i was angry, i read
NATO and EU. Both are contracts that you should respect. If NATO contracts can encourage you to kill innocent people 1000s of miles away who has done nothing to you and who you do not know. Then how come EU contract for accepting and hosting people who do not have homes to live is so disturbing for you? Is it so easy for you to kill innocent people, women and children than to host people who do not have homes to live??
Well, I’m sure you’re from a country that has never taken part of any anti-terrorism missions or given them support. First of all, it wasn’t exactly put to a public vote, second of all, we weren’t exactly sent there to start the situation, the situation had been started and the situation wasn’t exactly clear, I mean it was not officially named “operation killing innocent people”, third of all, as a country, though oficially we did, technically we didn’t have much choice, fourth of all, killing of innocent people? Do you have some real numbers about those innocent people killed by Estonian soldiers, I mean in the form of civilians, unarmed people unneccessarily killed?
Whereabout of my person contributes nothing to this discussion, hence out of scope. I think you should look the dictionary meaning of Terrorism and then yourself analyse who is the terrorist. You should also look into the official reason of resignation of German president Horst Köhler about your counter terrorism dreams. The war was for economic benefit and is so. I thought Europeans were smarter than average republican aligned americans. I am disappointed.
“First of all, it wasn’t exactly put to a public vote”
You don’t live in Switzerland. You do not have system of direct democracy that government will ask you about it. Be proud of your system of democracy and take responsibility of it. I understand, it may have been frustrating for you then, after all how could you tolerate this injustice? Send me a link with comments where you were so mad about you sending your troops to kill people who has done nothing to you? Hypocrisy?
“it was not officially named “operation killing innocent people””
I am sure your government is grown up enough to understand that Operation River City, Operation Crescent Wind, Operation Rhino in Afghanistan does not mean dinner parties. If that is the case, may be you should elect someone with better IQ.
“as a country, though officially we did, technically we didn’t have much choice”
Why? Because it was in your national interest to kill innocent people/women/children. So may be now you can pay back your horrific war crimes by giving home to a homeless man, his wife and child.
“Do you have some real numbers about those innocent people killed by Estonian soldiers”
May be you should ask this question to your government. I am sure you sent your army to a war, not to just grill verivorst and polish the shoes for americans and Brits.
“I mean in the form of civilians, unarmed people unneccessarily killed?”
Official census within the coalition regime reports the population to 4,050,597 which suggests 1,220,580 deaths in 2 years of invasion. The Lancet, John hopkins university’s surveys put the numbers to over 654,965 in 2006. At least, your president Bush gave a statement that he stands by the figures that a lot of innocent people lost their lives. 99.17 % among the deaths were of civilians. All this in a place which has not caused any act of, “terror” to any of you and your brothers. It must be hard to imagine these numbers, to get some feeling try to think that your children are killed by air to land missiles “unnecessarily”. A tremendous lack of empathy like this usually leads to a societal crash.
A less important side detail may be that the giant american oil companies are luckily finding oil in iraqi soil. How amazing!
Well, actually how all the conflicts started itself is besides the point. Not entirely besides the point, but also acts as a reason why not to accept (not talking about Estonia now, but Europe) waves and waves of refugeest. Europe as a collective is responsible for unimaginable amount of suffering and inequality in thew world. We should stop contributing to that as fast as possible, take the responsibility, start contributing to help stop the problems in their home countries, without military response unless unquestionably neccessary for the protection of civilians on whatever side. The response shouldn’t be letting people migrate to Europe without any restrictions, just for guilt. It definitely sends a message back (and who with all the horrible conditions in the Middle-East, Africa, China, or many other places, fo which we are largely responsible, wouldn’t want to live in Europe), so the next wave will be 600 000 and then perhaps 6 000 000. How do you decide who of them deserves the right to come? On top of them just joining in our very disproportionately convenient (no aguement there) means of living, do you really think with them and their children knowing how we live and how we are responsible in a great part for their ancestors suffering and deaths, there will be peace and integration here? I’d rather think you don’t. The world is cruel and has always been, and we as a collective are horribly responsible for much of the suffering of hundreds of millions, even billions of people, and even a collective suicide would probably only start making up for it. Accepting 1000 refugees can in no way in any extent be counted as that, but the overall process of accepting waves and waves of people (who might or might not be with background in bombing or other such activities) can. It is a suicide, excactly because we know what we as a continent are responsible for. One should still think if your infant child should be the one who pays for ours and our ancestor’s cruelty and indifference. When doing eveything for making the world a better place for everyone, self-pesevation is still something that should be a consideration.
I must also add, me not putting “anti-terrorism” in quotation marks was not meant to display my opinion of it. For whatever reason I left them out, it’s my mistake. Also, starting to talk on the subject of these wars, was perhaps an emotional miss-move. I’m not as knowledgeable about them as I would hope I was. My opinion is somewhat clouded by in what sequence I got to know of what happened, and don’t know what government had what information on what moment and perhaps the heroic stance of one small new member of NATO to not paticipate, would have been an actual possibility and something that should have been done, but again I don’t know who had what information at what moment, there was much misinformation.
“The world is cruel and has always been, and we as a collective are horribly responsible for much of the suffering of hundreds of millions, even billions of people, and even a collective suicide would probably only start making up for it.”
Then try being nice sometimes
at personal level. State affairs are purely business and for profit. Public delusion to lose empathy to purely serve the state business can backfire. It may not be too hard, you see! Despite of estonian involvement in killing of innocent public abroad, if you go to your favorite destinations like Egypt, Turkey to get some sun. They don’t call you an “institutional genocidal maniac”. That way they are nice to you! You can learn.
“When doing eveything for making the world a better place for everyone, self-pesevation is still something that should be a consideration.”
They are also running for self preservation. Your one is assumed fear, their one is an imminent reality. Don’t worry! You have repopulated Europe with only a few thousand remaining men after WWII from people all over. Biggest economies in EU are yet built by immigrants, which is a historical fact.
I understand you concerns. But, I think, this assumed idea of self and communality (patriotism, nationality, religion, race, football team, video game …) has many layers. You will always find a layer which will be disturbing to you if you fail to see a big picture. If politics won’t tear apart your loyalty to a particular piece of land in few hundred years then nature will. Just see how the political map of each country has changed in past thousand years and then see how geographical map has changed in million years. What you are so proud of is so frail. May be some compassion for your fellow humans would bring more satisfaction than the rage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNYemuiAOfU
well, you can’t really get to know how someone is on a personal level under an article that claims an entire nation is racist and says being against this particular incident of mandatory immigration is proof of just that, with people from different parts of the world in the comment section saying they know excactly how it is here.
I in fact am pretty much pro-immigration in general and think cultures getting to mix in most cases, is a good thing, but well, you sort of take the side of your own country getting to choose and that if the population happens to be fiercely against it in time of a politically difficult situation (Ukraine), they have the option of making a choice of perhaps not taking as many as mandated by some mandatory quotas, I believe in having the option of participating in an open conversation about it, however shocking some arguments of the extremists might seem to outsiders, without being all lumped in together as racists and somehow forced to still take them. Let us be clear, this article is making very generalised assumptions of Estonians and there are a bunch of people from outside of Estonia claiming to excactly know, how it’s in Estonia in the comment section. yes, in the comment section many people could be making general assumptions of immigrants, but they are responding to pretty clear attacks and accusstions, that are not done in the most intelligent manner.
“you can’t really get to know how someone is on a personal level under an article that claims an entire nation is racist and says being against this particular incident of mandatory immigration is proof of just that, ”
It depends how you see the article. I have met many estonians, most of them are rather less developed with their Idea of current socio-political norms. Which is good and bad. I don’t mean to say you need to be politically correct all the time. But if thoughts that would qualify for political incorrectness gather momentum that can be scary.
No entire nation is not racist. I have met the best people in your country. The problem is, in real world extremism rules. They are the decisive force, e.g. peaceful news are not popular, most Germans were not Nazis, most Muslims are not suicidal maniacs, most americans are not war mongers. Effectively majority seems to have less influence. As Martin Luther King said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” A great, non-violent black man.
“with people from different parts of the world in the comment section saying they know excactly how it is here. :)”
They don’t know how it is exactly in Estonia. As universal laws, most people regardless of their origin, geographical or social position, has felt, practiced, observed or has learnt about homophobia. The article talks about that. The comments are full of this too. I don’t necessarily see a need why it is important to be an estonian to understand this phenomena. You don’t need to be a palestinian to be angry if israeli army kills your children on daily basis illegally.
I do not see why you brought Ukraine. The only thing that is saving your from being Ukraine right now is EU/NATO. Whose political mandates your fellow citizens are opposing.
The problem, I see is not that Estonia is forced by EU, or is incapable/capable of negotiating with EU’s proposals to dissipate its problems. It is a political problem, and should be handled by your politicians with solid substantial arguments. Also that Estonian state should participate in solving this problem. Not turn its back when it comes to help and scratch the door when it needs help. My problem is private people. The misplaced emotions of estonian public who chose to lose the empathy and align with the public agendas of right wingers and promote the media misinformation about the people who they haven’t even met.
Think about it. If you have people thinking like as you read mostly here. How would you chose to hate people when you come across them say in a supermarket. Should they carry a yellow star, if they have a PhD or print his/her CV on the T-shirt to prevent your homophobia to kick in?? These thoughts create a culture which is unhealthy.
“however shocking some arguments of the extremists might seem to outsiders, without being all lumped in together as racists and somehow forced to still take them. ”
This is a political problem, solve it politically, like grown ups. I just don’t see a reason of homophobic outcry from general public with a certain prejudices and utter racist rant.
Well, this is not a calming, but a hate enforcing article. Calling a nation “dumb racists” is only a little different from going to a group of dark-skinned people and starting to explain to them “this is why you’re a dumb n*****, and this is why you’re a dumb n*****”, it’s not going into any details and is explaining everything just with racism. To many of us that is an insult. An oversimplification of the issue. Especially to a nation who has a history of being nazis until proven otherwise and at certain times in the history of our nation, being a “nazi” meant you were free to be tortured, raped, deported or killed and for your possessions to be “redistributed”, so we have had a couple of generations of percecutions for being nazis, regardless of if we were and we have somewhat developed a tendency to side with people we feel are being wrongfully accused of being nazis, or even real nazis. I don’t like for Estonians to turn racist, but articles like this are part of the cause, at least to a nation that have that recent and painful a history of being labeled nazis. This is pretty simple psychology that writers of articles like this don’t understand – you think you’re fighting against racism, but you’re probably doing a better job at converting people to racism than racist propaganda does, or at least you’re working in tandem with it. And the bringing of the immigrants here at this moment, with this anxious mentality, would make it most likely even worse, and that because of the political realities of our country, that all of these “people who have encountered homophobia or racism in their lives” don’t understand. When you said we should solve it politically, you hit the nail to the head, that is a big part of the problem. People in Estonia don’t feel they can. The suppot for the leading government party is at a record low so shortly after elections. People have a feeling for a multitude of reasons, we aren’t being listened to. Yes it’s partly because of the vote for the right for gay people to adopt their partner’s children being not put to a public vote (I agree with the government on this, a minority’s rights should not be decided on a public vote, many people felt however, that they should and saw this incident as another proof that the government was not trusting their judgement), but also because of corruption, the winning party promising to lower taxes, raising taxes right after elections, the government mainly raising their own wages instead of lower-paid people and often putting the rights of the corporations or EU, NATO deals ahead of workers and regular citizens and then being confident and arrogant about it, because people always vote them back, mostly for fear that otherwise the party that has a deal with Putin would finally win (they are always very close). People are beginning to protest on a number of issues and the refugee question is just one in a line of many on which they feel the government doesn’t listen to them. Yes, I would support for Estonia to take as much refugees as we can handle, but at the moment it is not a lot, without fear of a real rise of hate against the government. In this situation the right way to act is to let things cool down and do peaceful education, discussing things with the people, so they understand they are being listened to and that we can talk this over and reach a conclusion without any more people having to resort to radicalism.
Sounds like you lack adequacy as what you’ve wrote is from pure anger. Being killed throughout our whole entire history…yes…we are a bit cautious to these things. Estonia has always had 2 option…either join the west or join the east, so making an argument that we’ve benefitted over the last 10 years from EU…yes we have…there is no denying…it would be strange if we hadn’t. All countries in the EU and NATO are benefitting from it. Also..seeing what this mass immigration has caused throughout EU….I think you’d be a bit cautious as well. There’s only a bit over 1million Estonians, so this is another thing you will never understand in your lifetime.
And of course living next to Russia is something you will never understand.
So saying that we should open our f-in eyes and shut the f up…seriously mate…grow up a bit when writing comments like this.
It’s natural reaction to this considering how it was presented and what it meant/means to locals. If you really want to understand where partially this reaction is coming from…study our history..not the last 50 years…but the last 1000 years and then read your comments again.
Also…if the situation would be the other way around…do you honestly think that they would greet us with open arms ? Seems like your eyes are not open son.
well we only hate immigrants because they get better living conditions than our own people…
In my fullest honesty Mr. Hankewitz has no freaking idea what he is talking about! I feel like the brain on the right belongs to Hankewitz.
Im Estonian, i hold my gun to niggers. When they come with boat, i use RPG for destroy it. If you dont know what means ” Living in Estonia “; then go live with niggers.
Obvious troll is obvious.
First of all, I would like to mention that just because most Estonians don’t agree with your views, doesn’t make them racists of facists or neo-nazis or… The list goes on.
Did you know that Israel has built a massive prison in the middle of the desert, sends all the illegals there and gives them a choice – either leave or stay in jail?
I was living in the Birmingham for a while, the second largest city in the UK. I saw all the crime, violence, drugs, gangs etc.. I was beat up twice for being white, even escaping death once when being chased thru Soho rd by a gang of arabs.
Is it so wrong and racist not to want this to happen to my little home country?
Don’t worry about the joo subversion. Time to go on the offense. POGROMS on the horizon joos.
“Get your lampshades here”
http://qpolitical.com/norway-just-deported-824-muslims-every-american-needs-to-see-what-happened-next/
You should know that this man wearing the T-shirt ” Neegrid ahju” was wearing it bicause he wanted media’s attentsion. And this was the only reason. Second of all, Estonian’s are defenetly not racist’s, but we also do not like the pressure of taking in those no lifers, who can’t speak and will not speak Estonian or English. They can’t get a job and will live on our money atleast for a year or longer until they ” settle in”. Then they will come and say we are racist while most of them don’t know what that word actually means. And just bicause most of us don’t like immigrants does not make us racist. By calling us racist you will make us racist and your own whip will beat you down one day bicause of that. If you come here and start working then no one cares what you do and when you do it. And last If you don’t like it here, borders are always open for you to get out to where you came from. We are mean, we don’t talk around the push and we are down to earth with two legs. Bicause of that everyone may think we are racist. But grow some balls and move on with you life. Just bicause in every other country has ” Black people” in it does not mean we have to take them in. No we don’t. And If ” black people” canät handle Estonians calling them Neeger then they have nothing to do here. Why ? Bicause This is how we were teached when we grew up. And if we would call them Black in Estonian ” Must” then this would be insulting bicause for me ” Must” is dirty … so if you okay with called Dirty all the time .. then go ahead.
Sten Hankewitz. You are not exactly sublte in trying to spread your judeo cultural marxism. Estonia does not want the people who made Sweden go from one of the most peaceful places in Europe to it’s rape capital. Estonia does not want the people who made thousands of girls get raped in grooming gangs in England when before it was virtually unheard of. Estonia does not want mass ethnic division caused by the coming of foreigners like North Africans and Turks who have invaded, attacked and tried to destroy Europe for centuries. These people in their own lands make their women cover themselves like animals and then blame them if they are raped, they cut off the clitoris of young girls and have been at brutal civil war with each other for centuries. Europe is the ethnic european homeland and must stay that way, the disgusting propoganda you are trying to promote will only lead to the rape of young Estonian girls by third world pedophiles who hate their own women and want to abuse. To anyone who knows history this should be no surprise, child marriage has historically been the norm for the arab and African world and the Arab slave trade, of which two million Europeans were kidnapped and brought into involved a massive sex slave industry which involved girls and boys as young as 9. Stand strong proud, traditional Estonians, for the most precious possession you have in this world is your own people, and you must struggle and find to safe guard them, show no mercy to those who would harm your people, including the traitors who let the enemies through the gates.
diversity = white genocide
Sten Hankewitz. You are not exactly subtle in trying to spread your judeo cultural marxism. Estonia does not want the people who made Sweden go from one of the most peaceful places in Europe to it’s rape capital. Estonia does not want the people who made thousands of girls get raped in grooming gangs in England when before it was virtually unheard of. Estonia does not want mass ethnic division caused by the coming of foreigners like North Africans and Turks who have invaded, attacked and tried to destroy Europe for centuries. These people in their own lands make their women cover themselves like animals and then blame them if they are raped, they cut off the clitoris of young girls and have been at brutal civil war with each other for centuries. Europe is the ethnic european homeland and must stay that way, the disgusting propoganda you are trying to promote will only lead to the rape of young Estonian girls by third world pedophiles who hate their own women and want to abuse. To anyone who knows history this should be no surprise, child marriage has historically been the norm for the arab and African world and the Arab slave trade, of which two million Europeans were kidnapped and brought into involved a massive sex slave industry which involved girls and boys as young as 9. Stand strong proud, traditional Estonians, for the most precious possession you have in this world is your own people, and you must struggle and find to safe guard them, show no mercy to those who would harm your people, including the traitors who let the enemies through the gates.
http://www.ancient-origins.net…
http://www.gatestoneinstitute….
http://www.independent.co.uk/n…
The people in those stories could be your sisters, your mothers and anyone else you cherish in your life. These people are not the same species as Europeans, they never have been because evolution has made us different, they do not have the altruism, creativity or intelligence that comes from evolving in cold climate, they do not have compassion for you or your values. They will not show gratitude when they arrive, they will bring only strife, civil unrest and misery to you and all whom you love.
And to those worried about being labeled a racist, STOP. Racist is simply a meaningless term coined by a judeo bolshevik Trotsky. Other races hate whites far more than vice versa, so much so that they rape and pillage whites countries who take them in and care for them. It is completely natural to be “racist” against those who hate you, are nothing like you and only mean harm for you and your folk.
Big surprise coming from a treasonous joo. We love Kristiina , we hate you joo.
I have a great idea. Cut-and-paste and place this article on an Israeli site.
Even as a foreigner from Asia, strongly against those Black Immigration to Estonia. When I was in my home country. we have not any discrimination to black man, in other words, we are not racists.What rapidly changed my views to Black man. As I came TUT study. I have experienced so lots of disgusting matters and not only me, also my compatriots feel so angry with that people. we were not racists. but they deserve discrimination. They like cheating, pilfering。 they are so Slothful, no only in assignments or other aspects. they are so stupid, what a pity, they have no heart to make progress, because they are so lazy. they so lecherous. I still remember that, 5 negro followed a white blond girl……..my friend who from Asia, his flatmate was a negro, that negro had sex with an Estonian girl, in dormitory even in bathroom. at last the girl got pregnant, and that negro left to Nigeria…. If Estonia accept such black tumour. please think it over! they are human beings negative assets! what happened in USA? rape, gunshot,and so on .what already occurred in the countries who accepted Negro! I never ever do not communicate Negro!
pls just go do some damn research on whats going on in france italy greece etc does it look like the immigrants really need help? are they in need of fucking help? no they arent instead they riot and want more more and we have to work for them to feed them???? why the hell should they go to work if they get enough money to get new clothes for themselves and food and also free houses
If i want to have anal sex with my girlfriend- it is because i want to too be weird or kinky. Gays do not have that option. They are attracted to their own sex. they are weird. They should not be proud of that fact and heteros should not pity them. We should just accept those facts and live along. We could only suppress our desires to deal with weird sexual behavior. That would make me a very sad and angry hetero. Same applies to gays i imagine. When illegal immigration acceptance is on the table, I underline word illegal. Then this article is justifying law breaking. Shakey estonian economy will crash under 10 000 illegal immigrants. Job seekers allowance is showing how well average population are living. If illegals move in we all, with immigrants have to move out. No fobia – it´s prediction.