Estonia (Eesti): Poor Baby Russians Are Unhappy
May 1, 2007, 8:17 am |
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By Andrew L. Jaffee
Estonians made the correct and morally sound decision. They dismantled a symbol of Russian/Soviet conquest and occupation of their Estonian homeland (Eesti). The poor baby Russian neo-imperialists are upset:
The BBC’s Richard Galpin says it [the removal of a Soviet “war memorial” in Tallinn] is being perceived as one insult too many by local ethnic Russians, after what they feel has been years of discrimination against them by the majority Estonian population.
Discrimination? Russians conquered, plundered, and subjugated every one of their neighboring countries, under czars and commissars alike. Russians should be apologizing, not unhappy.
Unhappy just like the Arab/Muslim world is with little Israel vis-à-vis the “Palestinian question.” In reality, the Arab/Muslim world resents Israel’s freedom and prosperity, while they live in squalor. It is the same with Russian resentment of the tiny Baltic States, like Estonia. Russian troops, under the flag of the Soviet “Union,” invaded Estonia during World War II, and didn’t leave until 1994.
LIFE IS BETTER in Estonia… Duh! During Soviet occupation, life was better in Estonia than it was in Russia because of native Estonian tenacity and smarts. Life is even better now that Estonia is a free nation and her resources aren’t being stolen by Moscow. Of course Russian settlers don’t want to go back to Russia. Despite the fact that the Russian Federation has a population of 146 million people, is the largest country on Earth, and has access to vast natural resources like timber, oil, and metals (e.g., Siberia), Russia is a big mess. President Vladimir Putin is turning back the democratic gains won by Boris Yeltsin; poverty and economic inequity are rampant; and businesspeople, journalists, and politicians are getting gunned down in the streets.
Just look at what Estonia’s tiny population of 1.3m people have produced since independence:
Chart I put together with data from EconStats
Despite Putin’s yearning for the “good old days” of the Russian/Soviet Empire, Estonia is free and will remain free. Estonians have a right to preserve their cultural heritage. Even the BBC admits that Estonia’s Russian minority was forced into the tiny nation:
During the years of Soviet occupation after World War II, tens of thousands of Estonians were killed. And they say their country was effectively colonised with many Russians being brought in as workers and military personnel.
Now that Estonia has joined NATO and the EU, poor baby Russia will have to tread carefully with its bullying. Those four NATO F-16 fighter jets stationed in neighboring Lithuania are a stern reminder to Putin: Keep your neo-imperialist dreams to yourself.
NOTE: Anytime anyone expresses support for Eastern Europe, certain types (e.g., some leftists and Russian neo-imperialists) pull out the Nazi card. Please read, “Lithuanians, Jews, Nazis, the Holocaust, and Collective Guilt,” and “That Other Holocaust, Revisited,” for insights into this twisted Nazi accusation/thinking, which is equivalent to outrageous claims like “all whites are imperialists,” “all Jews are money-grubbers,” etc.
Related: Russia, Baltic States
May 1st, 2007 at 8:47 am
Making business with Estonia you support and finance Nazis.
You should understand, that making business with Estonia or buying anything produced in Estonia or visiting Estonia as a tourist, you actually support and finance a new generation of European Nazis. Estonia, which has recently joined to EU and NATO, officially practices Apartheid policies and does its best to rehabilitate and legalize Fascism, for years. EU, US and other democracies preferred not to pay attention on that till now. However, it doesn’t cancel the fact that Estonia carries out a policy of Ethnic Discrimination against ethnic Russians, who constitute a third part of its population. Most of these people were born in this country or live here for 30-40 years, but they were not even provided citizenship and are treated as second class people. Moreover, Estonia officially glorifies legionaries of Hitler’s SS troops that exterminated Jews in Fascist death camps in Estonia during the Holocaust. Government sets up monuments to these Fascist butchers. They are allowed to march in the downtown of the capital, Tallinn. They are invited to official events; the Estonian President shakes their bloody hands, and calls them heroes of Estonia.
At the same time, Estonian government aggressively fights with any memories of millions of the Soviet soldiers, who paid with their lives to free Europe from the plague of the Fascism and to save dozens millions of Europeans of the death. And democratic countries - first of all EU and US, prefer to dissemble this again. But recently Estonian regime overstepped the limits, which makes it absolutely illegal from the point of view of common human values. On April 26, Estonian authorities have decided to finally erase the memory of the victory of Russian soldiers over the Hitler’s Nazism by destroying the main World War II memorial to a Soviet warrior-rescuer, Bronze Soldier. For those Russians who live in Estonia, demolition of the memorial is not just a removal of some architectonic construction. This is the most painful insult of the memories of their fathers and grandfathers, who died in battle with the Fascism to bring freedom to the Europe.
Thousands of offended Estonian Russians came to a peaceful protest demonstration, demanding from Estonian officials to stop the vandalism. But instead dialogue Estonian authorities sent special police forces to suppress the protest. With no reason they started to fire in the protesters rubber bullets, water cannon and tear-gas, throw flash-bang grenades, and baton women and teenagers. During the massacre the first ethnic Russian was killed, dozens were injured and hundreds were arrested just because of their Russian ethnicity. Those arrested were thrown into in a harbor warehouse as they were livestock, and there they were beat by police within an inch of their life. Just think - in the heart of the Europe an Apartheid regime kills, injures and arrests hundreds people just because of their ethnicity! However, almost all of the European and American media keep hypocritical silence or even worse call this “pacifying gangs of drung vandals”.
This is disgrace! This is shame not only on those European and US governments that support this Nazi state. This is shame on every European and American who keeps silence today. Keeps silence, because somewhere inside he or she is confident that rehabilitation of Fascism, and Apartheid crimes committed against those “dirty Russian” at the heart of the European Union, provide “useful lesson” to Russians and Russia. But maybe you think that this is not your business? Then let me remind you a famous phrase by German priest Martin Niemoller he said about Nazis in 1945: “First they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew…. Then they came for me and by that time there was no one left who can speak up for me”. Today, new European Nazis came for the Russians, and the Europeans keep silence or, better to say, silently approve. Well, you can be sure - this is just the beginning, and some day yours home-grown Nazis, inspired by your silence of the crimes of the Estonian Fascism, will come for you. And there will be no one to speak up for you. Because Russians, once rescued the Europe from the Fascism, will never pay again with millions of their lives for those not speaking up today.
So what can you do? Not too much. But quite enough to stop Nazis. At least don’t finance them. Don’t buy anything produced from Estonia. Don’t do any kind of business with Estonian companies and organizations. Don’t invest in Estonian stocks. Don’t fly to Estonia as a tourist. What else? Maybe, to ask your representative in the House of Representatives, why your government spends your taxes to support Estonian Nazis? Or to forward this letter to your local newspaper and ask them, why they never write about Apartheid in Estonia? Or to call to Estonian embassy in your country, and ask them what is that they think they are doing? Or at least forward this letter to a few friends and colleagues? Your voice CAN prevent revival of Nazism, if you want it.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:20 am
Your comment is pure hyperbole. Estonian’s aren’t “Nazis” because they want to survive. I know that some Estonian’s helped the Nazis during WWII. But that doesn’t mean all Estonians should be held liable to collective guilt. The Russians killed many more people during WWII than did Hitler — about 20 million Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, etc., etc. They built an empire called the “Soviet Union.”
I will support Estonia by buying its products, traveling there, investing, doing business, etc., because I believe in self-determination.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:56 am
Don’t bother. This is the same “bot-text” we see all over internet. This time it’s “Michael”….
Here’s maybe a short but effective addition to all the articles defending Estonia from Imperial Russia’s attack:
search for “State of World Liberty Index” and see who’s number one
May 1st, 2007 at 10:01 am
Ah, ha… An automated, Russian, neo-imperialist, Nazi-slur, web-bot. Impressive but sickening.
Lithuanian-Jewish-Americans get it from all sides. Some Jews hate the Balts because of their involvement in the Holocaust. Some Balts hate the Jews because of their involvement in the communist party. Some Russians hate the Balts… BLAH, BLAH, BLAH…
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Here are some interesting facts about Estonia:
Most wanted Nazi war criminals
10b. Harry Mannil
Arrested Jews and Communists who were then executed by Nazis and Estonian collaborators
Status: Cleared by investigation in Estonia
10a. Algimantas Dailide
Arrested Jews who were then murdered by Nazis and Lithuanian collaborators
Status: Deported from US; convicted by Lithuania, which has hereto refused to implement his sentence of imprisonment
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1178020745724&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Not a single Estonian citizen who participated in the persecution and/or murder of Jews during WWII has been brought to trial by the Estonians, despite the existence of abundant incriminatory evidence in at least two cases submitted in recent years.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1176152786406
A monument to an Estonian “Freedom Fighter” had been unveiled in a small town Lihula in Western Estonia. It showed a soldier in a German uniform with a Waffen-SS (combat SS) unit emblem, wearing a steel helmet and holding a machine gun.
http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/12586/
So, what should one think about this?
1. Thousands of estonians were serving in Hitler’s Waffen-SS troops where they exterminated Jews, Russians, Beloruses, Ukrainians, and other “untermenshen” in death camps.
2. No one Estonian was brought to trial for war crimes after Estonia become independent. Moreover, Estonia protects even most wanted Nazi criminals identified by Holocaust organizations.
3. Estonia glorifies its Waffen-SS “freedom fighters” by setting up monuments to them. Meanwhile, Estonia destroys memorials to Soviet soldiers, who won Hitler.
4. Estonia practice massive ethnic discrimination against Russians, Beloruses, Ukrainians today.
You don’t have to be a detective to make a judgement: Estonia is a typical Nazi state. And if there were not only one million population, but 100 million with enough weapon, they would already repeat the Holocaust second time.
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Yes, some Estonians collaborated with the Nazis — no question. But many Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Czech collaborated neither with the Nazis or Soviet murderers. Is France a “Nazi” state? It had a “government” called the Vichy whom collaborated with the Nazis. Just because some Estonians were Nazis doesn’t make all Estonians anything. Your darling Red Army goons, many of whom were Russian, killed millions of other Russians — but not all Russians were commies.
How many Soviet/Russian war criminals have been brought to justice? For Stalin’s purges against Jews? (Yes, Stalin was a Georgian, but he had millions of Russian apparatchiks.) For the Russian occupation of the Baltic, when thousands of Lithuanians were murdered, and at least 250,000 were deported to Siberia? For the Katyn Forest Massacre, where mostly Russian Soviet troops executed between 4,000 and 10,000 Polish soldiers?
Here are some snippets from the Jewish Virtual Library’s profile of Eesti (below). That organization is well aware that not all Estonians war criminals have been dealt with, but they don’t accuse all Estonians of being “Nazis:”
May 19th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Russians became defenders of jews from fascists abroad while there are hundreds of thousands of them in Russia.Jewish information about antisemitic activity in Estonia of Russian RNE!