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Thread: Ethnic Russians rioting in Estonia







Post#1 at 04-28-2007 01:58 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Ethnic Russians rioting in Estonia

Dear Justin and Uzi,

I just posted a new article on my web site regarding the riots by
ethnic Russians in Talinn and other Estonian cities, following the
announced plans to move the Soviet statue.
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...070428#e070428
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/...070428#e070428

The article is intended to describe the facts and the history, with
emphasis on Estonian history and the Estonian point of view. I would
be interested in hearing any comments, if you have them.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#2 at 04-28-2007 03:39 PM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Thanks for your interest John.

I am here, as you know, and I am not really happy with this whole thing.

The Russian foreign ministry has waged a propaganda war against the Estonian state almost since day 1. Despite this Estonia has managed -- as you pointed out in your article -- to join the Western Europeann clubs of NATO and the EU.

Estonia's economy is almost 70 percent reliant on the Nordic countries of Sweden and Finland. Hence the idea of Russian economic sanctions are sort of useless because their activity here is less than 10 percent.

I really don't know how to solve this conflict. The Estonians' have a nasty historical grudge which the Russian state encourages by telling them it never happened. They moved a statue and Tallinn went apeshit for two nights with looting.

If anything it reminds me of Paris in 2005. Young people saw an opportunity to destroy things and away they went. There is now a ban on alcohol sales here and things are quiet.

One thing I should point out is that Estonia's ethnic Russians are concentrated almost wholly in Tallinn and some cities near the Russian border. Therefore none of this spilled into any other cities across the country. Tartu, our city, was quiet. We went shopping and it seemed like something had happened so far away -- although it is only 100 miles away.

If there's one thing that's disturbing, it's that these are almost all teenagers doing this stuff. In Russia too their fascist youth groups are also all made up of guys younger than 22. It's disheartening because they don't even remember the USSR. They are spurred on and funded by middle age losers/zealots. They follow pretty blindly. The protests here in Tallinn were arranged partially with the help of the Russian foreign ministry.

Anyway, the big bogeyman, the Soviet soldier, has been removed. As an American I'd like to say big deal, but people here aren't use to the nonsense that goes on in bigger European cities like Copenhagen, Paris, and Berlin on what seems like an annual basis.

If you ask me, all of Europe has an integration problem from Paris to Tallinn, and nobody knows how to solve it. Any ideas?
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#3 at 04-28-2007 07:01 PM by Odin [at Moorhead, MN, USA joined Sep 2006 #posts 14,442]
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I see the Russians are being A-holes, as usual. The Ethnic russians treated the native Baltic people like shit, so they have no right to whine and bitch. If Russia thinks they want to start a war with our Baltic allies I'd have no problem with turning Moscow is a pile of smoking ruins.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

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Post#4 at 04-29-2007 03:33 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
If Russia thinks they want to start a war with our Baltic allies I'd have no problem with turning Moscow is a pile of smoking ruins.
Слышал, Алёша?

Вот, как думают большенство из американцев. "Путин со своей ГосДумой хотят играть НАШИМИ БАЛТИКАМИ? Давайте разрушим Москву." Буш - хороший представитель настоящей америки...
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#5 at 04-29-2007 03:47 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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John: Great article for showing the differences in cycle between Russia and the Baltics. Although the Russian teevee Organs are flogging this thing for all it's worth, the actual people in Russia are failing to get very worked up about it.

You need to understand that Russians are very sensitive to history -- in the sense of not erasing the past. The Soviet Union, even as a fairly freakish opposition to this trait, never even really tried to demolish the history of Tsarist and pre-Tsarist Russia; just to make sure that every person understood that history in the context they wanted to place it. The idea of removing a monument is itself pretty un-Russian.

Parenthetically, one needs to distinguish between statues, which celebrate a person, and monuments, which celebrate an event or group of people (the Russian language does). The first, like the myriad busts of Lenin and Stalin and so forth, were raised to the glory of bad guys, and so could be razed without hurting history. The second are a big part of what history is all about.

So, it needs to be remembered that the majority of Russian (as opposed to russian-Estonian, apparently) opposition to the removing of the monuments is a visceral cultural reaction to what may as well be an act of sacrilege against history. That said, the opposition among Russians mainly takes the form of disgust or disapproval at the Estonians, quite similar to the reaction of much of the world against the Taliban when they began destroying the Afghan Buddhas. Nothing worth fighting over, but still you can't just let it happen without at least registering your disapproval.

Now I can't speak for the Estonian side of the border (let's leave that to the other Justin), but I'd bet the ethnic-Russian youth over there are pretty different from the Russian youth here, and that the ethnic-Estonian youth over here (of which there are quite a few) are a fair bit different from their homeland counterparts, too. That's what being on two different turnings is like...
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#6 at 04-29-2007 03:48 AM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by Odin View Post
I see the Russians are being A-holes, as usual. The Ethnic russians treated the native Baltic people like shit, so they have no right to whine and bitch. If Russia thinks they want to start a war with our Baltic allies I'd have no problem with turning Moscow is a pile of smoking ruins.
Russia won't start a war over a memorial being moved to a cemetery. Even they are not that dumb. They like being in the G8. They want their pipelines to Europe to be built. Merkel called Putin and told him to use restraint in responding to the situation.

It's worth noting that the Russians themselves have recently relocated two memorials for Soviet war dead -- graves beneath them -- to make way for malls and highways. That's why this is just part of a propaganda war, and nothing else.

But it's odd that the interviews I see on TV of the most vociferous opponents of the monument being there are with people in their 70s!

It's odd to see an old person speaking with such conviction about something. I guess it's because they actually remember what happened here. As woman put it on my blog, she is the first woman in three generations not to have rape as her first sexual experience.

Anyway, the job is done. The people that organized the protests have been totally marginalized because of the looting. The photos across the world tell the tale of drunk teenagers ripping off Hugo Boss and bottles of vodka from stores. I mean, that's THE image from this event. I feel sorry for them. They have committed PR suicide.

But, hey, they moved a war memorial to a cemetery. Last month in Tallinn an apartment was raided where they found enough plastic explosives to blow up something as big as the Bronze Soldier. The men they arrested are known to travel in between Russia and Estonia frequently, they are ethnic Russians. One spent time in jail in the 90s for murder. I can also speculate that they wished to blow that memorial up and pin it on the Estonian rightwing nationalists AKA skinheads (who are also assholes, BTW and deserve a swift ass kicking). Fortunately they didn't get their wish.

But that argument is now over. The PM may be something of an authoritarian dick, but everything he did was legal, democratic, and years from now people *might* see it as the right thing. Or maybe not. It was certainly an alienating event for ethnic Russians, but at the same time there are several political parties that were against it, so it is not like they don't have democratic redress.

I am a bit undecided, but there is nothing to argue about now. I just hope they rebury those guys with honor and that people realize that it's a better solution than having non-stop clashed at what essentially is a cemetery at a tram stop. Now people can go and honor their fallen love ones in peace without intereference from skinheads, Russian nationalists, and all the other annoying people in the world.
Last edited by Uzi; 04-29-2007 at 03:54 AM.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#7 at 04-29-2007 04:09 AM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Now I can't speak for the Estonian side of the border (let's leave that to the other Justin), but I'd bet the ethnic-Russian youth over there are pretty different from the Russian youth here, and that the ethnic-Estonian youth over here (of which there are quite a few) are a fair bit different from their homeland counterparts, too. That's what being on two different turnings is like...
To Estonians, culturally, the idea of burying dead in a busy city intersection is grotesque. Their cemeteries are quiet places on the edge of town that are overgrown with trees where people go and light candles on special holidays.

Estonians also don't have 'triumphalist' war monuments in their city centers. Their war monuments are in cemeteries. Finally, the idea of getting wasted drinking vodka at a grave is also seen as disrespectful for the dead.

So you have here, as you said, a "clash of civilizations".

This all started three years ago. In Lihula, a small village in western Estonia, they erected a monument to the Estonian soldiers that died in the service of the German army in WWII. A lot of people have relatives that were drafted into that army and died. I have met many men who never met their fathers. So, the government came under international pressure to remove it and they did, which turned into a sort of mini riot with cops being assaulted with rocks and bottles.

After they moved that one, the attention moved logically to this one. In a way, this monument's fate was sealed at that moment.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#8 at 04-29-2007 08:24 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
To Estonians, culturally, the idea of burying dead in a busy city intersection is grotesque. Their cemeteries are quiet places on the edge of town that are overgrown with trees where people go and light candles on special holidays.
Russian cemeteries are pretty much the same. But they put their war monuments apart from their cemeteries for the most part.

Estonians also don't have 'triumphalist' war monuments in their city centers.
That's 'cause they never won any wars...

Finally, the idea of getting wasted drinking vodka at a grave is also seen as disrespectful for the dead.
Whereas Russians will drink to almost anything.

So you have here, as you said, a "clash of civilizations".
I actually think you nailed it on the head. Estonia over its 4T is going to have to come to terms with its multiculturalism.

The fact that one of those hyphenated-cultures is -Russian says nothing about Russia's place on the saeculum. This is pretty much exclusively an Estonian issue.

Good luck with that...
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#9 at 04-29-2007 09:12 AM by 1990 [at Savannah, GA joined Sep 2006 #posts 1,450]
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So is Russia 1T and Estonia 4T? That might make sense given Estonia's proximity to Scandinavia. Also Estonia was the site of the "Singing Revolution" in 1989, a totally bloodless overthrow of Communism. (Compare to the bloodbath in Romania and the scariness of kidnapping Gorbachev in Russia)
My Turning-based Map of the World

Thanks, John Xenakis, for hosting my map

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Post#10 at 04-29-2007 10:40 AM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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Left Arrow Cause for concern

Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
...
That's 'cause they never won any wars...

...
They won a war with the aid of "Finnish Volunteers", White Russians, German Regulars, and the British Navy against the Progressive Portion of the Russians in the last century.







Post#11 at 04-29-2007 11:38 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Dear Uzi (Justin):

Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
> I really don't know how to solve this conflict. The Estonians'
> have a nasty historical grudge which the Russian state encourages
> by telling them it never happened. They moved a statue and Tallinn
> went apeshit for two nights with looting.

> If anything it reminds me of Paris in 2005. Young people saw an
> opportunity to destroy things and away they went. There is now a
> ban on alcohol sales here and things are quiet.
This is an interesting comparison, because unemployment is very high
among the residents of France's banlieux, and the Muslims complain
bitterly about discrimination against them. Things haven't changed
much since the 2005 riots.

When you compare the two events, are you saying that there's similar
discrimination against ethnic Russians in Estonia?

Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
> If there's one thing that's disturbing, it's that these are almost
> all teenagers doing this stuff. In Russia too their fascist youth
> groups are also all made up of guys younger than 22. It's
> disheartening because they don't even remember the USSR. They are
> spurred on and funded by middle age losers/zealots. They follow
> pretty blindly. The protests here in Tallinn were arranged
> partially with the help of the Russian foreign ministry.
Isn't this exactly what Strauss and Howe said would happen -- the
young "hero" generation being guided by older Prophets?

Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
> Anyway, the job is done. The people that organized the protests
> have been totally marginalized because of the looting. The photos
> across the world tell the tale of drunk teenagers ripping off Hugo
> Boss and bottles of vodka from stores. I mean, that's THE image
> from this event. I feel sorry for them. They have committed PR
> suicide. ...

> But that argument is now over. The PM may be something of an
> authoritarian dick, but everything he did was legal, democratic,
> and years from now people *might* see it as the right thing. Or
> maybe not. It was certainly an alienating event for ethnic
> Russians, but at the same time there are several political
> parties that were against it, so it is not like they don't have
> democratic redress. ...

> Now people can go and honor their fallen love ones in peace
> without intereference from skinheads, Russian nationalists, and
> all the other annoying people in the world.
If what you say here is true, then the job of moving the statue may
be done, but the issue is far from finished.

In France, there were plenty of promises that any injustices would be
remediated even though, in fact, those promises weren't kept. But
you're saying that in Estonia even promises aren't being made, and
that, instead, the Russians are being marginalized even further. This
can only infuriate the Russians more.

Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
> But it's odd that the interviews I see on TV of the most
> vociferous opponents of the monument being there are with people
> in their 70s!
You said in your previous posting that "Young people saw an
opportunity to destroy things and away they went."

Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
> This all started three years ago. In Lihula, a small village in
> western Estonia, they erected a monument to the Estonian soldiers
> that died in the service of the German army in WWII. A lot of
> people have relatives that were drafted into that army and died. I
> have met many men who never met their fathers. So, the government
> came under international pressure to remove it and they did, which
> turned into a sort of mini riot with cops being assaulted with
> rocks and bottles.

> After they moved that one, the attention moved logically to this
> one. In a way, this monument's fate was sealed at that moment.
Are you referring to the story about the statue of the Estonian
soldier wearing an SS uniform in Parnu?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2148732.stm

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#12 at 04-29-2007 11:39 AM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Dear Justin,

Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Слышал, Алёша?

Вот, как думают большенство из американцев. "Путин со своей ГосДумой хотят играть НАШИМИ БАЛТИКАМИ? Давайте разрушим Москву." Буш - хороший представитель настоящей америки...
What does this mean?

(For what it's worth, here's the machine translation: "I have heard
Alesha? That is how people think most of the Americans. Putin with his
GosDumoy want to play NASHIMI BALTIKAMI? Let's break down Moscow.
"Bush is a good representative of the USA ...")

Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
> You need to understand that Russians are very sensitive to history
> -- in the sense of not erasing the past. The Soviet Union, even as
> a fairly freakish opposition to this trait, never even really
> tried to demolish the history of Tsarist and pre-Tsarist Russia;
> just to make sure that every person understood that history in the
> context they wanted to place it. The idea of removing a monument
> is itself pretty un-Russian.

> Parenthetically, one needs to distinguish between statues, which
> celebrate a person, and monuments, which celebrate an event or
> group of people (the Russian language does). The first, like the
> myriad busts of Lenin and Stalin and so forth, were raised to the
> glory of bad guys, and so could be razed without hurting history.
> The second are a big part of what history is all about.
You know, Justin, sometimes I wonder if you're part of Putin's
reelection campaign (assuming he figures out how to change the
constitution ...).

At any rate, the "Russia" that I've been reading all these years must
be on a different planet -- perhaps Mars or Jupiter -- not the
"Russia" that you talk about.

The Russia that I read about destroyed the entire Russian Orthodox
Church infrastructure, including most the Churches and other
buildings and all the contents (except for the gold, which was
extracted beforehand).

Ironically, this very fact was in the news last week. Yeltsin's
funeral took place in the Cathedral of Christ The Savior in Moscow.
This cathedral had been destroyed by Stalin in the 1930s, and was
rebuilt as part of a culture program initiated by Boris Yeltsin when
he in charge (during a period that you characterize, incidentally, as
"4T").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedr...aviour_(Moscow)
http://Www.Byzantines.Net/Epiphany/Christsavior.Htm

Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
> So, it needs to be remembered that the majority of Russian (as
> opposed to russian-Estonian, apparently) opposition to the
> removing of the monuments is a visceral cultural reaction to what
> may as well be an act of sacrilege against history. That said, the
> opposition among Russians mainly takes the form of disgust or
> disapproval at the Estonians, quite similar to the reaction of
> much of the world against the Taliban when they began destroying
> the Afghan Buddhas. Nothing worth fighting over, but still you
> can't just let it happen without at least registering your
> disapproval.

> Now I can't speak for the Estonian side of the border (let's
> leave that to the other Justin), but I'd bet the ethnic-Russian
> youth over there are pretty different from the Russian youth here,
> and that the ethnic-Estonian youth over here (of which there are
> quite a few) are a fair bit different from their homeland
> counterparts, too. That's what being on two different turnings is
> like...
This has the feel of wishful thinking. Russian xenophobia in general
is quite apparent within Russia itself. And Russians in Estonia are,
based on what I've read, quite bitter about what they see as
discrimination against them. To say that the Russians are rioting
simply because a statue was moved, and for no other reason, is very
hard to justify.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com







Post#13 at 04-29-2007 12:57 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis View Post
You know, Justin, sometimes I wonder if you're part of Putin's reelection campaign (assuming he figures out how to change the constitution ...).
He's not going up for re-election. Don't you pay attention? Probably Dmitri Medvedev will step into his place.

And no, I'm not really a fan of Putin; we've been over this before, you and I. But even Russians who strongly oppose him will freely admit that some good things have happened during his time, and that among the major good things that he has done is to reverse and/or correct for the major badnesses of the Yeltsin regime. You don't have to like a guy, or think that he is the best possible option, to see that he's not Evil Incarnate.

At any rate, the "Russia" that I've been reading all these years must be on a different planet...
I've often thought the same. It speaks very poorly to the quality of information that one can get from the USA that it is in such discord with reality. I don't know what to do to fix that.

The Russia that I read about destroyed the entire Russian Orthodox Church infrastructure, including most the Churches and other buildings and all the contents (except for the gold, which was extracted beforehand).
See; there you would be incorrect. A very large part of the Church infrastructure was destroyed during the Lenin and early Stalin years. And yet, there was Saint Basil's, sitting right there outside the Kremlin walls, along Saint Sophia in Velikiy Novgorod, and Kazan Cathedral an dSait Andrew's in Petersburg... You see, the historically-significant stuff -- even those things that were, at least in Lenin and Stalin's time, considered abhorrent to Communism -- was largely left to stand.

This has the feel of wishful thinking. Russian xenophobia in general is quite apparent within Russia itself.
Boy! I should really try to go "within Russia itself" to see some of that... Because the 'xenophobia' I'm seeing here looks a lot more like just plain racism -- and is pretty much directed against folks in Russia. You know, where Tallinn isn't?

And Russians in Estonia are, based on what I've read, quite bitter about what they see as discrimination against them.
Just like Eesti-Justin said, Estonia's 4T is going to be in part about multiculturalism; the Russian-Estonians are part of that mix.

To say that the Russians are rioting simply because a statue was moved, and for no other reason, is very hard to justify.
Hmm. Here I think I may have found your problem. Strictly speaking, those aren't Russians who were rioting; they were Estonians (of Russian descent). Russians aren't rioting over any of this. And Russian-Estonians are rioting over far more than just a statue -- again, I refer you to the guy in Estonia.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#14 at 04-29-2007 08:57 PM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Just like Eesti-Justin said, Estonia's 4T is going to be in part about multiculturalism; the Russian-Estonians are part of that mix.

Hmm. Here I think I may have found your problem. Strictly speaking, those aren't Russians who were rioting; they were Estonians (of Russian descent). Russians aren't rioting over any of this. And Russian-Estonians are rioting over far more than just a statue -- again, I refer you to the guy in Estonia.
I was just involved in a situation like this tonight. I am out at the pub walking with a German and a tri-lingual Russian Jew (speaks English, Russian, and Estonian) and we spot a baldheaded guy draped in a Russian flag.

As we approach we see there are several of these skinheaded fellows arguing in Russian with the police. Police cars pull up. "Oh no, another incident" I think.

Finally, some Estonian students come walking by dressed in drag. They are part of some fraternity and go walking into the bar from a halloween party. Everyone cracks up, including the cops and the baldheaded men who only speak Russian, and the crowd disperses.

Estonia is 70 percent Estonian. But it is home to many unilingual Russian speakers that don't want to learn Estonian. Estonians therefore are forced to speak to the Russians in Russian -- which makes them basically hate them underneath.

The Russians can't get good jobs because they can't speak Estonian. So they feel discriminated against. The government solution is more public education in Estonian, which the Russians also call discrimination.

So they want to live in Estonia, have high paying jobs, and work only in Russian, and be able to participate in the political debate in Russian, which is not realistic.

One of the central reasons for the nationalist backlash that led to the restoration of independence was that Russia appointed unlingual Russophone stooges to head the Estonian SSR. These were people that were ethnic Estonian, but grew up in Russia and lost their language.

Bottomline, unless you learn Estonian and integrate, as in every other European country, you will be at a disadvantage. Russian youth is still not ready, after 16 years, to handle that reality.

Finally, the numbers of ethnic Estonians in Estonia have grown since 1989. Back then they formed a bare majority nationally and in the capital. Every year there are more Estonians in Tallinn.

I believe that this ethnic tension is due to the fact that Russians are shrinking in the country and feel more vulnerable. That and the fact that the police kicked their ass, and everyone, even ethnic Russians, hate the kids that looted and destroyed their neighborhood, doesn't work to their advantage.

I mean I sort of hate them. From afar I understand their frustration. But if they came to my town and broke windows I'd be happy to see the riot police arrest their ass. I have a family and care about our well being. I don't want to explain to my daughter why there's a helicopter over the house.

If they want to change things they can naturalize and vote. Most have citizenship anyway. Only 9 percent of residents of Estonia lack citizenship. So though it's cynical, I think many were motivated by the ideas of:

"We're Russians. We're great. The Estonians suck. And I am going to use this as an excuse to stock up on free booze."

In short, there's plenty of blame to go around. The Russian Foreign Ministry is a destabilizing force in this country. I wouldn't mind if they severed diplomatic relations because it would be great to get those bastards out.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#15 at 05-07-2007 03:26 PM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Here's a funny local interpretation of the riots last week. I'm still laughing after reading it:

http://gardistan.blogspot.com/2007/0...rmy-blues.html
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#16 at 05-07-2007 05:59 PM by John J. Xenakis [at Cambridge, MA joined May 2003 #posts 4,010]
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Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
Here's a funny local interpretation of the riots last week. I'm still laughing after reading it:

http://gardistan.blogspot.com/2007/0...rmy-blues.html
That's wicked! I wonder how the other Justin will respond.

John







Post#17 at 05-08-2007 12:41 PM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by Uzi View Post
Here's a funny local interpretation of the riots last week. I'm still laughing after reading it:

http://gardistan.blogspot.com/2007/0...rmy-blues.html
Beautiful! Good to see someone takes your hooligans with the seriousness they deserve.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#18 at 05-21-2007 10:00 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Here's The eXile's take on things.
-excerpt-
It was then that I understood the subtle connection between the "March of Dissenters" anti-Kremlin protests in Russia, and the protests by the Russian minority in the Baltics: both, at a fundamental level, are about dignity, about not being a slave.
I spoke to one of the more moderate Latvian politicians, Oskars Kastens, the government Minister of Integration, about the disenfranchisement of the Russians. He countered their complaints by noting that the 400,000 stateless Russians, or 20% of Latvia's total population, do get pensions, access to education, state grants, and so on. It seemed to him self-evident how decent and reasonble the Latvian government was: they paid the Russians money, after all. Even given his country's experience under occupation, he didn't grasp the Russian minority's grievance.
One of the ugliest arguments against the Russian minority's complaints, which you hear often, is that the Russians in Latvia/Estonia "have it so much better than Russians in Russia...they should be grateful, even if they can't vote, to be in an EU country." It's the same argument that supporters of South Africa's apartheid regime used to give: that South Africa's blacks lived so much better than blacks in African-ruled countries, so therefore, they should be grateful. If they didn't like it in South Africa, let them live with their African brothers in the Congo, or Burkino Faso, or some other fucked up black country. Then they'd see what complaining was really about. This is essentially the argument used to deny the Russian minority's grievance, which is, at heart, a question of dignity. The same issues that underlie the anti-Putin protest movement.
Many in the Russian-speaking community are aware of the similarity between their protest and those of the anti-Putin marchers. Tatyana Zhdanok, who serves in the European Parliament, told me that not only did she feel this affinity, but that moreover, the Kremlin's behavior during the Tallin riots, sending Nashi to the Estonian embassy in Moscow, "has only made our situation worse, and played into the hands of the Latvian and Estonian anti-Russian leaders." Like many other leaders of the Russian minority, she lamented her community's position as "hostages" of both Latvian discrimination and sleazy Kremlin politics.
Incidentally, the Latvian government tried to strip Zhdanok of her elected post, but they were overruled by the European Court of Human Rights. Zhdanok, who lost many family members in the Holocaust, was once labeled an "extreme Russian nationalist" by the U.S. State Department simply for supporting the Russian-speaking minority's rights, yet today she is in an alliance with the Green Party of Europe, the only political party which recognizes the grievances of the Russian-speaking minority as valid.
What really fuels the frustration and injustice is the arrogant way in which the Russian minority's grievances are dismissed. One man I met on my way to the May 9 rally told me that he was born in Latvia, left to study in Moscow, and came back only to find he was considered an "alien" by the government, and had no right to citizenship. He showed me his passport, which is stamped "alien," and began to curse.
"They won't listen to us, and the Europeans pretend as if we don't exist, that we're just a Russian fifth column," he said. "I was born here! This is my homeland. I supported independence. But they decided to fuck all of us. What Estonia showed is that the only way to change things is by physical force. We can't reason with these people with words and arguments, after 15 years, it's clear that words don't work."
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky







Post#19 at 05-21-2007 10:31 AM by The Grey Badger [at Albuquerque, NM joined Sep 2001 #posts 8,876]
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(Sigh) - that's what happens when you base citizenship on bloodlines rather than on choice of nationality. I know this is the case all over Europe, not to mention huge chunks of Asia, and the problems it's causing are obvious and can get truly nasty.

The current immigration debate here in the States has made me super-conscious of these things. There is always an undercurrent here of "nationality by blood" that always makes me want to speak sympathetically to them and then ask what their tribal leadership thinks about the matter. Because really, IMO the only people in the States with the right to that particular meme are those with a known and open tribal affiliation.

And the whole Estonian thing is made nastier by the fact that the ethnic Russians are seen as former conquerors. Even I can see that.

Wishing both sides all the best.
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."

"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.







Post#20 at 05-21-2007 02:05 PM by Mr. Reed [at Intersection of History joined Jun 2001 #posts 4,376]
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I found this interesting.

Russia accused of cyberwar

A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.

While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians’ removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.

Nato has dispatched some of its top cyber-terrorism experts to Tallinn to investigate and to help the Estonians beef up their electronic defences.

“This is an operational security issue, something we’re taking very seriously,” said an official at Nato headquarters in Brussels. “It goes to the heart of the alliance’s modus operandi.”

Alarm over the unprecedented scale of cyber-warfare is to be raised on Friday at a summit between Russian and European leaders outside Samara on the Volga.

While planning to raise the issue with the Russian authorities, EU and Nato officials have been careful not to accuse the Russians directly.

If it were established that Russia is behind the attacks, it would be the first known case of one state targeting another by cyber-warfare.

Relations between the Kremlin and the West are at their worst for years, with Russia engaged in bitter disputes not only with Estonia, but with Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, and Georgia -- all former parts of the Soviet Union or ex-members of the Warsaw Pact. The electronic offensive is making matters much worse.

Estonia, a country of 1,4-million people, including a large ethnic Russian minority, is one of the most wired societies in Europe and a pioneer in the development of “e-government”. Being highly dependent on computers, it is also highly vulnerable to cyber-attack.

The main targets have been the websites of the Estonian presidency and its Parliament; almost all of the country’s government ministries; political parties; three of the country’s six big news organisations; two of the biggest banks; and firms specialising in communications. It is not clear how great the damage has been.

The cyber-attacks were clearly prompted by the Estonians’ relocation of the Soviet World War II memorial on April 27. Ethnic Russians staged protests against the removal, during which 1 300 people were arrested, 100 people were injured, and one person was killed.

The crisis unleashed a wave of so-called Distributed Denial of Service attacks, where websites are suddenly swamped by tens of thousands of visits, jamming and disabling them by overcrowding the bandwidths for the servers running the sites. The attacks have been pouring in from all over the world, but Estonian officials and computer security experts say that some attackers were identified by their internet addresses -- many of which were Russian, and some of which were from Russian state institutions.

Without naming Russia, the Nato official said: “I won’t point fingers. But these were not things done by a few individuals.

“This clearly bore the hallmarks of something concerted.” -- © Guardian News & Media Ltd 2007
"The urge to dream, and the will to enable it is fundamental to being human and have coincided with what it is to be American." -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
intp '82er







Post#21 at 05-22-2007 09:48 AM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by Justin '77 View Post
Here's The eXile's take on things.
-excerpt-
I read his article and I thought it negated itself. He purposefully dehumanizes Estonians and Latvians and then accuses them of dehumanizing ethnic Russians. It's funny too, because Estonia had one of the most liberal policies towards Jews and minorities before it was taken over. It also just opened a synagogue in Tallinn this month -- replacing the one that was bombed in 1944 by the Soviets and never rebuilt.

Anyway:

Point 1: Estonia and Latvia are two different countries with different languages and different laws.

In Estonia the stateless person may vote in all elections other than parliamentary elections. In Latvia they may not even vote in municipal elections. Ames' argument that those in Estonia cannot vote is false.

Point 2: Estonia's citizenship laws do not single out Russians. In 1940, 8 percent of Estonia was comprised of ethnic Russians. They all received automatic citizenship in 1992. The others have to naturalize because they moved here illegally. Most countries in Europe require immigrants to take tests to receive citizenship.

If Estonia extended free citizenship to the 9 percent of residents that lack it, then it would set a precedent than anybody born in Estonia got free citizenship, which is pretty uncommon in any country. If my child was born in Sweden, I wouldn't demand Swedish citizenship for her, would I?

Point 3: Estonia has naturalized most stateless persons since 1992. In 1992, 32 percent of the population had undetermined citizenship. In 2006 that figure was 9 percent.

The Estonian government doesn't see it self as depriving people of citizenship. Rather, Estonian citizenship existed from 1940-1991. If you had an Estonian passport in 1966 and you went through customs in the UK, it was recognized because most countries never recognized the Soviet occupation of the Baltics.

Those people that came to Estonia from Russia in the 1960s were Soviet citizens. Their country doesn't exist anymore. Since Estonia is not a new state, they have to naturalize. They have a right to Russian citizenship. Russia hasn't done much to give it to them.

I thought about explaining these things to eXile, but figured it wasn't worth my time.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#22 at 05-22-2007 10:35 AM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Grey Badger View Post
The current immigration debate here in the States has made me super-conscious of these things. There is always an undercurrent here of "nationality by blood" that always makes me want to speak sympathetically to them and then ask what their tribal leadership thinks about the matter. Because really, IMO the only people in the States with the right to that particular meme are those with a known and open tribal affiliation.
Ha. Do you know that I am technically an Italian citizen because my great grandfather never naturalized and therefore passed his citizenship on to my grandfather and so on?

I think though most of my ancestors were quite legal. Peter Minuit really did purchase Manhattan island in 1626, and some of my ancestors were apparently there during the New Amsterdam colony. The natives benefited from that was well. They got wealthy off the beaver trade and there was a new power broker in a region that had been dominated by the Iroquois.

What happened next was partially legal, but mostly illegal. But I can't honestly say that the Dutch weren't there legally. They had an agreement to use the land. They did.

Try not reading too much into the current situation here. It's just part of a general anti-Estonian propaganda campaign that's ongoing and orchestrated by the Russian foreign ministry.

Russian foreign policy works by creating chaotic situations and then slowly applying its will to create the results it had in mind all along.

A weaker willed Estonian government would have resigned when the Russian duma delegation told them to, then the United Russia-funded party would have put the government coalition together and Russia's policy for Estonia -- that it's local stooge would be in power and would not protest, say, when they lay a gas pipeline off shore -- would be complete.

The Russians don't care about democracy or laws or any of that stuff. They just want to make a deal with a loyal stooge. They want to deal with governments that can be bought. They want to make Estonia look bad so at some future "spheres of influence" meeting they can take it back from Europe without the Europeans putting up too much fuss. Right greedy bastards they are, aren't they?

They whine about NATO expansion. Well I am glad that Estonia was in NATO two weeks ago. Without that invisible border, who knows what lows the old invaders might have stooped to. Russia bashing is a bit too chic these days. Perhaps it takes our eye off what's going on in the US. But I don't trust them, especially here in Estonia. Russia has never been a friend to this country. It has instead always been a sea that must be kept at bay. I like the Russian people I know, but I really don't like their government.
Last edited by Uzi; 05-22-2007 at 10:37 AM.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#23 at 05-23-2007 02:04 AM by BigStar [at joined Sep 2006 #posts 207]
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I was going to post something on this after I read an article in Newsweek about it. It focused mainly on the youthgroup "Nashi", which sounded a lot like Hitler Youth. I couldn't stop thinking that I could probably take all of these fucks one on one fists only. Probably will get the chance to one day.

They seem to hate America a lot. What do you guys think the chances are of a united China/Russia vs US/Euro?
"And I ain't even know how it came to this
Except that fame is
The worst drug known to man
It's stronger than, heroin
When you could look in the mirror like, 'There I am'
And still not see, what you've become
I know I'm guilty of it too but, not like them
You lost one"








Post#24 at 05-23-2007 05:31 AM by Uzi [at joined Oct 2005 #posts 2,254]
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Quote Originally Posted by BigStar View Post
I was going to post something on this after I read an article in Newsweek about it. It focused mainly on the youthgroup "Nashi", which sounded a lot like Hitler Youth. I couldn't stop thinking that I could probably take all of these fucks one on one fists only. Probably will get the chance to one day.

They seem to hate America a lot. What do you guys think the chances are of a united China/Russia vs US/Euro?
I think that it would be suicidal for Russia to go to war with anyone. They are just recovering from a very nasty period in their history. Putin is trying to rebuild the state, and he has made the Soviet era of his childhood the cornerstone -- ie. the "Great Patriotic War".

Those kids "Nashi' are funded through Kremlin-affiliated channels. So was the local group here Night Watch that organized the rioters (ie. show up at this time at this place wearing this symbol, etc.). They get their bus tickets reimbursed by the Russian government and meet with Russian foreign ministry officials to discuss tactics.

They are bizarre in that they probably don't even remember the USSR. But they are a show for the TV cameras. They literally put on their show when the media shows up, and then hang out when nobody is looking. They are distrurbing, but the best way to deal with them in my opinion, is to deprive them of attention.

Living here in Estonia we get Finnish and Russian TV channels. They are very different. Finnish TV is like Estonian TV. Cross country skiing all winter, dumb talk shows and translated soap operas all the rest of the time.

With Russian TV I can literally flip through four channels, and each one will be showing some kind of military drama. That's not to say that they are some hyper aggressive state, but that the military and soldiers are a more important recurring motif in Russian pop culture than they are here.

So all this fuss over a war monument to Estonians seems a bit silly. But to them it's some kind of holy symbol. They described the simple act of moving it to a cemetery (where all of Estonia's prewar leaders are buried, by the way) as 'blasphemy."

Nashi has been brought up on that stuff. They are naive 17-year-old kids. I wish some of my friends that actually grew up in St. Petersburg in the 1980s were around to slap some sense into them. But they are with the Kremlin. And because of some of the sketchiness surrounding the Kremlin (Litvinenko, Politkovskaja) Western diplomats don't want to mess with them too much.
"It's easy to grin, when your ship's come in, and you've got the stock market beat. But the man who's worth while is the man who can smile when his pants are too tight in the seat." Judge Smails, Caddyshack.

"Every man with a bellyful of the classics is an enemy of the human race." Henry Miller.

1979 - Generation Perdu







Post#25 at 05-24-2007 07:14 AM by Justin '77 [at Meh. joined Sep 2001 #posts 12,182]
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Quote Originally Posted by Uzi
With Russian TV I can literally flip through four channels, and each one will be showing some kind of military drama. That's not to say that they are some hyper aggressive state, but that the military and soldiers are a more important recurring motif in Russian pop culture than they are here.
Whoa. Which four channels are you getting? I know that канал1 is a pretty much constant 'breaking news' show; НТВ shows a fair bit of movies at some times, but the good classic cartoons, too; ТНТ does stupid sitcoms and game shows; 5 (I'm not sure what the name of that one is; they just use the number) shows a different mix of sitcoms and movies; Домашний shows old 'classic' teevee programs -- and yes, war movies; РенТВ I've not put a whole lot of time into watching, since they mainly seem to have just more of the similar lame sitcoms and Lifetime-style dramas; МУЗ is a sort of slavic MTV; and there's another one that does nature and historical documentaries, whose name I forget. There are also several other Russian-language channels that show a mix of shows from several other foreign countries dubbed into Russia. My favorite of these is called 2*2 -- it's got everything from Futurama to ATHF to classic Coyote-Roadrunner cartoons as well as a whole lot of local Russian ones.
It seems safe to say that the picture you're getting from Estonia is not particularly complete...

Quote Originally Posted by BigStar View Post
I couldn't stop thinking that I could probably take all of these fucks one on one fists only. Probably will get the chance to one day.
I'd love to see you try it. Then again, I suspect that a big-talking soft american would hardly be worth the waste of a real hard-core's time.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch

"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy

"[it]
is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
-----------------------------------------