Fresh idea, which seems to be useless

Today in Päevaleht online the article of Andres Kollist, the first head of the Department of the Citizenship and Migration has been published, tomorrow it will see the light also a a hardcopy. This person (BTW, it seems he's also chemist) was the one who had to follow all the decisions of Riigikogu according to the citizenship. Now he tells, that one reason of the present social splitting are the wrong choices of the state, which have complicated the possibilities of Estonian residents without Estonian citizenship to go across the western border. One can say, that this way the Estonian state pushed those people to Russia's arms, and it's true. Moreover, if according to the initial plans of the government all the Russian speaking people would take Russian citizenship, it would be great pain you-know-where, we'd get the little Russia in Estonia, fortunately this scenario didn't work.

His idea is to give to all non-citizens the "citizenship of third type" (that's the original name, as we already have born and naturalized citizens). It would be given without any exams, just to exchange the Alien Passports, moreover it's defined as "quasi-citizenship". The holder of it could have all the rights of citizens except to vote in parliamentary elections, but including diplomatic support abroad and the freedom of movement. Something alike Netherlands have done for the people coming from old dutch colonies.

Basically it's a deal about so called "zero" citizenship, it would help to solve some problems as the enormous amount of non-citizens or aliens. In the light of AI report and the bronze night events this issue got in focus of many human rights organizations, actually OSCE was reporting about it quite long time ago.

As it was to expect the idea has found its opponents, Mart Nutt replayed immediately telling that there's no way of giving the citizenship to aliens, the masses immediately claimed Mr. Kollist as a red, traitor and collaborator. Paul-Erik Rummo gave more weighted opinion, telling thatit the fact of offering of such "citizenship of third type" itself would be offensive to aliens.

My opinion is similar to that of Rummo, in some meaning it would be offensive, but anyway people would take it. Even if they'd prefer to have Russian citizenship, nowadays it's pretty difficult to get it. The candidates have to pass the language and history exam and as I've heard it is pretty sophisticated.

The other side of this act is the loyalty the state would like to win with this action. I'm afraid it will be turned upside down by Russian propaganda, which still surrounds those people. Moreover many will take it as a tip the state gives to stay still, especially after the bronze night events. I'm afraid it's a bit late to do such steps, but should be noted that it's one of the best ideas suggested so far.

One possible solution of the problem of intolerance

What has to be done first? One has to get free from it's hate, hate is the real cause of all the troubles happening between people. It's easy to grow up your own hate, private or collective, but it's more difficult to get rid of it. Sure the collective hate is more dangerous due to the synergistic effect. Anyway, loosing some ndividual components of the collective hate makes it weaker. Try to leave your one here It's a pretty old resource but might be helpful ;)
Don't forget to visit it time to time.

There was a coup d'etat planned on 9th May? They've got mad?

Today in "Sakala", an add-on to "Postimees", were published some expressions of Rein Lang, our minister of justice. The main point is that on 9th of May were planned some great disorders having the coup d'etat as a main goal. Unfortunately no proofs of it were provided, it was only sad, that the expectations are based on the analysis. According to the information the Office of Public Prosecutor has there were really some disasters to expect.

It was also mentioned, that the operation of transfer of the monument broke the plans of the conspirators, most of them got to jail after the bronze night.

Original article

I just can't believe someone can be that sick, it's incredible! But thinking more i can propose that exactly this information can stand in the KaPo (secret police) top secret analysis, which, according to the official version, have led to the beginning of the operation.

Unfortunately discussing that matter without any proofs we'll roll to the theory of conspiracy, and everything will be sad can be accepted only as the speculation.

The only question is bothering me really a lot: why the city government of Tallinn gave the permission for "the history lesson" of Juri Liim on 9th of May? IMHO it was obvious, that in such situation conflicts of some kind were unavoidable. On the other hand would they prohibit it, the reputation of Savisaar would be damaged immediately. I can't be sure, but it is quite possible, that the russophonic electorate of Savisaar would not participate in the events of the 9th of May (those, who are Estonian citizens are thinking more adequately, than ones who do not want to take the citizenship, at least it's what could be expected), but this time no one knew, that Tonismagi will be booked by Kaheksanda Mai Liikumine for the 8th of May.

The spokesman of the city government: "if the chief of the police department or the Ministry of Internal Affairs will find, that this event might have negative consequences for public order, they have right to cancel the meeting. City does not have this right, we only have to register the event."

According to this exclamation it seems that from the very beginning they started to push away the responsibility, what is in correspondence with general behavior of the Central party. As far as i remember from 1995 a public meeting should be allowed by the local government but before the issue of public order should be fixed with the police, which gives also a signature on the formal request.
So, there are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,than are dreamt of in our philosophy. Let's wait fore some information on the night watch, may be it will explain the situation.

Creation of russian ETV channel is postponed

The main news of today seems to be that the creation of the russian ETV channel is postponed. This decision was obvious for me, nevertheless the idea of such channel isn't bad itself. The question is that it should be done long time ago, now it would look quite artificial, moreover russian speaking people don't trust to information is provided by the state. Main problems is that this community is too deep in the media-space of Russia mostly because the Estonian media in russian language is very, very bad (IMHO).

One time i was working with Swets Blackwell sending different printed media from Estonia to Russia, this time i could observe the degradation of newspapers in russian. All of them got really yellow sooner or later, there's no good authors. May be i just can't stand the way the information is presented. Here it should be noted, that the deviation of information was slightly changing, when the newspaper changed its owner, but general trends were still the same. At the same time Russian TV has been evolved rapidly and got its important place in life of most of russian speaking inhabitants of Estonia. That's why such channel would be necessary 15 years ago, but I'm not sure someone except Veidemann and few more was thinking on this issue, it was Jelzyn's era and no hostile propaganda came from foreign ether.

I'm not sure the expenses of creation of russian TV channel would ray off, anyway the coverage of such channel would be minimal. Moreover ETV in estonian is good as an infochannel, and not that much suitable for masses as a source of entertainment, as private ones.

In my opinion the best possible solution would be to subtitle the estonian programs, it's also helpful for learning the language, and at the same time it would be the same information as is provided for estonian speakers, it would be much more effective tool of integration. Digital TV would also allow to broadcast the additional voice channel, it would be also an option for those who don't like the subtitles. Let's see what will be next steps of National Broadcasting Company.

One more notice on russian media in EST

In addition to censorship on russian Delfi it seems that last days the Aktuaalne Kaamera vene keeles got more dry and shrinked from 15-20 to 10 minutes. No news is good news?

Suggestion of Laine Jänes, the Minister of culture

One interesting opinion on the matter of integration in Estonia was published yesterday in Eesti Päevaleht, the author is the Estonian Minister of culture. As many others it's one of the edges of the solution of existing problem. I'll try to summarize this text briefly.

Original article

After the bronze night one very positive thing has happend in Estonia - we have really noticed, that in Estonia live many people, whose mother tongue is not Estonian but in spite of this they have full right to live here with dignity and feel them self comfortable.

We adore the wish of foreign Estonians to preserve the Estonian language and culture - their identity. Foreign Estonians can be compared to the Russians in Estonia, and as there exist many "Estonian Houses" there could be "Russian Houses" in Estonia to keep the society together and to develop the culture. Local language should be learned but it shouldn't be done by the price of loosing the native language. But for the accusation of language the linguistic environment is essential, so it should be our goal, to create the united cultural space for all the inhabitants.

It's impossible to compete with Russian TV in meaning of entertainment, but at least the neutral news reports for Russian speaking society should be provided. ETV and Eesti raadio should play an important role in creating the common infospace, the way it has to be done is still unclear but hopefully will be developed in closest future. It's important, that the state will express it's own vision to the national broadcasting company, which will provide the suggested solution and correspondent expenses. There are researchers, who've managed to Russian culture to the Estonians, now we need such ones, who would do the same in opposite direction.

As a part of infospace also the governmental web pages should be available in Russian, not only Estonian and English. Even the page of G.W.Bush exists also in Spanish, which is spoken by 15% of population, but the percentage of Russian speaking people in Estonia is twice higher.
People should be interested in Estonian life and culture, but it can be achieved only by doing something. The knowledge of language is essential for both sides. The good point of crises is that they push the wheels to spin, thou the goal is to change Estonia to a state, where people understand each other's mind and language.

* * *

Yes, the idea of "Russian Houses" is not bad, the question is, can the state support them? The main problem is to find young people (preferably with no soviet thinking it their heads), who could start such culture centers. As far as i know there are kind of Russian Houses in Tallinn, Narva, Kohtla-Järve, the one in Tartu has died long time ago. I can't be sure about the financial support of them, in Tartu it was kept by one company owned by Russian speaking people and after the company got bankrupted, activity of the house was significantly reduced.

The other problem is IMHO in old-time soviet administrators, who mind first about their purses. There was some info in media, that the most of money provided for renovation of the center of Russian culture in Tallinn have been spent suspicious way. I suspect the same concerns the program of integration, just many people have seen in it the way to easy money.
What can be done with it? I think it's the social responsibility, what is missing in our society, the soviet heritage, there was such an expression "everything belongs to the state belongs us". But in order people to be more responsible their confidence to the state should raise as well. And it's a big question, how the state could manage to get the confidence of the majority from both sides, i mean the supporters and the opponents.

About the internet media in Russian I'd say it's also in really bad condition. Giustino just pointed out, that there exist russian versions of Postimees, Paevaleht, and Estonian television. I'm sorry, but it's impossible to compare those versions with the originals, actually i didn't use the russian website of Estonian television, but the ETV daily news report in russian is significantly different from the one in estonian. Es ist ja zum kotzen! The same about Postimees and P'evaleht, the amount of information differs drastically, there are almost only the news from BNS in the russian version.

The most annoying fact is that frequently the provided information is not neutral, and you have to read/watch both versions to get the real picture. IMHO the newspapers should be just straight translated, TV programs - subtitled. Would be better, if all the programs on ETV would be subtitled, but it's not so easy. BTW, yesterday i've read that the information on russian Delfi will be censored, today there's almost nothing to read. This must be the policy of the owner, not the state? No idea...

Flashback: Putinjugend monopolized the patriotism

I can't tell why i didn't search for this information before, may be because I didn't really mind about National-Bolshevistic Party (NBP) those days. Only today I've managed to find their declaration on the known events.

Among other it's sad there, that police special forces around the Estonian embassy in Moscow detain all the protesters who don't belong to movements blessed by Putin's administration.

It was to expect that Limonov's party will be strictly against any actions made to the monument. Actually the reflection motivated me for research was that Putinjugend might perform their attacks on the Estonian embassy in order to be quicker than NBP, and so, to get all the glory. Already in January, after the law about military burial places was passed, NBP performed some attacks on Estonian consulates in Saint-Petersburg and Minsk. In last case by mistake the ink bottles have hit the consulate of Latvia, which is located in the former building of the Estonian consulate. One should admit, that usually NBP is the quickest force to perform some public protests, moreover the Baltic countries or, better say, Russian-speaking minorities are among their interests.

On the other hand, Putinjugend gathered next to the embassy only 27.04 afternoon, sure they needed some preparation like inflatable tank, the uniform and so on. There's no need of such preparations for an ink-bombing action. BTW, meetings were going on for several days already from 11:00 to 18:00, but no one didn't really mind about them until that day. So, why the NBP did nothing? The most probable explanation would be, that NBP is an ally of Kasparov and Kasyanov, performing together Marches of Objectors. All those forces form the movement "Russia without Putin", so can be that the old thesis "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is working here as well.

What i find to be funny, that here we've got the reaction which is diametrically opposite of what would be expected: "radicals" write a declaration and "governmental organizations" go to attack the embassy. Quite a nice projection of the situation in the state.