Russia’s Threat to Nuke the “Near Abroad” is met with Silence

One gets the sensation that something is really out of kilter with the world that we live in. On Thursday, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, cautioned over NATO’s expansion eastward, and warned that the risks for Russia to be pulled into local conflicts have “risen sharply.”

Mr. Makarov would of course like to have it so that “what is sauce for the goose is NOT sauce for the gander.” No ethic of reciprocity here. If there is anyone who has constituted a threat to the Baltic peoples and a great many other peoples on the periphery of the Russian Empire for over the centuries, it is Russia herself, while the periphery itself gets beaten about the head and shoulders, and not vice versa. Russia continues to be permitted to take massive precautions against possible military threats, but perish the thought that any of her neighbors – overrun by Russia so many times before – might entertain thoughts of having viable defense postures.

Anyone who has studied Kremlinology and Russian history knows by heart the hypothesis about the Russians being terrified – to the point of not being able to sleep – of encirclement, which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would apparently give them some sort of unexplained right to expand their borders and keep expanding their borders because of this paranoia. Witness the rollback of the color revolutions and Russian attempts at reconquista of recent years.

For as long as I can remember, a large number of Western Russia-watchers have parroted in chorus: “poor things, they are deathly afraid of being encircled, we must try to understand them.” No one else in the world is permitted to prattle such nonsense, but then one is also not permitted to question the uniquely “mystical Russian soul”, which only Russians themselves are qualified to understand, while others are not. Don’t even try, it is beyond the comprehension of all others.

Wouldn’t it be more sensible for the Russians to create a reasonably reasonable form of government and a set of relations with their neighbors that are based on trust and goodwill? It is not as though Estonia had designs on Russia, nor does Georgia, nor Finland, nor Hungary, etc.

Makarov says that Russia is facing a heightened risk of being drawn into conflicts at its borders that have the potential of turning nuclear, blaming this on demographic issues. Russia’s military currently consists of approximately a million troops, but is set to dwindle somewhat. Those who track defense and armaments matters know of course that a future smaller (but better trained and better equipped) military force might be something that one needs to fear a good bit more than the larger but fairly undisciplined pool of troops that Russia has had in the recent past.

The entire Estonian population – in contrast to Russia – consists of about a million persons, with the Estonian Armed Forces being made up of some 6,000 men and women on active duty, plus reservists and the Defence League (think of a paramilitary Home Guard). Estonia doesn’t possess a single tank or warplane.

The US is engaged in Afghanistan and to some extent still in Iraq, and starting to focus on the Pacific. The US has wanted a reset with Russia pretty badly – unrequited love? Europe is nearly undefended, if one were to exclude the Brits and the French, and otherwise exaggerate a tad. What is General Makarov going on about?

So: while the top guy in the Russian military threatens the world (or at least its supposed Eastern European “sphere of influence”) with possible nuclear conflagration, engaging once again in the saber-waving and the pounding with shoes on lecterns that has unfortunately tended to be the hallmark of the country for just about as long as one can remember, what does Google News feature as its top story? A dozen protesting university students out at UC Davis getting pepper-sprayed by the police in the context of Occupy Wall Street. This with all due respect to the unresisting students, who didn’t really deserve to get maced as they were carted off to be booked.

Do we not live in a remarkable age? It is perhaps the best thing to do – to ignore the Russians and to not encourage them. To not take the bait proffered by the Bear.

Still, as Alice would cry: “The world is getting curioser and curioser”. Back in 1962, the world was brought to the brink of war by the Soviets trying to emplace nuclear missiles on Cuba. Now the head honcho in the Russian military warns of The End of Days for her neighbors, and is answered with a yawn as well as near media silence.

After a rankling 0-4 loss in Tallinn for Estonia last Friday that left a bad taste in the mouths of many, Estonia tied Republic of Ireland 1-1 in Dublin tonight – the result of a hard-fought, satisfying (for both sides) and fairly played game. ”Best performance ever”, this according to Estonian TV announcers, who said that on their “personal expectations scale”, Estonia attained four points in Dublin of a possible five. One has to also keep in mind what David Hytner of The Guardian reported from Dublin: “Estonia bore the scars from the first-leg. They missed three key players to suspension and lost a fourth, the left-back Dmitri Kruglov, to an early injury.” Ireland advances to the Euro Cup next year with Estonian best wishes, while the Estonian team can return home feeling good about itself.  It would be too much to expect Estonians to be elated, since Republic of Ireland attained a 5-1 aggregate win, but I’m writing here from a long-term and balanced Estonian perspective. Instead of returning home in shame, some Estonian players can possibly expect contract offers from decent teams. As long as they have jobs, Estonian football has prospects for improving and proceeding to a new level during the time frame of the next two, three or four years. Taavi Rähn is one guy to keep our eyes on, Martin Vunk is another, and Pavel Londak is a third.

The Irish, with their decades of experience, may still be able to boast of better handling of the ball and overall mastery, but Estonia rose from the ashes on Tuesday evening in Dublin’s snazzy Aviva stadium and didn’t give the Irish the satisfaction of a win on their own home pitch – a solid accomplishment. It was a good, clean and hard-fought contest that the Dutch referees permitted Estonia to play to the end with a full array of 11 players, compared to Friday, when the Estonian side was whittled down to 9 men.

The second half in particular was satisfying, with 800 Estonian fans joining in the chant: “Eesti – suru Iiri vastu muru!” – “Estonia – bring Ireland to her knees” (“press her onto the turf” is a more literal translation).

The overall consensus is that Estonian football has had a good year. One indication of this is psychological resilience. Not more than some years back, the 0-4 loss experienced on November 11 might have taken the team aback, but if they were somehow fazed, it didn’t show tonight – not one iota.

If things continue in the same manner, Estonia may realistically stand a chance of advancing next year, and if not, then a few years down the road. To block as many Irish shots as the Estonian side did and to cause a good bit of cliff-hanging titillation at about the 86th minute tonight and during the very last minutes of play- this is as good of a result as one could expect under the circumstances. A maximum result, actually.

Estonia may not quite be rocking them yet – “Buddy you’re a young man-hard man, shoutin’ in the street, gonna take on the world some day”, but she acquitted herself with mettle and more tonight. To engage in the making of predictions is a risky business, but who knows? The future of Estonian football may bear watching.

Did I mention? Vassiljev’s goal for Estonia, smashed in from 25 yards (meters) at the 57 minute mark was a gratifying one! It flew past Irish goalkeeper Shay Given with centimeters (inches) to spare.

Reflection does us good. As one reflects on Estonia and (European) football, one can be thankful that Estonia is back on the map of Europe again. It was bad – very bad – during the era of Soviet hegemony to have to live as men and women without  a country.  See here what Martin Reim – an Estonian football great – has to say about that, as rather nicely reported by the Irish Independent. I hope I haven’t linked to that previously.

The reality of the matter is that when a previously submerged nation such as Estonia reappears on the scene, both privileges and obligations come with the territory. It turns out that life is a contest, pretty much all of the time. Estonian sports underwent a reality check when we played last Friday and lost to Ireland 0:4.

That we have reentered the fray is good. We’re being measured in all sorts of areas under our own name again on the basis of our abilities and accomplishments. From a shaky start or practically from zero, Estonian football has gotten better over the course of twenty years, and will continue to improve. It’s incumbent upon us to to hone the blade and develop. On the other hand, this Lilliput of a nation has now also been reminded of who she is. We live in the world of the big dogs. EUFA as well as FIFA are “big dog” leagues. ”Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi” – “What is permitted for Jupiter is not (always) allowed to the oxen”, meaning what works for the big guys doesn’t always work for the smaller ones.

Sometimes wonders can be worked, but team sports will not necessarily be where Estonian athletes will shine in the future. Rather: we’ve always been a nation of individualists and of winners in one-man and one-woman disciplines. Names like those of Kristjan Palusalu, Paul Keres, Kristina Šmigun and Erki Nool are the ones who have made us proud. Individual Estonian athletes in one on one competitions will probably continue to stand the best chance in the future, which doesn’t mean we don’t need team sports or teamwork.

Something seemed to go wrong at A. Le Coq stadium in Tallinn on Friday. Not just in terms of the Estonian hosts undergoing a reality check, but also in respect to some of the refereeing. IMO, the Irish have railed for so long against the injustice done against them in Paris two years ago that the referees in Tallinn had “let’s not do another injustice to Ireland” on the brain. For more details, you can read an opinion piece by me at the Estonian State Broadcasting ERR site if you wish. It’s a longer magazine type of article.  (Click on the ERR link in the earlier sentence to go there).

Tonight, Estonia joins battle with Ireland once more in Dublin. It’s a bit of a long shot, somewhat shell-shocked as the team and the public are from Friday, but the athletes and their manager Tarmo Rüütli need and deserve our support.

Red Cards for All

When all else fails, Estonians resort by their very nature to one of the tactics also favored by Ireland’s archenemy  (England), meaning humor. Estonia’s dry and understated humor is akin to that of the Brits, and I find it to be to my liking. As I write, Estonian fans are wandering around Dublin showing red cards to passers-by. Although the hotel staff seems to be taking it with good humor, this sounds like a good way to get or give a bloody nose in your average working man’s pub.

Inspirational Stuff

One of my favorite scenes in the classical 1989 Finnish film “Winter War” involves Finnish soldiers preparing to go unto the breach against the Russian juggernaut in 1939, with a priest standing on a boulder and heartening the combatants, not unlike the famous St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V. So gird your loins and get thee hence, at least in spirit, if not in the flesh.

Here a recording of Richard Burton rallying the troops. Me, I think Burton performs a better rendition than those of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, with all affection for the latter (Olivier and Gielgud here).

Hopefully the Bard and Burton won’t give offense to random Irishmen who might stumble across today’s blog entry (no offense certainly intended, it is just hard to do better than the “Band of Brothers” speech). For everyone, but particularly for local fans who need some adrenalin as the Estonians unsheath their swords in Dublin, figuratively speaking, here’s the link to a war song in Estonian presented jointly by the RAM male choir and Metsatöll. “Raua needmine.”

Good luck!

An after-the-fact correction or adjustment: “Raua needmine” – “Curse Upon the Iron” is actually anti-war or anti-violence in nature, rather than a war chant. On the other hand, it sounds pretty martial. Summing up: Republic of Ireland was not up to the task of defeating Estonia in Dublin on her home turf, if not peat! (Though on aggregate, after two games, Ireland did advance against Estonia). Consequently – if Veljo Tormis’ “Raua needmine” helped keep Ireland from winning that particular Dublin game outright, that’s fine with me and a bunch of Estonia fans!

Estonia was trounced today at European football 4-0 in Tallinn by Ireland. The teams are slated to meet again next Tuesday in Dublin.

The Estonian Delfi news portal warned in an editorial earlier today against both excessive optimism as well as despondency, should Estonia lose.

There are any number of explanations for why the match turned out the way that it did. Although no one can accuse the Estonian soccer team of complacency, it was apparent as the evening wore on that Ireland was the more skilled team of the two. Better players, better communications on the field, better technique.

We need to draw the appropriate conclusions. If we do, over time, Estonian soccer will improve.

A few days ago, (November 9) The Irish Independent did a pretty good job of explaining why Estonian football, the level of which is improving, still has a long way to go. “From July 18, 1940 when they defeated Latvia 2-1 pre-occupation, Estonian withdrew from the beautiful game.”  As the Irish paper elaborates, Estonians didn’t play football during the Soviet occupation, because that’s what the Russians engaged in, along with ice hockey. Basketball, on the other hand, was an Estonian game, and “football lapsed into a coma”. Cycling and cross-country became favored Estonian sports in addition to basketball. There is more to be read about this in Simon Kuper’s 1994 book “Football Against the Enemy”, later released in the US as “Soccer Against the Enemy”.

Estonian football veteran Martin Reim thought before tonight’s game that even getting this far is a good accomplishment, considering how much lost time needs to be made up.

No excuses, Estonia needs to improve. Football may be a lot more popular now than it was two decades ago, but tonight’s match showed how much work still needs to be done. Barry Glendenning of the Guardian writes that Estonians “might have been a bit overwhelmed by the occasion of the biggest football match in their country’s history”.

Ireland, on the other hand, had a lot to lose, having been “perched between death and glory”, as the team’s captain Robbie Keane emphasized.

A Profusion of Yellow Cards

Estonia would have lost even without the “help” of the head referee Viktor Kassai, but more than one sports commentator felt Kassai ran amok tonight, “awarding” the Estonian side with penalties left and right while appearing to ignore several similar breaches committed by the Irish.

Bizarrely enough, Giovanni Trapattoni - the manager for Ireland – seemed to downright hint at the possibility of favoritism at yesterday’s press conference, saying “perhaps the referee will intervene on our behalf.”

One sports commentator for Estonian National Television said about the referee’s behavior: “What has taken place today is just not fair”. Similar sentiments were voiced by Barry Glendenning of the Guardian: “ANOTHER RED CARD! Estonia are now down to nine men, rather unfairly, it must be said. Their skipper Raijo Piiroja picks up his second yellow card in a few minutes for…. absolutely nothing that I could see.”

In all honesty, Estonia tried and had a few good moments, but was defeated by a better team from a country where the kids grow up playing soccer. No excuses, no sour grapes, we just need to improve. There is still the Tuesday match in Dublin. It was The Beach Boys who said it with “Be True to Your School“. It looks as though the Estonian team will need all of the moral support it can get!

Ireland scored at the thirteenth minute. The Irish visitors seem somewhat more adept, with the Estonians taking long shots that haven’t borne fruit. Also to Estonian detriment, Andrei Stepanov (Estonia) committed a foul against Robbie Keane at the 34 minute mark, receiving not one, but two yellow cards from the referee. The number of Estonians playing was reduced as a consequence from 11 to 10. Alan Tyers of The Telegraph writes ” It should be plain sailing (for the Irish) from here”, but it’s not over until the fat lady sings. The half-time break continues.

Haven’t properly delved into all options – but there are apparently live streaming possibilities for watching tonight’s Estonia-Ireland soccer match (commercial feeds are available, that much I’m sure of). The following link purports to be free, I don’t vouch for it.

Streaming

Here is the Estonian Television live feed with Estonian-language commentary

ETV

An alternative is to follow written coverage of the game in real time at the Telegraph newspaper.

Daily Telegraph

Ireland is tipped by some as the favorite, while others say 50-50. Tonight there is the “home stadium advantage”. The stadium is sold out in any event. Most of Estonia is glued to their TV sets. The national anthems have been sung, kickoff is just minutes away. TV announcer says the Estonian team has never before had a game like this.

Never in days of old, when I had the “enormous fortune” to be stuck with football yobs in the subways of Munich (“wir sind die blöde Idioten” or “we are the stupid Idiots” echoing around innocent passers-by as their rallying cry), did I think I’d ever venture to write a piece about soccer (European football), but as Butch Cassidy once declared, “there are no rules in a knife fight”. There is always a first time for everything. A good Estonian has gotta do what he has gotta do.

Estonia (population 1.3 million) faces Republic of Ireland (population 4.5 million) in a two-game play-off during the first half of November. Round 1 to transpire this Friday – Nov. 11 – while the second match will be played Tuesday, Nov. 15 in Dublin.

Responding preemptively to nitpickers, “bantamweight” is of course boxing nomenclature, but you get my drift.

What’s at stake is a place at next summer’s UEFA European Football Championship – commonly referred to as Euro 2012 or the Euro Cup. The Irish soccer team arrives in Tallinn tonight (Wednesday), with a considerable number of their countrymen in tow. This is a considerably bigger deal for Eesti than your average sports event!

Friday kickoff  (with time conversions for friends abroad)

- Tallinn time 21:35 (9:35 p.m.)

- London and Dublin time 19:35 (7:35 p.m.)

- New York and Toronto: 2:35 p.m.

- Los Angeles: 11:35 a.m.

Results should be known about two hours later.

Lindpere Jets in to Lend a Hand

Reinforcements have arrived in Tallinn in the person of Joel Lindpere, whose day job is with the NY Red Bulls. This might be pretty strong medicine! During the 2011 season with the Red Bulls, Lindpere set the single-season record for games played (34) and minutes (3,048), scoring seven goals and adding seven assists. Through two seasons in New York, Lindpere has a total of 10 goals. Irish Goalkeeper Shay Given concedes: “this is the strongest Estonian team ever.”

Talent Joel Lindpere Comes Home - photo Jarle Vines 2008

All three Irish goalkeepers are reported to be experiencing injury problems, which might handicap the guest team. Still, Estonian soccer blogger Vaapo Vaher worries: “What will happen to the Estonian psyche and national pride if we take a drubbing? Austerlitz is possible, but then so is Waterloo”.

What’s at Stake in more Detail

Irish Assistant Manager and local hero Marco Tardelli has told Ireland’s players they could be preparing for the most important games of their lives. Both personal aspirations and “God and country” are involved. Which side gets to represent their nation next year? Which one will get to be noticed in the Polish and Ukrainian venues during the European Cup showdown? Tardelli: “It’s important to qualify because the players need a boost as well in terms of new contracts and visibility. For some players, maybe it is the last chance to be seen around the world. …for me, it was very important because I am very close to my country, and I think these players are very close to their country”. Tardelli notes how emotional he felt when he stood on the pitch during the national anthem, and figures that goes for his comrades in arms as well.

If football is metaphor and also a substitute for mayhem in earnest, this upcoming faceoff takes on big proportions for Estonian sports history, holding the promise of either “the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat”, as ABC’s Wide World of Sports used to so aptly put it.

Here you have it: two countries that have bucked a lot of adversity in their histories. Countries at opposite ends of the periphery of Europe, still struggling to find their place in the sun, and not just in sports. Not a match of heavyweight Titans, but of determined small warriors, both hoping for some good news, and wanting a diversion from the economic doldrums than plague the Continent, its outlying territories, and a lot of other places.

Estonia’s skiing reputation is in tatters after two-time Olympics winner Andrus Veerpalu tested positive for doping. The movers and shakers in Estonian skiing have largely come and gone. To borrow a German catchphrase, the decathlon too tends to be “cold coffee” for Estonia, now that Erki Nool is in retirement. On the other hand, tennis is up and coming. Kaia Kanepi has recently been on a roll, thanks in part to a new coach, may have 3-4 years of longevity left in her, and definitely bears watching.

The old joke ran that a masochist’s dream was a season ticket to Estonia’s soccer matches, but that has changed somewhat. Without wanting to raise hopes too high (both Kanepi and the Estonian football team have struggled with psychological composure in the past, but Kanepi in particular has improved considerably!), here we have it in the form of Estonia and Ireland: the immovable pint-sized object meets the irresistible pint-sized force. Which one will be which we don’t know yet. Depends on who gets the upper hand on Friday in offense, really.

Konstantin Vassiljev and Lindpere will be the guys to watch on the Estonian side.

Now is the time for all good Estonians to at least temporarily drop the Nordic cool composure and get behind their team!

Ever since 1994, August 9 has been the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, thanks to an initiative of the UN General Assembly. Even if the UN is sometimes a strange and weak organization, not that I personally would like to have it any more powerful than it already is, it has its strong suits.

In 2004, the UN General Assembly proclaimed a Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. The goal of the Second Decade is to further the “strengthening of international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development, by means of action-oriented programs and specific projects, increase technical assistance, and relevant standard-setting activities”. The quote sounds like bureaucratese, but the idea of a day for First Nations is needed.

 Estonians: are we “indig” or are we mankurts*? 

Estonians too are an indigenous people. Modern Estonia rests on the foundations of a number of ancient tribes who have now substantially but not utterly coalesced into a whole.

Some regions of Estonia have boasted a rejuvenation of local identity in recent years. This is evident most of all in Southeastern Estonia, which is the home of the Seto people. Down the road from the Setos to the West, the Võro dialect or language is spoken. Then there are the Mulks, and so on. In Southern Estonia and elsewhere, other local dialects also exist, hanging on by the skin of their teeth. While the Setos and Võro speakers are doing reasonably well, others are less successful and some will probably end up packing it in in the not too distant future – for example the South Tartu dialect of my ancestors.

In comparison to the situation just a few generations ago, many Estonians have more difficulty than they used to in thinking of themselves as the maarahvas or “the people of the land”. This has to do in part with an inferiority complex of the past that was inculcated during the many centuries we tilled the soil of the manors that belonged to foreign owners, under what was essentially a colonial caste system, but also in more recent times, with Estonia largely ceasing to be an agricultural society.

Now that Estonia is independent again – to the extent that one can be “independent” at all within the confines of the EU – there are many erosive trends afoot. Though not sufficient, there are also antidotes that help in part to strengthen traditional Estonian ways of doing things. A return in many households to the baking of traditional sourdough rye bread is but one example of many.

An understandable source of cognitive dissonance in the heads of some is the tough time they have with reconciling notions that appear – to the uninitiated – to be mutually exclusive. Which should I do? Modernize? Remain true to myself? Can I figure out a path that facilitates both, or does one rule out the other, as some folks seem to think? It is unfortunate that for some, traditional culture is still regarded as a stigma and a synonym of supposed backwardness. National Geographic magazine, for example, has changed in modern times, but many years ago, it both wittingly and unwittingly propagated stereotypes about the “backwardness” of the first nations of our planet. “Traditionalist renewal” is not an easy trick to pull off, nor is it easy to regain self-assuredness, once natural confidence has been eroded.  On too many occasions, when Estonians do try to recreate the traditional ways that were largely smothered by the years under the USSR, or when they engage in experiments of “ethnofusion”, the result is a kitschy mashup.

Stigmas of old and Modern Siren Songs both work Against Traditional Culture

Confident and secure when independent 800 years ago, the “people of the land” eventually developed a fear of being classed in the eyes of supposedly “superior cultures” in the same category as the peoples of the world who are regarded as going about their apparently primitive daily business in loincloths with a bone stuck through their noses, which shows how many Estonians learned to first feel uncomfortable about themselves, and then to look down on other native peoples. Try as we may to shake off stereotypes, “indigenous peoples” are still poorly regarded and discriminated by many, in a way that reveals the lack of subtlety of the condescending ones. Some modern indigenous peoples are so far “developed” by now that they are no longer capable of regarding themselves as the offspring of traditional cultures, having lapsed into apparently irretrievable denial about their own roots.

Modern Estonia teems with tourists. In the capital, you can’t see the forest for the trees any longer. To hear Estonian spoken on a summer day in the heart of Tallinn’s old town is almost a rare occurrence, with no exaggeration.

With things going the way they are, one expects that the Tibetan language may eventually cease to be heard in Lhasa, the character of which is being constantly altered, as though a neutron bomb were at work there that functions relentlessly with the passage of time, instead of in one fell swoop.  Tallinn is not Lhasa, but the two are not that different either. Small cultures don’t stand up as well under wear and tear as those that have more reserves to draw on.

Estonia didn’t take the road less taken, chosen by Bhutan, where the level of tourist activity has been restricted in favor of what has been designated as sustainable high quality tourism. Access is also often restricted nowadays by many famed national parks. The neoliberal ethos, on the other hand, which means uninhibited free movement of everything, come hell or high water, doesn’t permit peoples and cultures to be regarded in the same way as the Serengeti or Yellowstone. When the essence of small nations is diluted beyond recognition and redemption, they are lost.

Compared to Estonia of the prewar period, many residents have lost contact with their own “creation narrative”. Things as banal as consumerism play into the equation. There is a lot of catching up to do, after the Soviet Union kept Estonians from shopping until they drop for such a long time.

The struggle to remain alive – the struggle to remain who you are, daring to be different or “specific” in a positive sense, as a contributor to diversity – is occasionally featured as a component part of multiculturalism, but many proponents of multiculturalism seem to have a hard time getting the mix of their conceptual model adjusted right. While tolerance is or can be a virtue, and hospitality is an almost universal dictum of native peoples, the “blender approach” at the other end of the spectrum is permanently destructive of native homelands. Attitudes towards first nations have improved since “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee” was published, but lack of awareness remains a big problem. Most people accept that biodiversity is desirable, but awareness of the need to keep human cultural diversity from slipping away as well is far from ideal.

Baluch jewelry (source: Wikipedia - photo credit Usualphonexs)

The Different “Orchards” of Mankind Require Effort to Maintain

Which would be preferable –  a bar providing choices from a long row of glasses, one containing pineapple juice, the next ones each containing juice from the many types of cherry that exist, these then followed by mandarin orange, etc., or a single goblet with a multi-fruit blend?

Even if some customers out there might prefer the blended non-choice default drink to all the others, a broad variety of choices very much deserves to be kept on the menu. The individual flavors should be on offer as well as blends. If these many choices are to remain available, someone needs to make sure that as many varying fruit tree orchards as possible continue to be tended, not eradicated.

The list of the “many flavors of humankind” goes on and on. Would anyone at all prefer the end result if all of the individual flavors at Ben and Jerry’s ice cream shop or your local gelateria were thrown together in a cement mixer, with the mix ending up as the only remaining flavor on offer until the end of time, much like the ubiquitous and omnipresent Golden Delicious apple that tends to drive out all the other contenders on the produce shelves of many supermarkets?

The Estonian linguist and clergyman Jakob Hurt once said: “Estonians aren’t flies, who are born today, only to die tomorrow, but an old and tenacious breed of people, who have lived on this planet for a great many years, and who will continue to be around long after we’re gone.”  In reality, the Estonian culture – a small one consisting of less than a million souls – is under threat because of a variety of influences and pressures.

Estonian Embroidery of Old from Kihnu Island - Snowdrop'i näputööd

August 9 should be in the minds not only of the various tribes of the Andaman Sea area and the rain forests of South America and all those who can relate to them. It should also be in the minds of the Welsh and the Bretons and the Ingrian Finns and the Baluch speakers. That is to say: front and center in the awareness of all of the indigenous peoples who would like to still be around long after we’re gone, and in the minds and actions of their friends.

It is not as though Estonians didn’t work to some significant degree to retain their identity, but it is a struggle to reconcile being at the cusp of modernization in some areas, while also remaining identifiably Estonian. One has to give equal shrift to trying to be adaptively-innovatively street wise on the one hand, and on the other to also allow tradition with all of her charm and wisdom of the ages to live on and thrive.

The “discipline” involved in keeping a culture alive has a lot to do with everyday behaviors, which involves learning and sticking to traditional beliefs and ways of doing things. It has to do with literally practicing known customs and habits, which need not exclude experimenting with new ways and adaptation. The main rule is: to thine own self be true! The Estonians actually have a fairly complex cyclical calendar of rituals and significant traditional milestones that some organizations such as the Maavalla koda try to keep people mindful of.

 It’s Great to Strive to Save Cute Animals, but what of Languages and Cultures?

Many of the families of man are breathing their last. Languages are going extinct, and cultures dying. As the lights go out, the world is being rendered less charming, less authentic, less interesting.

There are many charitable undertakings out there that strive to save what can be saved of various plant and animal species. Manatees and Amur leopards and porpoises all deserve a helping hand. But why is it that some of the people who are protective of endangered animals and heirloom fruits and vegetables are either involved in planing out old and dying cultures, or are at best lukewarm or inactive when it comes to lending a hand to the ancient families and cultures of man? Something doesn’t compute. Why are human languages and cultures less deserving of a helping hand than Panda bears? Why are human cultures not deemed more significant?

The keys: Preservation and even Expansion of Human Ecotopes, Minimal Intervention, Best Practices 

By the word “expansion” above, I don’t mean spilling over borders, or military expansionism. The Siberian flying squirrel Pteromys volans – the mascot of the Estonian Fund for Nature and a prime example of the treasures that exist in Estonia’s animal kingdom – has been having a hard time of it in recent years because of logging companies that fell old growth forests. The flying squirrel makes its home in aspen trees in these old growth forests. The more felling of trees that goes on, the more difficult it is for the flying squirrel to be able to make its way from one patch of forest to another that is suitable as a habitat.

What the flying squirrel needs is for humans to figure out “bespoke” ways to stop messing with the habitat that this little animal requires in order to continue to exist. Where possible, the habitat area should be increased, not decreased. Live and let live.

In a similar way, the territory of Estonian could sustain more Estonians that she currently accommodates. The question is: what measures should a national fitness strategy include in order to get young people to stay in country, make their homes here, and feel secure?  We need more Estonians, who should live smarter, not just harder.

Cultures need to be allowed to remain themselves, which means we need to resist the typically human compulsion to intervene in their lives of others. Insensitive and uninvited forms of “help” can wreak irreversible destruction when unthinkingly or ineptly applied.

Something is wrong if one feels a need to almost be somehow apologetic (actually I don’t, but I do feel pressure) when emphasizing that it isn’t a sin for first nations to try to prevail and survive. It is good for those on the outside to try contribute in a really aware way to measures that give breathing room and oxygen to the still extant tribes. One should focus first on those that are in danger but still viable, and when possible, also to those in dire straits. Often such measures mean the staving off and ceasing of disruptive activities, such as stopping logging where it impacts harshly on indigenous peoples, etc. If the most important things the flying squirrel needs are a larger ecotope than the one it has currently been left with, and “noninterference” in its ecotope, the same applies to native human cultures. If we’re to do more than pay lip service to diversity, this requires that growth conditions be enabled in the native homelands of the indigenous peoples.

How a native culture sustains itself should be its own matter, although native cultures probably don’t always have sufficient awareness of “best practices”, and a lot could be done in that area. Cultures would like to be allowed to develop at their own pace, on their own conditions. The very allure of “progress” can put an indigenous people in danger. Is being given the right to run casinos truly a gift to the native Americans, or will it be the instrument of their final downfall? Is this not fool’s gold and almost a form of black humor?

If one acknowledges that there is a need to feed and sustain diversity – to ensure that diversity is not eradicated into a gray and irreversible “one size fits all” future, one should get behind those who understand what they’re doing and do something to contribute to the sustainability of diversity. One needs to tread lightly, but act we should, out of thanks to the goodness of genuine diversity. The more tribes that survive, the more multifaceted and diverse of a world we can enjoy. If we do the “right thing”, Discovery Channel will continue to be able to turn out new ethnographic and travel documentaries for a long time to come, instead of being forced to resort someday to showing chronicles of the last days of numerous cultures that we lost because of encroachment on their territories, along with lack of compassion and neglect.

In Estonia, check out the website of the Maavalla Koda http://www.maavald.ee/eng/

An organization that does excellent work in London is Survival International. http://www.survivalinternational.org/

Both deserve your support!

Survival International: https://www.survivalinternational.org/donate

Maavalla Koda

Account nr. 333805270003 Sampo Bank

Danske Bank A/S Estonia branch, Address: Narva mnt. 11, 15015 Tallinn, Estonia, phone: + 372 6 800 800, fax: + 372 6 752 803 - SWIFT: FORE EE 2X , E-mail: ariklient@sampopank.ee

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* Indig, short for “indigenous”, is a slang term that has sometimes been used by U.S. Special Forces soldiers, who work a lot with various ethnic groups, to indicate a member of a native population. It is not pejorative, or at least it shouldn’t be. The term mankurt refers to a person who cannot recall his or her cultural roots and origin. The word comes from a Turkic myth popularized by Chinghiz Aitmatov in his excellent novel “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years“.

The Bad Dream Accelerates

In 1984, a fuss erupted in America about a film called “Red Dawn”. Left-leaning critics panned the movie, which is about an invasion and partial takeover of the United States by the Soviets and their allies, calling it anticommunist hysteria. In one of the first scenes of the film, paratroopers land on the grounds of a school while a teacher is talking to pupils in a classroom. When he goes to check on what’s going on, he’s cut down by a burst of rifle fire. While the movie isn’t as bad as B-grade, it doesn’t aspire to artistic greatness either. Even if the film doesn’t rank up there with masterpieces, that doesn’t mean that events of this kind didn’t actually take place in countries like Poland, Tibet and Estonia. Only people who aren’t familiar with the cases of Estonia and Tibet, among other similar ones would say that the basic premise of Red Dawn is wrong, or that such things never happened in recent times.

In the USSR, during the infamous show trials and the Great Terror of the thirties, the wolves devoured one another as well the innocent people who got in the way. Collateral damage, as Stalin would say. “Chips fly”. When Stalin broke down Estonia’s fences, it was inevitable that the residents of the Happy Country portrayed by Washburne wouldn’t be spared the blood and dirt of his totalitarianism.

“Spheres of Influence” – Phase One of the Coming Soviet Occupation 

In 1939, the Estonian government gave in to overwhelming Soviet pressure, after Hitler and Stalin had already secretly divided Europe into “spheres of influence”. There were three phases involved in wolfing and wearing Estonia down. The first and least traumatic phrase — as though ultimatums and having foreign troops forced on you weren’t traumatic enough — was the nine-month so-called “period of the bases,” when the Estonian leadership still thought or hoped that they had reason to trust the assurances of their Russian counterparts, and during which Estonia remained a sovereign nation, at least nominally. The Red Army basically stayed in the bases it had been ceded, at least as far as domestic developments were concerned, and the Soviets initially engaged in “only” relatively moderate amounts of mischief in Estonian affairs. But for teenagers like my parents were back then — “products” of Estonian independence, as they used to say — to witness even this was unsettling, to put it mildly, along with the truly depressing knowledge that Stalin used the air bases provided to him in Estonia to bomb the cities of our neighbors in Finland.

Russian interference in Estonian internal affairs continued to be jacked up. The overall situation got incrementally worse over the months to come, as Moscow fomented a new coup d’etat in Estonia, for the second time in some 15 years. In bad faith, the USSR now put the Soviet troops that had been garrisoned in neutral Estonia to interventionary use, meddling in Estonia’s internal affairs.

To gloss over the actual annexation of Estonia in 1940 is a sin, but I hope to revisit this next phase in the future, possibly in a book. Put briefly, Estonia was soon to be incorporated by force into the USSR, against the will of the people. Now the arrests and the disappearances begin to multiply. After the annexation on August 6, they transpire on the territory of what had been a sovereign European country, incorporated into the Soviet Union through the mechanisms of rigged elections and other subterfuge.

Phase Two of the Soviet Occupation – Annexation and Incorporation

In the beginning, Soviet troops had “merely” spilled over the border into Estonia. Now the bases no longer contained them, and they then came provocatively out onto the streets, interfering in Estonia’s political life, aided by the advance team that had worked out of the Soviet Embassy in Tallinn to bring the annexation to fruition.

Red Army troops Emerge onto the Streets of Tallinn - 1940

Stalin wasted no time in deploying additional henchmen to Estonia, who were assisted by a small number of local collaborators. These collaborators — the so called “June communists” (useful idiots, really) would later be cast aside, once they were no longer useful to Stalin, and disposed of by the alpha wolves in Soviet Russia.

The terror that ordinary Russians had known for the past two decades under the Bolsheviks was now bluntly exported to lands that had previously been European parliamentary democracies — the unsuspecting Baltic States. The new regime now decorated the victim nations with all of the gaudy propagandistic trappings of Moscow’s Red Square and hundreds of other Russian cities.

People were forced to participate in parades festooned with giant portraits of Stalin and the other leaders of the USSR. My mother managed to avoid being impressed into the ranks of the young people who donned the red kerchief of the of the Young Pioneers and also the Stalin cult of the Komsomol youth organization that had already engulfed neighboring Russia years before, but she did have to sit in class as independence-era teachers were forced to mouth the robust and hackneyed doctrine of the new regime, while surreptitiously trying at the same time by various means to stand by their charges and keep hope alive.

If one of the driving forces behind the Great Terror that had gripped the USSR (which, until this rupture into the Free World, had previously been an internal tragedy of Soviet Russia) was Stalin’s paranoia, coupled to his desire to maintain a tight grip on power, then in Soviet-occupied Estonia, the primary objective of the terror was to bring Estonian citizens to heel attitudinally, initially by eliminating their leaders and patriotically minded people. The idea was to paralyze the population into ceasing to resist. After World War II, additional terror and repressive methods would be applied in order to destroy the Estonian guerrilla movement and to force landowners into joining Soviet collective farms, but that is another story.

First they took Poland. After unsuccessfully trying to take Finland, they took the Baltic States. As Istvan Deak writes in his review in The New Republic of “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder, “…both the Nazis and the Soviets aimed at the fatal weakening of the Polish nation through the elimination of its military and administrative elite, its clergy, its intelligentsia, and its bourgeoisie. For the purpose of ridding the country of all elements potentially inimical to German and Russian supremacy, it mattered little whether a Polish-speaking merchant in Lwów (Lviv) was deported for being a bourgeois or for being a Jew, or whether a Polish peasant in the Białystok region was shot for being a kulak or for being a subhuman Slav.”

In Poland, the Soviets and the Nazis ganged up that country at the same time, in cahoots. The difference in the case of the Baltic States is that Soviet terror came first, which was followed by Hitler’s occupation and his crimes against humanity, and then the Soviet crimes against humanity were visited upon us a second time in 1944, under the guise of “liberation”. False liberation, to be precise.

Photo sources

1. http-//www.nlib.ee/html/expo/p90/p1/40.html

2. http://www.eag.unicweb.ee/ewmootor4.html

To be continued 

“This is the captain speaking.” I undertook this series of essays with clear goals in mind, one of which was to devote a little bit of space to the June 14, 1941 deportations per se, and to some of the victims. I haven’t been able to get to that yet.

As can happen with the best-laid plans of mice and men, I missed my own deadline, wanting to have been done by the 14^th.  As someone who writes out of his free time, I hadn’t adequately foreseen the labyrinth of issues that I felt was necessary to cover  in order to tell the story properly. To make it come together, there were certain topics that ate up more time than I had figured on, along with the tuning up of raw texts.

Yesterday, Estonians and Latvians and Lithuanians marked the seventieth anniversary of the first of the two great Soviet era deportations in the Baltic States (the first was in 1941, and the second one eight years later). Typically, many Estonians light candles and put them in the window. Flags flew at half-mast. It simply isn’t true that Estonians aren’t spiritual people. We just have our own ways of getting in touch with our inner selves, and in this case with the departed.

I live at a distance of 200 yards from railroad tracks that were used by Soviet soldiers and NKVD personnel for the purpose of transporting families who supposedly constituted “threats to Soviet security” to distant Siberia. The freight cars of this particular depot stood very close to my home, and we have a small memorial statue marking the events of June 14, 1941 right there, by the train tracks next to our youth center.

In the evening, when our Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and other officials came to speak and an orchestra played, I only had to walk a few minutes in order to go and listen and reflect.

A New Film, Well Worth Watching

In the evening, Estonian State Television showed one of the best documentary films that I think has ever come from Estonia, about the trail of tears that the Estonian abductees of 1941 were taken upon. It is a film called “Malestuste jogi”, or River of Memories.  Those who speak Estonian can watch by clicking on the link in the previous sentence. It should be worth the time that you invest in watching it. I hope it doesn’t just get translated into English and other languages, but also gets shown at a lot of festivals. It is a poignant film, and one that has been told in such a universally understandable manner that anyone in the world ought to be able to follow and learn from it.

The last bit of the evening was difficult, because River of Memories comes to a close with a seemingly unending list of names of deported people who perished while being transported to truly godforsaken villages, often abandoned now, which are situated in Tomsk Oblast of Russia along the Vasyugan river, or who died after arrival there. The cause of death in most cases was starvation, compounded by illness and other factors. A great many of the names of those who had perished were the names of children.

I intend to finish the string of essays off with a definitive conclusion, and that needs to be written too. Other things clamor for my attention, so it looks as though my tempo of postings is going to slow down. I will however, during upcoming days, post several segments that I’ve succesfully managed to finish. Some time from now – I cannot say exactly when, I’ll bring the series to what I feel is a successful conclusion, with all bases covered and the i’s dotted and t’s crossed.