Estonia Today

City under siege The London riots. Could it happen in Tallinn?

The end of Newspapers What the hacking scandal means for the newspaper industry.

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-12-09T16:59:00.000-08:00

Veerpalu the new Linford Christie
By Abdul Turay
Publish December 10 2011

Skiing superstar's Andrus Veerpalu reputation had died and with it the belief of an entire nation.

I once said that Estonians act and think like black people. This sorry mess with Andrus Veerpalu seems to confirms it. Something very similar happened to my own people about a decade ago.

There are about one and a half million black people in Britain, about the same number as the population of Estonia. We are also called Afro-Caribbean because most of us have roots in the former British colonies in the Caribbean.

Estonians tend to think of black culture in term of black Americans or black Africans they do not think about black British culture or black European culture of any description for that matter. This is common ,the World thinks like. It's frustrating.

The black community in Britain feels, somewhat, neglected. Our achievements, our literature, our art, our music and our science is rarely celebrated outside of Britain itself.

So for us to have a World class athlete, an Olympic champion is a big deal. Just the same as Veerpalu for Estonia.

Our sporting hero was Linford Christie. he won the gold medal in the 100 metre dash at the ripe age of 32 after years of trying at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. He remains the oldest man ever to win the sprint, so it was a great emotional victory.

When I spoke to black Britons of my generation about the Veerpalu case, they all to a person had the same reaction. Without any prompting from me they said:

“Oh....this is like Linford Christie.”

You see Christie like Veerpalu got caught up in a doping scandal. What happened next is very instructive as to what has happened, what can happen and what will happen, what ever the outcome of the appeal.

The similarities between Christie and Veerpalu are spooky. Both men have immense personal charm. Both were widely regarded as upright and honest, and here is the significant part, both failed doping test towards the end of their careers when they were semi-retired.

In 1999 it was announced that Christie had over a 100 times the permitted levels of the performance enhancement drug nandrolone in his system.

He has always denied any wrong doing and his supporters used the same argument that Veerpalu supporters are using today.

"Why would a man who is virtually retired anyway, use drugs?”

None the less, he was found guilty by the International Amateur Athletics Federation and banned from sport and from any further Olympic competition.

At the time of the scandal, black Britons were in anguish, calling up the community newspapers, issuing death threats against reporters. The feeling was, let the national press report it if they want, we, as a people, must stand behind our man.

Here in Estonia, my colleagues were stunned at the viciousness of the reaction to them merely reporting the news. One of them told me, they have never seen anything like it, even the bronze night wasn't as bad. They could not understand why anybody would threaten to kill reporters.

It didn't surprise me at all. Nation's can grieve just like individuals grieve.

In the Kübler-Ross model psychological model, grieving goes through five stages. We have seen the anger and the denial. We have seen the bargaining.

But as the evidence becomes more damning, time passes and people become more reflective the mood changes.

What stuck me about last week's events when the International Ski Federation (FIS) concluded that the positive result will stand wasn't the drop in “Veerpalu believers” down from 89 percent to 66 percent in the Spring, but the fairly muted reaction from the die-hards “believers” toward the press.

The story isn't attracting as many column inches as it once did. People would rather focus on other things, the presidential debate, the Centre Party leadership campaign even the weather.

More is going on. Judging from my experience with Christie, the main emotions people are feeling are disconnectedness and numbness. Most people just don't want to hear about it any more, how much more curse reporters. Following Veerpalu career used to make people happy, now it makes them sad, even the believers. This is the depression stage of the Kübler-Ross model.

A friend of mine called this type of situation, a living death or judgement day.
It is when the body refuses to die but you get no pleasure in life any more.

Yet there is hope, there is always hope.

This business with Christie happened 12 years ago. Today Christie is still an icon, a hero, T.V personality, role model for children and all round good guy.

People of my generation have come to terms with what happened, we are not upset by it. We have moved on. O.K he may have been guilty in 1999 but no one can prove that he did anything wrong in 1992 when it counted. We prefer to remember his achievements. This is the acceptance stage of the model.

Speaking for myself, even though I am aware intellectually that Christie might have been guilty, on an emotional level I still refuse to believe that he ever cheated. Does that make me Estonian, or does that make Estonians black?

Talk to younger people and their reaction is very interesting. There is total amnesia. They have absolutely no memory that Christie was ever was accused of, how much more found guilty of, doing anything wrong.

As far as they are concern Christie is a great man who was once Olympic champion and has a sports stadium named after him. He coaches, gives talks, and works to promote sports and healthy living.

It doesn't end so happily for all discredited sports heroes. Canadian athlete, Ben Johnson, a rival of Linford Christie, was also caught in a doping scandal. He was Olympic champion back in 1988. Today in Canada and the rest of the World his name is mud, if anyone can remember who he was at all.

The difference between Johnson and Christie/Veerpalu, was that Johnson was implicated at the height of his career, just after he won the gold medal.

It doesn't matter if Veerpalu is innocence or guilty. I don't mean this rhetorically, I mean this literally because there is a real difference between the long term public perception and reputation of someone who was banned for doping when they were semi-retired and someone who is banned just before during after their career peak.

The finding doesn't prove that he was doping at the last Olympics or the one before that. No one will ever prove that, because as we have all read, these tests didn't exist back then.

The Estonian people will either never accept that Veerpalu was guilty or will prefer to remember his achievements.

In a decade from now, young people won't even remember that Veerpalu was ever caught up in a doping scandal. He will still be a national hero just like Linford Christie.

2011-12-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

Socialist have a conscience
By Sven Mikser
Published 27 August 2010

Columnist Abdul Turay finds in yesterday that the socialist(sotsids) are freaks, The proof, The sotsid are not in government yet their polling rating is in fourth place. Despite Turay's provocative style his opinion story contains questions which deserve an answer.
There are many reason why Estonia politics have leaned to the right for the last 20 years. Sotsid propaganda weakness is only one and not the biggest. Yes the Reform political technology has had most skilful, moving from in 1990 gradual competition in paying for education and medical services, to in 2003 the parent's salaries “soft” sphere, and in the year 2007 bronze portable “nationalism”. But this crude right wing agenda still has basic fundamental errors.
The centre party(Keskerakond) has corned the “disappointment” niche. And this niche is incredible big and lively nuisance for the right, who ruthlessly casts the weakest to the side. The crude right wing and populist left wing are elbowing closer to the centre. This demands an injection of ingenuity.
The secret of success: The Reform and Centre party(Keskerakond).
The advantage of the right wing worked until the crisis as Estonia society developed the idea, of cultivated, tacky materialist, success cults. Part of being successful was drinking the drink and voting for the party of the success.
The sotsid type of voter is a concerned intellectual about our country, in the case of whom public consciousness is assumed, and he agrees to sell his skills almost for free and exclusively from a sense of mission. This perception have to break.
In addition some of the cultural tip vote for the sotsid, he whose heart beats to the left but to whom personal predicament doesn't depend on whether the government carries out right or left wing politics.
The sotsids challenge is a dialogue with all those, who real situation depends of the economy of the country and the socio-policies of the government.
Keskerakond's popularity is based on a self image which depicts them as the marginalised centre, who competitors bully them, the national power, the media. The marginalised have simply to identify with the marginalised.
In addition Keskerakond solutions are simple. The underemployed person turns to his own worries to get solutions by way if one party has a “national show” offering 700 kroon, the other is offering strategic development plan, then is not difficult to guess who gets the vote.
Sotsid must express the complicated world order in words everybody can understood. In addition we must get from thinkers to doers.
We are brave enough to say this. Turay finds that the sotsid lack the courage to say in what they believe, But we are brave.
For example we believe that the tax system is just this lever, with which the country can effect social development. Our goal are reduction in income gaps and regional disparity, restriction is the use of unsustainable resources, saving in times of economic growth and protecting jobs in times of decline and supporting exports. To achieve these goal we must set an additional taxes on very high incomes, tax high luxury consumption and strategic resource use and free up special benefit taxes for people doing investment, reduce VAT for food, medicine and cultural service, We have the courage to defend our position which last year cost us a place in government. But we will come back again.
We are for the poor not for the rich. Poverty especially poverty for children, is a threat to the survival of the Estonian nation. The solution is only generous support at birth but changing the child support system in a way that supports the growth in birth of children. Not throwing money from an aircraft but in support services,child care, and education. We have values and we are ready to defend them. And above all we are people who have the will to carry what we believe.

(ed: note)Sven Mikser went on to become leader of the social democrats soon after this article was published. The Social Democrats did well in the March 2011 elections overtaking the Centre Party (Keskerakond)

2011-11-26T18:54:00.000-08:00

Survival of the fitness

City under siege The London riots. Could it happen in Tallinn?

The end of Newspapers What the hacking scandal means for the newspaper industry.

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Survival of the fittest
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 23 November 2011

Never, ever start a story with a statistic a colleague once told me when I just started out in journalism. Just to contrary, here's one you are probably familiar with.

In Estonia, life expectancy for men is 65.9 years, for women 76.8 years. In the U.K. life expectancy for men is 77.2 years for women life expectancy is 81.6. In Sweden life expectancy for men is 78.7 years and 83 years for woman.

Lies, lies and statistics. These statistics aren't actually lies but they don't tell the whole story. I have travelled a bit, so the newspaper asked me tell that story and interpret these statistics.

Let's start with what you probably know. Health care and sickness prevention in Estonia, and indeed in the Central and Eastern Europe in general, is better than in the developing world but still not up to the standards of Old Europe. So much so that even though women outlive men everywhere, British and Swedish men outlive Estonian women. The reason for this is there is a a strong correlation between life expectation and prosperity both for individuals and on a societal level. A basket case economy like Zimbabwe has a life expectation rates of about 44 years.

The main issue everybody is worried about is why Estonian men dying off faster than Estonian women?

Dr Eero Merelind, chairman of the Estonian Health Fund, is also a family doctor who practised in the United Kingdom for a while. He thinks the health problems in Britian are similar to Estonia, heart disease, blood circulations and accidents but the mentality is a little different.

“Estonian men are a little bit shy to meet the doctor. They need the support from the wife,” he said.

But he says Estonian men drink too much and are prone to accidents.

“This is coming from the historical background, maybe too liberal alcohol policy.
“Young men are looking for adrenaline, also work accidents.”

Dr Merelind is right, Estonian men drink too much.

People forget the size of the problem, in many cultures people hardly drink at all. Obviously in Muslim countries it's not allow. I have lived in places where you can go for months without seeing a single drunk person.

In Estonia I can't leave my building without being confronted by some drunk. I never want to talk to them. I can't have a sensible conversation with a drunk since I am always sober, but I have to act friendly because drunk people are unpredictable and the situation could easily turn ugly.

I got so tired of it that mostly I avoid going out altogether.

Estonians drink too much even compared to other Europeans. Only Russians and Finnish are worse.

Estonians are worse than my own countrymen. You wouldn't get this impression roaming around any British or Irish city on a Friday night or seeing English drinkers, shouting from the rooftops, pissing in the street and generally fighting their corner.

It's a cultural difference. The English drink outdoors, drink noisily and drink mostly beer. Estonians drink at home, drink in silence and drink a lot of spirits. Estonians cause less havoc to others but more harm to themselves.

I have noticed also in the last few years in England attitudes on excessive drinking are changing, its become uncool and low class. Years of anti-alcohol consumption advertising are having an effect.

In Estonia it is still somehow considered unmanly and downright weird not to drink at all.

Estonian men having a knack for getting into accidents. This comes about through lack of criminal intent.

Young men everywhere will always find ways to get an adrenaline rush.

In Britain the preferred method is physical violence, the British enjoy smashing up things and people. We saw it in the riots this year, we can see it in the low level suburban violence that goes up all the time but is rarely reported, we can see it in the football hooligans culture, also known as “casual culture”, for which England is famous. This violence is well organised. Fights are arranged days beforehand. Football hooligans train themselves in martial arts. Causality levels are surprisingly low.

In America young men have a variety of ways of getting their thrills. I knew young men whose idea of fun was to jump in front of moving cars and then roll over the bonnet like Minoan athletes in ancient Crete somersaulting bulls. It required a lot of skill to execute this manoeuvre without getting hurt.

My acquaintances would then writhe on the road in fake agony and threaten to sue the driver if they didn't pay up. Why not get your kicks and exhort money for it? ...oh those clever Americans.

In Asia the preferred method of thrill seeking is driving around is sports cars, very, very, quickly.

If you ever seen any of the “the fast and the furious” franchise of movies you know what I'm writing about.

I got involved in this when I was in Asia, just as an observer I should add. Again the level of organisation is incredible. Those guys spend years honing their skills in parking lots and deserted beaches. Races are planned, weeks sometimes months in advance. Cars are are not only customised for speed but for safety. They bet money and girlfriends.

And the people involved aren't just kids. Actually the main racers are educated professionals who can afford expensive souped-up pursuit car. They get into it when their young and continue into adulthood. The guy driving me round the streets of Hong Kong one night at 140 kph was an orthopaedic surgeon in his 40s.

Estonians young men also like to drive very, very,fast but there is nowhere near this level of organisation.

The Asian racer is a skilled amateur. The Estonian racer is just some dude who likes to speed, he is speeding to his own funeral.

The good news is Estonian men like sports as much as any nation I have ever encountered, the bad news they work so hard they don't have time to do it. Most of my Estonian friend do sports of some kind or another. I have one friend who spent the summer cycling 70 kilometres, he's pretty fit.

I train in boxing at a gym with another friend, he's fitter and slimmer than me, I am stronger and faster though. But we didn't train this week because he and I were too busy with work which brings me to a contradiction.

The place I have been where people look like they are in the best health is the West coast of Africa. In Estonia as in the rest of Europe you occasionally see men who look like they work out. But in Africa, the men all look terrific, every other guy looks like an athlete.

In fact the poorer the country is in my experience the the better shape the men are in. The statistics say the opposite. African men should not only be in worse shape than European men they should be dead by the time they are 45.

In countries with weak health care systems, Darwinian forces come into play. It is the fittest and the naturally healthiest who survive into adulthood.

Young men who have no jobs, little money and plenty of free time have got to do something to keep themselves occupied and impress women so they train; martial arts, soccer, beach volleyball, running, basketball, whatever.

In Estonia this is impossible. In the old days hard work in the fields kept you fit, nowadays we are all stuck behind computers.

So if Estonian men are getting bad results its from, kind of, good behaviour. They are not as loutish or as publicly drunk as some nations, so they end up silently drinking themselves to death at home. When they break the law they not as cynically organised as other nations, so they end up in accidents. They work too hard which leads to stress, heart disease and high blood pressure.

Doctors are confident the gap between men's and women's life expectancy will narrow as the economy grows better. But it's they not going to change the fitness levels of Estonian men. Doctors may be able to keep Estonian men alive for longer, but how fit will the survivors be?

2011-10-28T11:09:00.000-07:00

City under siege The London riots. Could it happen in Tallinn?

The end of Newspapers What the hacking scandal means for the newspaper industry.

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-10-28T11:04:00.001-07:00

London isn't crying about the Euro
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 21 October 2011

It's not going to work, not now, not ever. The European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), the plan to save the Euro, is doomed. The Euro - at least in it's present form- will fail, that is the view from London.

It is a view held across the board, by left-wingers and right-wingers by Eurosceptics and Europhiles, by economist, politicians and traders and it is really only in the last month or so that this view has crystallised and become a majority view.

The only question is not “if” the Euro will fail but “ how” it will fail.

Can Europe's political elite work something out so that the Euro will continue on in another form may be even come back stronger at a later date or will the whole thing disintegrate into a unholy mess that will destroy Europe and the rest of the World.

Some traders who know the region are painting a very black picture for Estonia indeed.

“One day Estonia will be in the same position as Greece is now, but probably worse,” Michael Wood-Wilson a trader with one of Britain major banks told Postimees.

Why does London have this view and does it matter? After all Britain is outside the Eurozone and does not contribute to the fund.

The answer to the first question is fairly simple. London has this view precisely because it is not in the Eurozone. The financial community in London unlike policy makers in Brussels, Frankfurt, or Tallinn don't have a vested interest in saying that something is going to work when clearly it isn't.

In Britain analysts aren't swayed by sentiment or political rhetoric. It's true that Britain has traditionally been more Euro-sceptic than Estonia but there are also a lot of powerful Europhiles, they have all but given up hope. They look at Europe and they see, confusion, a culture of blame, lack of leadership, lack of will and most importantly lack of money.

Jose Manuel Barusso, President of the European Commission, wants the continent to recapitalise its banks. The view from London is European countries can't afford it.

Simon Tillford, chief economist, at the pro-European think tank, the centre for Europe reform, told the BBC.

“Some of the weaker countries do not have the money to recapitalise the banks. If they try to stomp up the money themselves there is a risk of making the sovereign debt crisis worse. France will struggle. There is very really risk that they will lose their triple A rating. ”

Indeed it cost Belgium, France and Luxembourg 90 billion Euro to bail out just one bank, Dexia. Belgium have may it's credit rating downgraded as a result.

In London nobody thinks the EFSF is big enough. George Osborne the British chancellor of the exchequer has called for a massive increase in its size.

But the problem is deeper, London thinks the fund won't work because, once you get past the rhetoric, it is structured like a Ponzi scheme. It involves hugely indebted countries lending money to themselves.

Derivatives trader, Satyajit Das told the BBC

“The European Financial Stability Fund is guaranteed by a whole bunch of countries including, Spain and Italy. Spain and Italy between them make up 30% of the guarantee of the European Financial Stability Fund.

“The European Financial Stability Fund is going to borrow from the European Central Bank, which has also obviously got support from Spain and Italy, and then lend the money to Spain and Italy.”

Das went on to say that say that nobody could serious think this will work.

“The politicians in Brussels and a few policy-makers.... to be very honest don't have any solutions, and they are now playing almost confidence games to try to actually convince people that this will work. Ultimately it won't work because it all boils down to a simple fact,” he said.

The British assessment of what has caused this disaster is radical different from how the average Estonian sees it.

Far from blaming the Greeks for their free spending ways, analysts in London blame the Germans for setting up a system that suited them.

“The rules weren't obeyed. France and Germany broke the rules,” Sir Richard Lambert ex-editor of The Financial Times said on British Television.

Under Lambert's editorship The Financial Times once supported Britain's membership of the Euro. Now he says the Eurozone will shrink.

“I think it is likely that Greece (will fall out of the Euro) the numbers are now impossible.

“I think the extreme position of the collapse of the Euro is very unlikely. I think a fiscal union is very unlikely the question is it possible to get an orderly way to get Germany to support an orderly way for Greece to withdraw,” he said.

In America even right-wing economist are enraged with Germany behaviour. Dr Peter Morici of the University of Maryland said the Eurozone is mis-structured because it allows the Germans to be quite wealthy without sharing any of its revenues with the others. He roundly cursed them in the British press.

“This crisis is as much a product of Germany's destructive and economic imperialist behaviour.”

“ Germany profits greatly from the Eurozone. Germany has an undervalued currency. Germany seems to think they can drink from the well but never put anything in. Germans get to trade, keep huge surpluses keep most of the manufacturing to themselves.

“The German finance minister is doing a heck of a lot more than Germany's armies could have ever accomplished in the 1940's it is literally destroying the state. Essentially the Germans are saying 'buck up and march through the great depression again.'”

City traders like Wood-Wilson who knows this region well, think unless Germany changes it's ways it could spell trouble for Estonia even if the Eurozone shrinks in an orderly manner.

“Germany will have a larger percentage of the value credited to the Euro by the markets. As more weak countries leave the Euro, the stronger it will get, as Germany is awesome. The stronger it gets the more those on the periphery will be sniffed out by the markets and pay more to service their debts.

“The stronger the Euro the less the rest of the world (Sweden and Norway), will want to buy their goods as they can't afford them.

“They (Estonia) can't devalue to boost their exports. Even with a strong economy (Estonia) will be out of synchronisation with Germany at some point. There must be a United States of Europe for the Euro to succeed,” he said.

To give readers some background. The Conservative party the equivalent of the IRL which is now in power fought the 2001 election on the issue of saving the pound. When the Swedes voted No to the Euro it killed the issue anyway. There has been some triumphalism from the die-hard Eurosceptics. Journalist, Peter Obourne an uncompromising Eurosceptic said his kind had “saved this country(Britain) from economic degradation” whereas the pro-Europeans “got the greatest economic issue of age utterly and completely wrong.”

But mostly the mood is one of fear, a fear that may turn to sheer panic if a way isn't found to fix the problem. British banks are also exposed to Europe debt. European banks are by far the biggest lenders to emerging economies so there is no salvation coming from that direction.

Mervyn King Governor of the Bank of England a man not known for hyperbole, is talking about the World facing the most serious financial crisis ever, worse than the 1930s.

And the view from London does matter, despite Britain not being in the Eurozone. London is Europe's main financial centre dwarfing Frankfurt and Paris. When people talk about what the market thinks, what they really means is what London, New York and Hong Kong thinks. And since London is a little closer to the Eurozone, is following developments just that little bit more, the view from London is the view of the market. The US economy and debt crisis is as bad if not worse than Europe's but Americans aren't thinking about that right now, they are just following sentiment in London. The Eurozone crisis is a crisis of confidence as much as it is crisis of credit. London and therefore the market has no confidence there is a way to fix it.

There is always hope. Many influential people think the collapse will happen in an orderly manner and the Euro can come back stronger. This is the view held by billionaire financier George Soros.

“We could have two or three of the small countries default or leave the Euro provided it done in an orderly way.”

He believes the seriousness of the crisis will eventually lead to a solution.

“I think the authorities whatever it takes to hold the system together because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate,” he said on American TV.

(Ed note; this is a paid for article. To read the original, subscribe to Postimees.)

2011-08-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

City under siege The London riots. Could it happen in Tallinn?

The end of Newspapers What the hacking scandal means for the newspaper industry.

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-08-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

White Riots
By Abdul Turay
Published 23 August 2011

Some in the media are doing “The Italian job” on England's black population. For those of you who are not British, I'll explain. “The Italian Job” is a famous 60s movie starring Michael Cain. It's something of a national institution here, every Briton has seen it. Non-Brits may have heard of the more recent American remake staring Mark Wahlberg.

It's a very clever, quirky, patriotic movie about an elaborate gold bullion heist in Italy by London's criminal underworld.

There are couple of scenes in the movie that have always bugged me and I suspect every other Black Briton.

At the end of the movie, after a celebrated car chase through Rome's Byzantine streets, the gang load the gold onto a bus, ditch the cars, get on the bus themselves, and drive off.

The driver has the easiest job in the whole gang, in fact the easiest job in the World. He has to drive a bus along a perfectly maintained mountain pass, with no other traffic on it........without driving it off the edge of a cliff.

But he is black. He can't manage it. He starts acting black, flipping the bus from side to side and laughing, and then!.........watch the film if you want to find out what happens, it is not quite what you think.

You see the point. The black man screws it up for everybody.

Outside the UK, the riots have been presented as a race riot. In Russia and many other countries many people actually believe the recent riots in England are simply the fault of “blacks and immigrants”.

Even in the UK the coverage of riots has been black tinted. All the main media outlets looked to historical precedents; the riots in Brixton, Hansworth, Tottenham and Toxteh in the 80s. These were race riots. Old stalwarts from the 80s, people like Darcus Howe were wheeled on to give important pronouncements about police harassment of the black youth. Contemporary black pundits were also roped in to give their penny's worth.

It was as if time had not moved on since 1985.

But there's a problem and everybody knows it. The trouble spots included Salford, Gloucester, Milton Keynes, Reading, Nottingham, Ealing, Enfield, West Bromwich, Greater Manchester, Bristol, these areas are mostly white.

Look at the images of the rioters or do what I did and go on to the street and see the rioters, one thing becomes crystal clear; the rioters were mostly white.

This is where the Italian Job comes in. The idea persists that the whites were just passengers, the driver is still black, or Asian.

Historian David Starkey notoriously explained this on the BBC's Newsnight.

The whites he said have adopted black mores and values.

“The whites have become black, a particular sort of violent nihilistic attitude has become the fashion and black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together. This Jamaican patios that has been intruded in England.”

David Starkey is wrong. Firstly he is wrong about language, nobody outside of London talks in Jamaican patios or multicultural English as it is called, certainly not in Salford or Gloucester.

More fundamentally he is wrong in his assessment of the problem. He could not be more wrong. White people haven't become black the opposite is true. Black people have become white, that is to say they have become English; and the English like to riot. Sometimes we riot for a purpose but at other times it is mindless.

In 1780 a mob took over London for two weeks. They rampaged through the street in an orgy of destruction. The nominal reason was anti-Catholicism, but historians and commentators at the time thought the real reason was a combination of lack of social mobility and an opportunity to loot. Sound familiar?

In the Middle Ages peasant revolts were fairly common. The most famous was the revolt of 1381. That has been sold to us as a righteous looting, noble peasants chaffing against evil barons.

However most of these rebellions were totally dodgy and therefore not well remembered. Jack Cade's rebellion in 1450 is a case in point. After all this time it is difficult to work out what Jack and his lads actually wanted, other than to steal and to smash things up.

Shakespeare portraits Jack as a bragging charlatan leading a rowdy mob. The Jack Cades of today would be or more accurately are on blackberry.

The 20th Century had riots in England aplenty, in France also.

There were riots in Bristol in 1919, there was the so-called Battle of Cable Street in 1936 against Oswald Moseley's Fascists. There was the Tonypandy Riots, the Brown Dog riots, the Epsom Riots, the Poll Tax riots, my flat mate took part in that.

We have had riots because we were happy, after we won the Great War in 1919 celebrations turned into riots. We have had riots because we were sad, after losing football matches and yes we have had race riots.

It is not just blacks against whites or against the white “system”, (Brixton 1981) sometimes it’s whites attacking blacks (Notting Hill 1958). Other times it’s Asians against whites (Oldham and Bradford 2001) and other times it’s black against Asians (Birmingham 2005).

But mostly people riot; because it's summer, because they are young and because they are bored.

Growing up in Chelmsford, Essex in the 80s I experienced the low-level suburban violence that seems to benighted every small to medium size town in England.

A river runs through the town in the Northern suburbs. At night kids would stand on both sides of the river and throw stones at each other. Then the council was dumb enough to build a bridge. There were pitched battles between dozens of kids on that bridge.

This low-level suburban rioting never received much attention from the media. It was happening all over the country most summers, but it was localised and sporadic.

If it's happening everywhere at the same time, then the press are going to notice.

What would have happened if you have satellite TV, CCTV, blackberries, and Twitter in the 60s?
Youth cults, the Mods and the Rockers, would be fighting each other all over the country, not just in Brighton.

Why did these riots happen?

Here is your answer.

This riots happened because the English like to riot and now the English have the technology to riot in many different places at the same time.

There is another very English type of violence which is very instructive as to what went on this August. Why has no-one noticed that these riots have more in common with football hooliganism that persists to this day than anything that went on in Brixton in the 1980s?

It was football hooligan gangs, known as firms, who invented organised fighting and looting specialised clothes and sport goods shops. This is the culture of the casuals and this was a casual riot. Casual culture spread to the streets and it was only a matter of time before casual organisational skills did as well.

This also explains something else that has not been discussed much. Why there was no rioting in Scotland and Wales.

Scotland in the 70s and 80s had enormous problems with football hooliganism. The Scottish Football Association and the Scottish government in the 90s dealt with the problem by appealing to people's sense of patriotism.

“Let's not be like the English, let's be civilised, let's not tarnish own nation's reputation,” they told people. The strategy worked. Hooliganism has died out as a Scottish problem.

I think Scots will agree the reason why the Scots didn't riot isn't because they don't want to be black. The reason why the Scots, and the Welsh and Northern Irish for that matter, didn't riot is because they don't want to be like the English.

Football hooliganism is the English disease after all. Now all types of mindless urban and suburban violence have become the English disease.

Why the English like to riot is a subject too big for this essay. It's been going on for decades, it's been going on for centuries really.

I suspect the answer lies in the mutual contempt the classes have held for each other since the Norman Conquest. After a period of détente from the 1945-1990s, this hatred has come back with a vengeance.

Modern England has vilified its underclass “the chavs”. Now “the chavs” are fighting back. But there's the thing, chavs are usually presented as white. This riot proves chavs can be any race.

2011-08-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

New feature (Off Topic) This Blog is about Estonia but occasionally I may publish a feature or opinion piece that is off topic. Here's one about the England riots.

2011-08-12T15:26:00.000-07:00

City under siege
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 11 August 2011

Croydon High Street this morning looked like a war zone. I could see smoke pouring from buildings on the main street. Places I know well were burning to the ground. Police had sectioned of the main street. The helicopters, the ones with

the cameras on, whirred overhead. Debris strewed the streets, people walked around dazed and shocked, not quite sure what to do.

Then is started up again. By noon Croydon was starting to look dangerous. Crowds of youths were beginning to gather. So I went home, only to find the high street near to where I live was shut down. There are reports of crowds beginning to gather there too. I can hear the wail of police sirens as I am typing this.

There is no simple explanation as to why this is happening. The truth is nobody knows why it is happening.

Some commentators have pegged the rioting on the usual suspects of inner city social deprivation and government cuts. This is demonstrable false, as well as poorer areas like Peckham, Tottenham, Hackney, Dalston, and Walthamstow and Brixton, rampaging gangs have torn up well-heeled areas like Notting Hill, Camden Town, Chalk Farm, Ealing, and Lavender Hill.

Ealing was one of the worst hit areas, it is not an inner city area, it’s an affluent leafy suburb on the outskirts of London, think Nõmme.

There have also been trouble across the country in Liverpool, in the centre of Birmingham, in Leeds, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham. More is sure to follow.

I spoke to local residents in some of the worse effected areas who have been touched personally by events.

Tyrone Davidson lives in Peckham, a tough inner city area on the front line last night. He knows some of the people involved in the rioting.

“I wouldn’t be surprise if some of them(the rioters) come up to me and ask “do you want to buy a TV, do you want to buy a phone?””

Davidson gives me updates of the latest developments.

“My friend just e-mailed me and said it is kicking off in Lewisham again. ”

Talk to local residents and it is very clear that this not a race riot, nor political riot like the one in Tallinn four years ago. It is sheer mindless violence.

I have been on the street, I have seen the rioters. They are young, mostly male, between the ages of 15-30, but different races, religions, shapes and sizes. What they have in common is a hooded attire and an appetite for destruction.

“This ain’t political, some people are just angry and others are jumping on the band wagon,” Davidson said.

“Others are just thinking let’s just go on the rampage. Some of these kids are just 14, 15, their don’t know what's going on, it is just fun for them.

“These people are tearing up the streets . All ages, all colours. It is not a race riot, it’s just mad,” Davidson said.

Bill Todd another local resident agreed. “It's not politically motivated. It is just pure looting,” he said.

Though we may not know why it is happening, I can tell you how it is happening.

Local residents, people in touch with the hoodlums agree these events are not spontaneous, they are co-ordinated attacks, executed with almost military precision. Co-ordinated by blackberry.

In Croydon town centre on Monday, shop were closed at 4pm, hours before any trouble. Shopkeepers had got word that trouble was coming.

Residents also knew trouble was on the way. “My daughter called me at quarter to four and said there will be trouble,” local resident Sheena Kochi said.

This pre-planning has led to senseless destruction. A furniture store on the outskirts of Croydon was set alight merely to divert emergency services away from the main show of smashing up and looting the high street.

“They didn't get all the shops they wanted so they will back for them tonight,” said another local resident who didn't want to be named.

All over London there has been a similar pattern. The looters have discovered the power of the internet to manipulate the police and other emergency services. There are stories of polices being deliberately diverted away from hot spots by false reports of trouble twitted over the web.

Ultimately and this is the really scary thing, the looters have discovered that if you riot in different parts of the city at the same time the police just don't have the resources to deal with it. IT and systematic planning has created new opportunities for looting and general mayhem.

Could this knowledge spread to other countries? Can we expect gangs of hooded rullnokad roaming the streets of Tallinn?

London is beyond saving. “The kids know there aren't enough police to contain it. Police can’t be in two places at the same time,” Davidson said.

Two girls bragging about the riot to the BBC made the same point: “It was good though (the riot), it was good fun. It is not even a riot it's showing the police that we can do what we want.”

The only good thing to come out of all this madness is that ordinary people, decent people, are coming together. Neighbours who wouldn't normally talk and would be going about their business zombie-like on a Monday are now engaging with each other, looking out for each other. It's not just friends and family, total strangers will warn you where to go and where not to go.

It's almost as city has divided into two factions. Them and us. Them, being gangs of hooded youth and us, being everybody else.

I feel like I am living in a city under siege but the attackers are inside the walls already. We all wait with some trepidation for even

ts for the next few nights.

2011-07-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

The End of Newspapers
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 12 July 2011

Until last Sunday the News of the World was the most successful and biggest selling English language newspaper in the World. It sold 2.6 million copies more than the entire population of Estonia.

Then on 7 July 2011, Rebekah Brooks, the flame-haired chief executive of News International, the media empire that owns the News of the World, marched into their main office in Wapping unannounced and told the staff to their utter amazement that Sunday's editions would be the last and the paper, which has been in existence since 1843, would be closing.

In Britain, where I am at the moment, everybody is stunned; not just media types. Taxi drivers, hairdressers, waiters, fitness instructors, even people who don't even read newspapers, how much more the News of the World, are talking about nothing else.

Britain newspaper industry is in deep trouble and the rest of the World is about to follow. The big issues are corruption, too much power in the hands of a few owners and the survival of the newspaper industry itself. All these issues are very relevant in Estonia.

Corruption

It is no point asking the question, is the media corrupt? it is pretty clear that large parts of it are.

Investigations conducted by rival newspaper the Guardian, and later by The New York Times and Vanity Fair proved the newspaper hacked phones, bribed police officers and bought the silence of politicians by threatening to expose their private lives.

The police believe this newspaper hacked the phones of anyone who they might have an interest in. Celebrities, member of royal family, the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, murdered children, the families of the victims of the terrorist bombing in London, all had their phones hacked.

Up until recently News International have claimed that only one rogue reporter was responsible for the hacking, he went to jail, and that only a handful of people were hacked.

This was a lie, many reporters were involved and thousands of people were hacked. All of this happened in the early 2000s when the very same red-haired, Rebekah Brooks was the editor of the paper.

As Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian told the BBC: “This(hacking of phones) was systematic, this went on for every story.”

What has outraged the British people most was the revelation that the News of the World hired a private investigator (P.I.) to hacked into the phone of a young girl, Milly Dowler, who had been abducted and was later found murdered. The P.I. was so desperate to listen to messages from worried relatives that he deleted exiting messages from her phone when her mailbox was full, leading the family and the police to believe that she was still alive.

It appears the newspaper industry in Britain is run by people who are irredeemably corrupt and/or all powerful.

The News of the World senior editors have admitted bribing the police to get stories. The police were so much in their pockets that did not seriously investigate wrong-doing for years.

Rebekah Brooks is so close to Rupert Murdoch the billionaire Tycoon who owns News International's parent company, News Corporation, the second biggest media conglomerate in the World, that she is sometimes referred to as his daughter.

She has become so powerful that even politicians are afraid of her. She was once called in front of House of Commons select committee. She refused to attend. The committee insisted she come. Then she let it be known that she could destroy the lives and careers of individual MPs on the committee, they climbed down.

After her brutal sacking of staff who were all new and not involved in the goings on under her editorship, not one staff member was prepared to go on record and criticise her. They are scared, they need new jobs.

Rebekah Brooks denies that she knew anything about phone hacking, or bribing police doing her time as editor and she has refused to resign.

Britain top editors find it highly unlikely that she is blameless.

“That any editor wouldn't know what was going on is inconceivable,”Rosie Boycott a former editor of British newspaper the Independent said.

“Who are these wrong doers? either that includes Rebekah Brooks or she didn't know what was going on in which case she is not very competent,” Alan Rushbridger said.

Only one man has confessed. Paul MacMillan a reporter who worked for her once stated: “Of course she knew.”

The flame-haired Mrs Brooks, successor was a man called Andy Coulson. He resigned as editor of the News of the World when the scandal first broke in 2008.

One politician in the U.K. Dame Shirley Williams described him recently as: “a brilliant liar”.

That didn't stop Prime Minister David Cameron from appointing him as his chief press adviser.

The public believe he is more honest than the flame-haired Mrs Brooks. It was he who admitted to bribing the police to get stories. He is now facing criminal charges.

Worse is set to follow. It seems the other tabloid papers not just the News of the World have been involved in phone hacking and bribing the police, they have been strangely muted on the the scandal.

Rebekah Brooks has said that when all the muck has come into the light people will understand why they had to close a newspaper.

Prime Minister David Cameron said there will be two independent inquiries, one into phone hacking and the other into the ethics and culture of the press.

Britain newspapers look pretty ugly compared to Estonia.

Money is driving corruption. Even if Estonia's editors were so inclined, there simple isn't the capital required to bribe police and pay private investigators to hack phones.

Estonia's press culture is fundamentally different. Newspapers in the U.K. are what daytime TV is the U.S. Britain's press has been in a yellow race to the bottom for years. Gossip, tittle tattle, sensationalism are what sells. In Estonia this newspaper outsells Õhtuleht.

Ownership of the media

In chat show after chat show the same refrain came up from politicians and media experts. Why has Britain allowed so much power to be concentrated in the hands of one foreigner, press Baron, Rupert Murdoch.

“MPs were terrified of taking on the tabloids, especially News International,” said actor, Hugh Grant himself a victim of the hacking.

“This is a protection racket,” Grant said on the BBC's Question Time.

“They are too powerful we have to sort out the power of the media,” said Harriet Harman deputy leader of the Labour party.

Ever since the late seventies no politician of any strip risked upsetting Rupert Murdoch because the belief was no party could win an election without Rupert Murdoch's support. This started when the News of the World's sister paper The Sun switched allegiance from Labour to the Conservatives in the the 1979 election.

This means a private businessman, who is not even domicile has more power than elected law-makers

One journalist, Jon Gaunt described a function held by Rupert Murdoch, he said all the great and the good were there; the entire cabinet and the shadow cabinet.

“It was like being in the court of the Sun King,” Gaunt said.

Can it be right the an unelected foreigner should have such power? Rupert Murdoch is Australian but he took American citizenship so he could control Fox television in the United States. He was once asked what nationality he considered himself and he answered.
“I'm just Anglo-Saxon.”

This is just a flippant remark it's actually the case. He feels an emotional attachment to the country of his ancestors and to other great culturally “Anglo-Saxon” countries.

He doesn't act like a foreigner, he acts like a native. This is the both a problem and a boon. It means for example that he has kept the loss making The Times open for years, whereas somebody without this emotional attachment to the mother country might have closed it.

But it does mean he has a real interest in who gets elected.

No-one can really say how much influence Murdoch personal has on editorial policy. But The Sun and the News of the World have famously gone from being strongly left of centre papers to strongly right of centre ones, though the process didn't happen overnight.

Greg Dyke former head of the BBC has said Murdoch's time as Sun King may be over.

“We have had 30 years where cosied up to New International and Murdoch. I think this week that's been broken. I think it will fundamentally change politics and the media in this country.”

The relationship between politicians and journalist In Estonia is complex and the subject for another article but we can say this.

In Estonia no politician of any political persuasion is scared of newspaper tycoons!

The opposition may not like the media but they are not afraid of them. At the last elections Edgar Savisaar increased his personal share of the vote despite all the mudslinging. This is a clear indication that the print media has only a limited influence on the way people vote.

Foreign ownership can be seen as a blessing in disguise. The Norwegian owners of this newspaper and the Swedish owners of Äripäev don't have the same emotional attachment to Estonia that Murdoch has to Britain or the USA. They don't influence editorial policy.

This is the view of the all editors and is a position not challenged by political parties of all stripes.

Their concern is journalists as a social class and the personal relationships between journalists and politicians not strategic relationships.

The survival of the newspaper industry

Here is where things get tough. It has been suggested across the board that the real reason why The News of the World was sacrificed was because News Corporation is in the bidding process to take full control of BSkyB Britain's major satellite operator. It already owns a third of the shares, it wants the rest. BSkyB has revenues of close to six billion pounds and net income of £878 million compared to a net income of both the News of the World and its sister paper the daily The Sun of £86 millions. Satellite television is the greater prize.

Closing down the newspaper clears the way for ownership of BSkyB in two ways, it reduces the minister's ability to veto the take over of BSkyB on the grounds of plurality, that is one person owning too many media outlets, and it makes it harder for the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, to prevent the sale on the grounds that Murdoch and his executives aren't “fit and proper persons” to run a broadcaster.

Too be sure after all this, it is looking increasingly unlikely that Murdoch will get control of BSkyB. But they had to do something. The bid would fail if News Corporation had done nothing.

Rupert Murdoch is the World greatest newspaper man. A man famed for his love of newspapers, yet he was prepared to cut lose his most successful newspaper merely for the chance of owning a satellite broadcast platform.

We all know that newspapers readership is shrinking and ageing. The News of the World readership is down from 4 million to 2.6 million over the last 10 years.

We know most young people get their news for free from net, in Estonia this means Delfi, but if even profitable newspapers can be closed for strategic reasons what hope it there in the long term for less profitable or smaller ones?

Paying for news online isn't working either. Rupert Murdoch's son James has been gunning for the BBC because nobody is going to pay for news from The Times online when they can get just as good quality news for free.

The editor of this newspaper once told me nobody knows how to save the newspaper industry, not even Murdoch. It appears she was more right than she knew at the time.

2011-06-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Why the world is silent about the Estonian election

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-06-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

China Rising
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 6 June 2011

Here is a random list of things that came into my head:

Wong Fei-Hung, Tsui Hark, Gong Li, Shao Lin, Leon Lai Ming, Stephen Chow Sing Chi, Wang Fei, Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai Shek (also known as Jiang Zhong Zheng), Fa jia, Si ren bang, Han Fei, Shen, Dao, Fu Jian, Bo Yang, Guo Min Dang, Aaron Kwok Fu Shing, Nan Jing, Cui Jian, Tang Chao, Andy Lau De Hua.

To most people here, the above is just a list of sounds. If I were to put together a list of the Western counterparts you would know precisely whom or what I was talking about.

Wong Fei Hung is the Cantonese equivalent of Robin Hood. Nan Jing is a big city, a former capital.

Somebody asked me once knowing that I had once lived in China what the Chinese and Estonian share common. The answer is the Chinese and Estonians share... ignorance,they have a limited knowledge of each others culture.

In April the IMF published figures that predict that China will replace the United States as the world’s largest economy in PPP terms as early as 2016. They later backtracked a little but you get the point. China will be number one sooner or later.

In May, the Chinese announced they are putting forward plans to launch a television channel in Estonian. The Chinese are spreading their influence to Estonia.

The Chinese themselves laugh at the notion that about to take over the World.

“The notion that China wants to replace the United States and dominate the World is myth,” Chinese Foreign ministry Dai Bingguo China’s State Councillor told the press last year.

But the facts are that China’s global influence is increasing and is going to increase whether they like it or not.

Estonians understands that in order to survive and prosper as a nation they need to understand China. Estonians are aware of the challenge, but I doubt many realise just how gigantic the task is. You certainly can’t sum China up in one opinion piece. I won’t attempt to do this, nor will I attempt an analysis of China’s foreign policy ambitions in this article. Geopolitics is a complex area, especially when dealing with China and there are enough pretend experts in the field already.

What I can do is give an idea of just how big the concept of China is.

I ended up in China by accident rather than design. When I was 23, just out of University, I decided to put some distance between myself and my family. One day I quit my job and flew to the other side of the world.

I arrived in big industrial city called Kaoshiung in the Republic of China, Taiwan, with no money and no job. I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anybody and didn’t look like anybody else. I planned to stay only a few weeks, I ended up staying for five years.

I spent my first night underneath a palm tree. I woke up to find myself surrounded by an army of old people dancing around me very slowly in perfect synchronicity. They were doing Tai-chi, which is sort of like a cross between martial arts and yoga and is very popular with the elderly.

Years later I was working as a reporter on a national paper in Hong Kong, I was married to Chinese girl, I was speaking Mandarin Chinese.

Yet after all this time, I still would not call myself an expert on China. As an old flame who now works as a China correspondent for the Washington Post once said to me.

“Nobody is an expert on China, not even the Chinese are experts on China.”

The trouble is China is just simply too big for anybody to comprehend. China is not just a country in the same sense that Estonia or America is a country, China is a civilisation.

It is as though the whole of Europe, North and South America, Australia and South Africa were one country. China is actually many different peoples speaking different languages and practising different philosophies.

Just looking at the words “China” and “Chinese language” in the Chinese language gives us an idea of the scale of it.

The Chinese word for China translates into Estonian as kesk-riik (The Centre Country), the sense of it is the centre of the World. The Chinese not only believed that their country was at the centre of the World but that most of the World was Chinese. They weren’t far wrong, at the beginning of the 20th Century about half the World’s population were Chinese.

The Chinese world for the Chinese language translates into Estonian as tavakeel (The common language, usual language) the sense being this is the common language that everybody should speak.
The common language serves the same function that English does in Europe. There are other types of Chinese languages, Shanghai, Fuijian, Hakka, Cantonese; they’re called dialects but actually they are as different from each other as Finnish is from Estonian, some more so.

The political authorities require everybody to learn the common language in the People’s Republic of China in the island of Taiwan and in Hong Kong, but in reality large numbers of the population speak a different language at home.

I have known people show up in Taiwan thinking they speak the language and then find out not only do they not understand what people are saying but they were irritating people by speaking the “Beijing dialect” as some Taiwanese call it. Imagine some one showing up in Tallinn and then speaking to everybody in Russian.

Then there are the ethnic minorities, who have totally different languages, cultures and religions to the main ethnic groups the Han Chinese. Examples of ethnic minorities are the Manchurians who actually conquered China a few centuries ago and founded the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty, though there are very few people left who speak Manchurian. There are even ethnic minorities who are Turkic, they don’t look Chinese to you or me, they look Turkish, but as far as the Chinese government is concerned they live in China, they speak Chinese, they are Chinese.

There’s an old saying in English that the Chinese are inscrutable. This is nonsense. People are the same everywhere. People are the same in ways that are surprising. In China some young ladies would react to me with terror. Some were scared even to shake my hand.
Their attitude was: “Stay away from me you’re strange, you’re foreign, stay away.”

I used to feel bad about it until I went to Africa for the first time and found out that the young ladies there were behaving in exactly the same manner, even though I looked like them.

Then I realised it doesn’t matter what you look like, young women in conservative patriarchal societies are just afraid of foreign men.

By the way, Estonian young women never behave like that.

There are some things that Estonians and Chinese have in common. Both Estonians and Chinese share a strong patriotism, Chinese are very nationalistic. Sun Yat Sen is the Chinese equivalent of Lennart Meri, respected even in the communist People's Republic. Both peoples are close to the land. Both have a strong work ethic. Chinese culture is conservative and traditional.

If people don’t understand Estonia because it’s too small, then people don’t understand China because it’s too big. The Chinese, or at least the government of the People'sRepublic, has been accused of bullying, authoritarianism, human rights abuse, imperialism and military aggression.

Whenever I read some expert attack China’s human rights record or foreign policy, I always wonder how much time this person has actually spent in China. The people who I know who have spent some considerable time in China and have learned China’s history and culture tend to be a bit more philosophical. Without saying too much about Chinese foreign policy here, I will say there is a Chinese way of doing things.

But this still leavess the central question that I posed at the beginning of this article. How can Estonians find out more about China?

How is an Estonian company which wants to do business in China able to do it, if they don’t know the first thing about Chinese culture? Chinese like Estonians value business partners who take an interest in their culture.

There are opportunities to learn about Chinese culture in Estonia at Tallinn University. Estonia also has a small Chinese community. But if you are not ready to go back into formal education opportunities are a bit thin on the ground.

Most young Estonians exist in a cultural space that looks to the West. “In running toward the West”, away from Russia, decision makers have forgotten that China is also in the East, not to mention the rest of Asia.

Now we have a situation were it is virtually impossible to learn that much about Chinese culture, history, language in Estonia unless you really put your mind to it. I had to go to London to get my fix of the latest movies from Hong Kong. That’s why this initiative from Chinese broadcasters is so welcome, but it is a small gesture. When the average Estonian businessman knows who Andy Lau is, then progress is being made.

2011-03-10T07:24:00.001-08:00

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-03-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

Why the world is silence about the election
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 10 March 2011

Nobody cares. The World didn't care. The global reaction to the Estonian election has been total apathy.

In the UK, The Financial Times ran a brief inside story on the election saying who won but not why. The Chicago Tribunal carried a brief wire report as did The Herald Sun in Australia and The Telegraph in Britain. The BBC covered the story, but buried away somewhere. It had no analysis on the lead up to the election and no real analysis of the reasons for the results.

The New York Times was better. It gave the story brief analysis, but from its Moscow correspondent, which as many people believe, is a bit like writing about the activities of the French resistance in World War II from the point of view of the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin.

“Estonians stoically absorbed the suffering,” wrote The New York Times correspondent.

“The opposition leader Edgar Savisaar, the mayor of the capital, Tallinn, and head of the Center Party, argued during the campaign that the government had overlooked the suffering of average people in its drive to join the Euro zone.”

At least The New York Times mention the Savisaar financial scandal.

The Independent, and The Guardian in London, both of which usually have excellent international coverage, didn't cover the elections at all, not even wire reports.

What's going on?

One could argue Estonia is small country and the its politics are not of much interest to larger countries.

But elections in other small countries, Latvia in October 2010, Iceland in 2009, and more recently in Ireland in February 2011 were all extensively and exhaustively covered in the international media.

The Spanish election is already getting heavy media coverage even though it is not due for a year.

It's not true even that the international press don't care what happens here. When people were rampaging through the street of Tallinn in 2007, the whole World knew about it. Even the tragic accident in the orphanage last month was widely covered in the international press.

Part of the explanation may be there is a lot going on elsewhere. Newspapers have a limited amount of space to fill and with the upheaval in Libya and the Middle East taking up the column inches there was simply no space.

Newspapers need a narrative. And the narrative that the World has followed since the Financial Crisis began in 2008 is that in country after country people are rejecting their governments as incompetent failures and electing fresh faces even if, or maybe especially if, the new faces have no experience in Government.

The Estonian experience challenges this narrative. The Estonian people have given a vote of confidence in the existing coalition, which got a combined 56 per cent of the vote.

As a colleague who works for a national newspaper in the UK told me, had Estonian voters thrown out the coalition government and elected a new government there would have been a lot of interest, but since they voted for the same guys who have been in power for the past few years there was little to no interest.

Could there be another more sinister reason why the story hasn't been covered.

“When it comes to Eastern Europe we want muck, we want trouble. We don't want to hear that everything is hunky dory(all good),” my colleague said.

According to my colleague, news providers when they are interested in the region at all, want to present an image to readers of backward little nations which are making a mess of things.

The coverage to the Latvian election last year is instructive. If you compare Latvia and Estonia, in it's essentially the stories are the same.

In both countries an international economic crisis was the catalyst for a local credit crisis. In both countries unemployment went up as businesses collapsed. In both countries centre-right government reacted by severe austerity measures and slashing wages in the public sector. In both countries, in spite of all, this the ruling coalition won general elections by comfortable victories.

Latvia's crisis was worse, so they had riots, a change of leadership and international bail outs. Estonia, on the other hand, got membership into the Eurozone.

The elections themselves were not a story. It was the bad news that preceded it that were the story.

This explains why an international paper like The Guardian could cover the Latvian elections in some depth and not cover the Estonian elections at all.

This explains why the BBC could have have a headline story like: “Latvians vote in crisis elections” and not have a headline about the Estonian elections, until after the votes are in.

The fact the Estonia economy is anticipated to grow by 4 per cent this year and the fact that unemployment is dropping or the country has the lowest debt and the smallest deficit- as a percentage of its GDP - of any country in Europe, is mentioned in The New York Times but not in most other outlets.

The irony is of course there is a big story that the international press have missed. This election was extraordinary for its ordinariness. In a time of falling wages, unemployment and hardship, people didn't panic, they voted sensibly. The whole election was a very sensible affair.

Let's not forget that the result was not only a endorsement of the government, but an endorsement of the entire political establishment. In a society that remains traditionally cynical of institutional politics, this is remarkable in itself.

All the parties had something to be be happy about. The Reform Party won. The IRL and the Social Democrats increased their number of seats and votes. And though the Centre Party won less seats than the last election, leader Savisaar increase his personal endorsement to record levels, further proving, if any proof were needed that his supporters don't care what is written about him in the media.

Had the Estonian people been angry, as the people of Iceland as Ireland have been angry, they might have turfed out not only the government but the opposition and voted for one of the mighty fringe party leaders. As it was, not even the Social Democrats and their dynamic leader Sven Mikser, who performed brilliantly in the pre-election leaders' debate and whose party many political analysts think, had the best campaign couldn't quite break the mould and become the main opposition party.

In some way you can't blame the international press. People are marching through the streets of Dublin, rioting in Athens, demonstrating in Cairo and fighting pitched battles in Libya's towns and cities.

Estonian people voting for stability is rather boring.

Yes it would be nice to get more coverage of the election. It would be nice to get more coverage of Estonian public life in general. But the international media have put Estonia in a box and unless something dramatic happens to break Estonia out of it, the country can anticipate being ignored.

2011-02-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

Response from Education Minister (ed note: in Estonian, will translate into English when I have time)

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2011-02-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

Playing around with higher education?
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 4th February 2011

The IRL is promising to scrap tuition fees for a large majority of university students. The Social Democrats are accusing them of populism and Keskerakond are claiming that they are just stealing their policies.

But what do the students themselves think?

At 18 years old, and about to enter University, Diana Kull is just the type of person whom this policy is aimed at. Free education sounds good to Kull, it was the main reason she picked the university she picked. She is also just the type of young swing voter the IRL is trying to win over. She likes the Social Democrats but she believes the IRL are the party of common sense.

“(I like) their general appearance. The IRL are not too nationalist, they are in the safe zone in the middle,” she said.

Don't count on Kull voting for the IRL just yet. In fact don't count on her staying in Estonia at all.

Kull is leaving the country, she decided to study in Denmark because which already has free tuition.

Even if the education was free she wouldn't be staying. For Kull, who wants to study fashion design, the issue isn't just money, it is the quality of education she can get abroad.

“Even though we pay for education the level of education is so bad. If I go to Denmark they have all these machines for making fabrics.
“ Here they make things on looms, no-one does that any more, it's just useless,” she said.

As for returning to Estonia Diana Kull faces the reverse moral dilemma.
“Maybe the question should be should I stay in Denmark? Maybe I would feel guilty about having their tax payers pay for my education,” she said noting the irony of the situation.

When I talked to the people who the policy will effect directly, the students, one thing became clear, they are just not buying it. Students understand that things are far more complex than the three words in the manifesto pledge “tasuta kõrg haridus” would have you believe.

The central problem the The IRL faces is people don't believe the contradictions. They don't believe that a party that is still most forcefully in favour of fiscal austerity, can deliver programs, mothers pensions, free education, that are obviously going to cost a lot of money.

Aleksandr Popov, 26, Ph.D. candidate and lecturer in International Law at the University of Tartu believes they can't do it.

“It's a discussion that going to effect everybody for the next four years. Obviously the IRL is trying to encourage students. Special pension for mothers. It's a good idea but where are we going to get the money.”

“They can raise raise some kind of tax. But then I don't see the difference. People will have to pay for their children's education through tax,” he said.

Popov argues that trying to find the money from somewhere else won't work either.

“It might be an idea to cut the expenditure from the military, this has been tried four times and each time it hasn't worked. A plague of historian will argue that the Russians are around the corner, we can not cut.
“Since we are members of NATO we have an obligation to take part in NATO treaties. There is no other area to cut. Culture has been cut and health,” Popov said.

Estonian Universities face a fundamental problem as they improve. If universities here begin to compete in a global market it pushes prices up towards international norms. Thus the Reform party talk of attracting top international lecturers won't wash if they can't afford to pay them.
Other countries have faced the same problems for decades. It was precisely this issue that led to the collapse of Britain's free education system in the the 90s. Britain's Universities were and are in direct competition with American Universities. Lecturers began to demand higher wages and better faculties or they would leave to go to the United States. The government wanted to increase the number of students attending University. The answer was to make the students pay; just a little at first. People accepted it, more or less, at the time.

Now the students are rampaging through the streets of London. You have probably read about the mayhem that broke out last year; cars set alight, hooligans fighting running battles with the police. The heir to the throne and his wife, cowling in terror as an angry mob set about their car. More violence is set to follow

We came learn a lot from this the story, and we can learn a lot from the story of the Liberal Democrats, like Keskerakond, their Estonian equivalent, they have touted, free higher education as a key policy. They were the most popular party among the young for precisely this reason. Yet when they came into power as part of a coalition, they increase tuition fees by 300 per cent from 3000 pounds to 9000 pounds a year. Students were outraged and reserved special hatred for Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg.
Cynical Estonians may shrug this off. In Estonia, political parties routinely do things that were not in their manifesto or don't do things that were. But it is instructive, parties normally don't the precise opposite of their manifesto promise, unless they are in coalition. Britain does not have a tradition of coalition governments. Hence the riots. Estonia does.

This doesn't mean that the IRL will definitely renege on their promise, but students are not counting on it, they are not even discounting the possiblity that an IRL government might actually raising fees.

They are also worried that not enough thought has been put into the implications of the policy. Free education may actually make the education system worse.

Erik Loide, 19, is precisely the type of student that the policy is aimed at, he planning to study biology.
He said: “Of course I think it is a good policy. My family isn't very rich, And I can't rely on my mother who is like a single mother right now. If I would like to go to University she could pay for living she couldn't pay for living and tuition.

“If you are paying a 1000 Euro for going to school it will put a lot of pressure on the student.”

But he fears the quality of education will suffer.

“Money is needed for research and materials and new technology. If we should take away the tuition fees, it won't go there if everybody gets free education,” he said.

Loide argues to suddenly spring this policy on people in the year of the election was a mistake.

“By the time they give the free education, if they give the free education, it will take years of reforms,” he said.

Popov argues that throwing money at the problem will not improve education.

“I am for free higher education. I am for tougher education to get into university. Someone should be emotionally ready to get into University. Many young people who come to University still have the high school mind set,” he said.

Popov argues that Universities need to change the way they do thing.

“In Estonia we don't have strict regulations in establishing Universities. We have a lot of primal academies.
“People are uninformed. And generally high school kids are very uninformed because our Universities don't do 'open door weeks' which logically they should do every year.
“I didn't have a clue when I went to University,” Popov said.

Even those who already get a free education see problems. Edith Nigumann, 23, is training to be a radiology technician.
She thinks making everything free will demotivate teaching staff and students.
“ Maybe tutors won't work hard. It will be really harder to get into school and somebody who really doesn't want to study this profession will go because it is free,” she said.

Though her first choice would be to stay in Estonia she said she would still consider going abroad if she got the right offer.
“When we started school they told us that we were going to have jobs, good salary, Now they told us all the jobs are full. We were disappointed because this profession isn't so widely spread,” she said.

Some students especially those active in student politics are totally cynical.

“I think their promises are nonsense, where does the money come from?” Kristjan Kilk, 16, who campaigns for the Estonian School Councils Union, said bluntly. He is not against the policy he just doesn't trust the IRL, to deliver it.

The IRL is hoping the free tuition will improve the education system making it accessible to the poor. No-one I spoke to was convinced.

The IRL is hoping that free tuition will encourage people to stay in the country, or if they do work abroad, to come back. No-one I spoke to was swayed.
“If I stay in Estonia it will be because of my family is here and things like that. I don't think I should stay here because the country has paid for my education,” Kilk said.

The IRL is hoping that this policy would win votes. All of the students I spoke to were cautious.

Nigumann said:“It would be nice to know maybe my children can go to school. But it is not going to influence the way I vote. I would rather vote for the individual, not the policy.”

The underlying theme is penny pinching and freebies do not mix. Maybe the IRL needs to see whether it's policy is really a vote winner.

2010-12-18T11:39:00.001-08:00

Sotsid are not freaks Why are the Social Democrats still failing?

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2010-12-18T11:26:00.000-08:00

Right is Right?
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 16th December 2010

"Estonia is too Republican. Young people should be caring and socially orientated, but not here in Estonia."

This blunt comment comes from Kadri Simson. I met up with the Riigikogu member and deputy chairman of Keskerakond a little while ago. She seemed very sincere in her beliefs.

"Even when George W Bush was highly unpopular all round Europe he was still popular in Estonia," she continued.

She was keen to meet me but she seemed to feel that foreign writers in Estonia were all right-wingers who were deceiving the Estonian people.

"There is some kind of attitude lower taxes for richer people or bigger benefits for wealthier people is justified are prevalent," she said.

"I am also surprised when some foreigners or people from Western Europe, where these attitude are not so strong, are coming here and starting to give additional arguments towards this.

"Those people who I know from Old Europe they are even more socially orientated than me.
"May be true Republican believers find a heaven here in Estonia, write their beliefs and give the average Estonian the impression that everybody admires what is going on here?" she said.

I pointed out that I am right-wing on some issues and left-wing on others
"I haven't seen it, maybe I have missed exactly those articles," she joked.

Kadri Simson has a point. In Britain young people are usually not conservative. To be a Conservative is usually associated with nastiness and meanness. The Conservate party is even nick-named "the nasty party".

Is Estonia an economic right-wing paradise, a Mecca for economic neo-liberals from all over Europe?
With elections coming up now would be a good time to examine what it actually means to be right-wing in modern Estonia, the picture is far more complex than it was even a couple of years ago.

In some respects it seem quite obvious that Estonia is right wing. Tõnis Saarts Professor of Political Science at Tallinn University thinks Estonia is unique in Europe.

“Neo-liberalism has a very domination position. Even if you take some other transition societies the Czech Republic and Slovenia which are considered to be quite liberal society, Reaganism and Thatcherism wasn't so popular like it was in Estonia.
“Other post communist societies they are somehow much more balanced, there are rightist and there are leftist. In Estonian all other ideologies are marginal,” he said.

Professor Georg Sootla has written that Estonians are characteristically right wing. That creates conflict as Estonians have to co-operate with the rest of Europe which leans towards the left.

"Estonia is a paradise for right wing people," said Margus Tsahkna, IRL, Riigikogu member apparently echoing Simson.
Tsahkna defines what he means.
"Taxation is flat, I am talking about personal tax not labour tax," he said.

Tsahkna thinks that Estonia isn't right-wing enough, though he does point out his party would ring fence education and pensions.

"After this crisis we had in the last two years we have turned back more to the right wing ... make cuts," Tsahkna said.

The guru of the right was American economist Milton Friedman. In Estonia his ideas, also called neo-liberalism, are so prevalent that even young people who may not have heard of him are familiar with what he wrote.

Milton Friedman thought governments shouldn't take people's hard earned money and giving it to someone else. Friedman not only wanted low taxation he wanted to dismantle the welfare state, entirely.

In his perfect society, there would be; no public housing, no unemployment benefit, no minimum wage, no Departments of Education, Agriculture, Social Security or Health, no central bank, no state health care, no free education even at primary school level, no compulsory military service, no child benefit and no pensions.

Here in Estonia, we have all of the above and some things not yet conceived of in countries with supposedly advanced welfare states. Explain the benefits available for mothers to British mothers and they blanche with envy.

Moreover the right-wing parties are offering yet more spending on health and education.

"My own party is promising some centre things. Free education, pensions, what ever.
"In Estonia it is quite hard to separate right wing politics and left wing politics," Tsahkna said.

Indeed the IRL is proposing; social spending on mother pensions, debt relief for home loan owners and free higher education in it's latest policy reviews.

Not to be outdone the Reform party is promising to significantly increase Estonia's spending on health and -whilst not commiting itself to free higher education- is promising to provide a "Nordic" higher education system.

For contrast, in my own country the UK, the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat coalition government just voted to increase tuition fees to students by an eye watering 300 per cent to 10,700 Euro per year.

In a neo-liberal society like Estonia you would expect to see spending of social programme significant lower than other OECD countries, but according to figures from the ministry of Social Affairs, this is not the case.

For example social insurance – comprised mostly of pension payments- made up about 9.22 per cent of GDP in 2008, prior to economy crisis or 25.33 percentage of the state's budget. Significantly though the amount spent on social insurance went up during this period from 8,632.2 million in 2001 to 23,184.4 million in 2008, the percentage has gone up only slightly from 7.91 per cent.

To put that in context the equivalent figure for the United States of America is 5.7 per cent.

In other words the state has spent at least as much money on pensioners as a percentage of GDP as the USA for at least a decade. Obviously pensioners don't get a lot of money, but that's because the country is poorer.

“Estonia is only rhetorically right-wing. You usually get more votes by professing to be right wing,” Leif Kalev, Director of Tallinn University's Institute of Political Science and Governance, said.

Kalev argues the government is still spouting neo-liberal rhetoric whilst at the same time actually doing the precise opposite.

“The reforms of current government creating larger expenditure and just trying to utilise EU money without efficiency control...it reminds me of situation that new right authors(like Friedman) are criticising ,” he said.

Kalev argues Estonia is actually creeping towards socialism, or at least social liberalism, but in a distinctively Estonian way.

It is clear that for these elections social liberal and co-operative policies will be dressed up in right-wing language

Free tertiary education is to stop young people from studying abroad.
Benefits for mothers are to increase the population.
Decent pensions are because the old fought for the nation,
Military conscription is to defend the nation, and so on.

But for the social scientists the danger is having social liberal policies introduced by people who are not social liberals could lead to damaging side effects.

Saarts is worried that no-one in the administration has given any thought to the long term implications of these policies.

“Social benefit are targeted to certain groups to potential supporters of the Reform party. They don't have any more wider or general view how social policy in Estonia should develop and what is the ideal situation and what are the political aims.
“They are moving on step by step but this general vision is missing,” he said.

He argues the Reform Party is just as populist as Keskerakond.

“In Estonia this rightist ideology is somehow linked with national identity. If you are Estonian you should be more or less rightist,” he said.

Both the IRL and Reform Party are still committed to the principle of a low taxation to encourage investment and job creation. But once again social scientists aren't convinced that enough thought has been put into how this plays out in practice.

“Estonia abandoned Enterprise taxation in 2001. The argument was that companies will come to Estonia because they get more profit here,” Kalev said.

Kalev explains the result has been a huge flow of money out of the country.

“Swedish and Danish banks get billions of kroons they just move it away from here without taxation.
“I am not convinced it is a wise strategy. There should be huge increase in our economy after 10 years, but I could say we are quite similar to the rest of central and Eastern Europe our different strategy has not differentiated us,” Kalev said.

“This debate is lurking in the corner,” he added.

How do the parties of the right stack up. Could the real right-wing stand party stand forward?

The IRL talk about Christian values, fiscal conservatism and patriotism. Whilst the Reform party talk about, entrepreneurism, stability and - at least since the bronze soldier incident -patriotism also. On the face at this it would seem there is really no difference between the parties of the right, they are both pushing the same agenda, just using slightly different language.

But it's illusion created by the fact that they have worked together in government for so long. It's immediately apparent once you do a little digging that they are quite different.

The IRL, the so -called Conservative party is not conservative, not in the proper sense of the word, they still have this radical crusading zeal. And the Reform party is not reforming. It has this idea that all major reforms have been done and policy changes should be gradual.

Were the IRL to come to power they would privatise state owned asset and shrink the size of the state throwing a lot of civil servants out of work. They believe very strongly that the administrative system itself has become bloated, it is too expensive for a small country like Estonia and should be savagely cut.

The Reform party would not change anything.

According to the politicians and political analysts I spoke to, you can push through just about any policy no matter how “socialist” so long as you sell it to the people are really being right-wing.
The danger lies in not looking at the long term implications of that policy.

So though Estonia is hardly left of centre, is Simson right? Is Estonia a right-wing paradise? On the evidence, frankly, No!

2010-10-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Extracts from an interview with women's magazine: Home and Family

In Estonian(Eesti keeles) , Published December 2010

Is divorce a solution?

Divorce is only a solution when you shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. I can't speak for Estonia, but in my own country, England, I think the time has come to get rid of civil marriages altogether and just have marriages in church, temple or mosques, a holy place. A marriage should be a holy sacrament. Everybody else can have a civil union. People get divorced because marriage is too easy.

How do you solve problems in your marriage?

The only way you can solve problems is by discussing them. Sometimes you have to accept you can't have your own way. Most men, if they are intelligent, intuitively know they should allow their wives to control them.

2010-10-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

Why I write in Estonia
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 06 October 2010

For those of you who don't know who I am, I'm a Black English journalist based here in Tallinn. I have been living in Estonia, writing in Estonian newspapers for almost two years now. I normally write about politics and economics.

There are some who say I shouldn't be writing. I knew one young lady, let's call her Liina, who said that it is arrogant of me to write, this is a view shared by many. Most writers get criticised for what they write, I get criticised for writing at all. I think the time has come to knock this on the head once and for all and answer Liina and her kind.

Liina and her kind would argue that I'm not Estonian therefore I shouldn't write about Estonia. It's true, that I am not Estonian and I had no profile in Estonia prior to living here. It's also true that I haven't lived here particularly long, though I speak the language only a little, but I can read quite well.

The Liina's of this world are deliberately misconstruing what is going on.

My situation is the same as every other hack. Here's how it works. My editor or somebody from the office will call me up and say that they want 7000 characters on such and such topic by Wednesday 3pm, sharp, no delays. There are times when they don't specify the subject. Quite frequently I have to come up with ideas of my own, all editors want journalists who can work independently and think for themselves. But there are other times when they want an article on a particular topic, by a particular deadline.

I don't make demands from the newspaper, the newspaper makes demands from me. I write because I am hired to write and I'm paid to write, it's as simple as that. It's a job.

That doesn't mean I have no ego. But Egoism and arrogance are not the same things. George Orwell in his famous essay on the same subject said all writers are egoist, though he did point out that journalists have less ego than novelists. If Orwell is right, without egoism nobody would ever write anything, nobody would ever accomplish anything. We would all still be running around in fur skins and throwing rocks at woolly mammoths.

Liina would say, she did say, maybe I can write, but I shouldn't write my opinions about Estonian society.

I'll answer that with a little story. I went to a very left-wing University in Britain where most of my peers were forever wanting to smash the class system. The few American students there noticed the canteen staff were all working class, whereas the students were mostly middle class kids from rich families. In America the students ran the canteen themselves. It took a few foreigners to point out the breathtaking hypocrisy of my peers. At the same time as they were railing against the British class system, they were perpetuating it themselves every time they took a meal.

The same principle is at work here. Newspapers hire foreign journalists because outsiders can sometimes see things that people living in the situation can't.

The Chinese have a proverb about a bird coming down to a frog pond and telling the frog about the sky and the mountains. The frog refuses to believe such things exist.
In Britain and other English-speaking countries, all quality national newspapers employ foreign writers. Why should Estonia be any different?

I am not the only foreigner writing in Estonia. I'm not even the first foreigner, others have been writing in the Estonian press long before I came on the scene. The fact we exist is a sign that the nation's media is maturing.

As to not being Estonian. I live in Estonia, I have residency, I can vote in local elections, I pay taxes. I still earn money in my own country, the UK, and I spend that money in Estonia. If I can vote and pay taxes, why can't I write?

In modern Estonia people from other parts of Europe are going to take a greater role in public life, whether it be in the media, business or public affair, that is what the country signed up for when it joined the European Union.

It is not good turning round now and saying as some people have flatly stated, and others like Liina would imply.

"Well but.....we, didn't expect this person to be black!"

It's unfortunately undeniable many people don't like me writing because of my skin colour. Others are sneakier, they don't say this; but that is actually the reason.

The truth is IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER THAT I'M BLACK and I don't mean this in the spirit of racial tolerance. It doesn't matter because my audience in not black. I have to write for my audience. Apart from the first article I ever wrote, about the election of a black president, I don't write about black issues. Contrary to what some casual readers believe, I have deliberately never written an article about racism in Estonia. I usually don't even mention the fact that I'm black. If you read most things I have written carefully you wouldn't even know that the writer is black, if my face were not next to the article. I write about things that are of interest and relevance to the Estonian people, as I am expected and required to do by the paper.

What does matter on the other hand is that I'M BRITISH. This matters not only because this is the principle way I define myself, in the same sense that most Estonians define themselves as Estonian first. It matter's because a lot of what I do is comparing and contrasting; how does local government work in Britain compared to Estonia? How do the electoral systems compare? How do British politicians match up with their Estonian counterparts? Sometime I throw other countries into the mix which I am familiar with as well.

This gives me an anchor with which to work. It also gives my writing some authority. I have worked in the British government for many years, as a speech writer and civil servant. No-one in Estonia has this background.

Liina and her ilk would say I am telling Estonians how the country should be run. This, she would say, is arrogance.

There is a simple answer to this. I never tell Estonians how to run their country. I don't propose solutions, I ask questions. If I am asking questions that no one else is asking, is that not a useful function?

A good example of this was, when I asked Mart Laar how would he deal with the current economic crisis, since the economic philosophy he subscribed to was being blamed in the West for causing the crisis.

Mart Laar answered immediately, he also astutely worked out two things: one, the whole article was a question; two, this question had been asked all over Europe, all over the World, but not in Estonia. Mart Laar set forward his proposals which he must have known would get an angry response from some quarters, but he did it anyway.

Each time I sit at my computer to write an opinion piece, I am challenged to write something better than the previous piece. Sometimes I write satirically but I don't, can't and won't do this with every story. Sometimes it is not appropriate.

If there is a theme to my writing it would be something like this. Estonia is a great country and a good place to live in. This is actually quite boring, it is certainly not news-worthy but it has to be said because many people don't want to hear this, it's fashionable to be critical of the country. It is my challenge as a writer to find interesting ways of saying this.

It's ironic that I should have ended up as a columnist since as a reader I never much liked opinion pieces. I found them boring and lacking in useful information. Worse if you are familiar with the writer, you have pretty much worked out what he or she is going to say before you have even read the first sentence.

When I became a newspaper editor, I began to hate most opinion pieces, especially restaurant reviews. They represent lazy journalism. Most other types of journalism require you to do research or talk to people who know things and make conclusions based on what they tell you. With an opinion piece you can just mouth off about this, that, and the other, without annoying things like facts.

I use facts to back up what I am saying. The “sneaky people” always challenge the facts. They are always wrong.

My favourite example of this was when I mentioned that the British King, James I, made his fool king for at least a day by accident. Someone must have googled it and then wrote, I was wrong; it was James VI of Scotland who did that. The commentator did not realise that James I and James VI were one and the same person.

As a writer I still have a problems with opinion pieces even with my own. People judge opinion pieces on whether they agree with the opinion. If they like the opinion, they like the piece, if they don't like the opinion, they don't like it.

Is this a fair way to judge an opinion piece? Maybe a better way would be this:

1. Did the story make you think about things in a new way?
2. Did the story give you information that you didn't know beforehand?
3. Did the story elicit strong emotions in you?

If the answer to any of the above is yes then the writer has succeeded.

I write honestly but in different styles. At times I want to make people laugh, other times I want to make people angry, this is not to be deliberately provocative, it's necessary. I'll leave you to work out why. Like a magician I can't be expected to reveal all my tricks.

One final thing, I appreciate and am thankful for all the positive comments I receive but I am aware that I have a small following who read everything I write, and then curse me in the strongest possible language.

These people are doing me a favour. I rarely read comments . I don't have time, all I do is count up the number of comments. Comments are like currency. The more comments the better story, it doesn't matter if the comments are good or bad, more comments just shows more people are reading the story.

And a juicy comment like "Why is this Nigger writing in this newspaper? " will usually have a come back from someone more sensible saying something like "Get over it" which will then spiral into a row. The newspaper likes it, I like it. I don't read it, but I like it. Comments are currency.
Now curse me, I dare you!

Interview ETV

2010-08-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

2010-08-28T12:47:00.000-07:00

Sotsid aren't freaks
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 26 August 2010

Who'd want to be a Social Democrat right now?
According to political analysts they lack leadership, vision and ideas. They even lack respectability. Worse, their own PR makes them look like freaks or perverts.

"What connects these three people, Tony Blair, Olof Palme and Tarja Halonen,.... all of them are Social Democrats," shouts their website in their internationally themed banner heading.

It's as though their saying to voters.
"Look people, it's OK to be one of us, it isn't weird, it isn't kinky, it's perfectly normal!"

Some people think gays are perverts. Gay pressure groups use the same tactic.
"Elton John, Leonardo Da Vinci and Yukio Mishima. All of them were gay."

Quite frankly it would be a happier time for a politician or public figure if they came out as gay. There'd be some acceptance, some understanding, some sympathy even. Once you come out, you step into the public eye.

Become a Sotsi, as some politicians have done in desperation, and prepare to keep a low profile. Have you heard anything from a former People Union's leaders, Ene Tomberg, and Karel Rüütli lately? They are like Western spies defecting to Russia during the Cold War. Nobody ever heard anything from them again.

Maybe Sotsid should be given greater co-habitation rights. What about Sotsid pride marches?

Meanwhile the litany of disasters to befall the party continues. After the complete debacle in absorbing the now defunct People's Union, they lost two members in Rakvere which means the party has lost control of the city council there. There are charges of corruption in Tallinn. Katrin Saks has resigned from Tallinn 2011 whilst berating the party. And they are still languishing in the polls, with the elections only six months away.

As for their leader, sociologist Juhan Kivirähk summed up what most people think; actually what everybody thinks. As he said on KuKu radio:

"Our politics is also very leader-centric. We have Edgar Savisaar and Andrus Ansip and also Mart Laar sticks out,"

A polite way of saying: "Juri who?"

We shouldn't be too hard on Pihl. He is trying his best. He is an expert at stating the obvious.

"Let's reduce unemployment. Let's find out how to get more jobs. When jobs come up, make sure we can actually do them."

Really it should be the Centre Party who should be seen as freaks. They are a distinctively Estonian phenomenon. There is no party quite like them in Europe. A few years ago they had trouble aligning with any group in the European Parliament. They eventually aligned with the European Liberals, bizarrely the same group as the Reform Party.

The Social Democrats have a real ideology. There are many talented people in the party, Eiki Nestor, Indrek Saar to name a couple. And let's not forget our President is a Social Democrat; strange given that he grew up in a country where socialism and social democracy, of any kind, really is a freak's position.

The Sotsid should have a natural support base, they should be the party of teachers, nurses, farm workers, shop assistants pensioners and the unemployed . The people who support the Centre Party should be supporting them.

So why are they such losers?

You could put it down to a stigma attached to the word "socialism".

It is true in Estonia, young people whose British or German counterparts would support the Sotsid, in Estonia support other parties.

That doesn't explain why other ex-communist countries have socialists and social democrats either in government or as the main opposition party. It also doesn't explain why in Estonia the Social Democrats have been more popular in the past.

You could put it down to lack of leadership.

Why can't they pick a strong leader? Is it really that difficult? The Social Democrats have tens of thousands of supporters and members. Do they all lack charisma? Are they all camera shy? Doesn't any of them want to be leader?

You could say the coalition system just doesn't seem to be working out for them.

After all the fortunes of the main party in a coalition sway with the mood of the voters. For junior partners, coalition is like original sin. It damns you and your descendants forever. The Sotsid were damned when they were in the coalition during the crisis and they were still damned by association when they left.

Nor have they benefited form the upswing of popularity in coalition in the last couple of months, although that Euro membership didn't happen overnight, it took years of planning to achieve and the Sotsid must have played a role.

If they went into a different coalition with the Centre party, they'd be damned again.

To foreign observers though the Social Democrats are losing because they have failed to do exactly what their website says they should do. They are not international in their outlook. They have failed to pay attention at all to how and why their counterparts did well in other countries and in other era.

A German friend who is also a member of the Social Democrats both in Estonia and Germany pointed out that in Germany, the Social Democrats won power in the recession in the late 60's and early 70's when people realises that free market economics were not working. People wanted the government to spend more, they wanted better social security arrangements and they wanted the government to tax the rich.

Likewise in the USA in the Great Depression Roosevelt got into to power offering a New Deal, meaning more public spending and public works to give people jobs.

In Estonia the Social Democrats won't even dare say it. No-one has the courage to suggest; getting rid of the flat tax, having a higher social security spending, taxing the rich. No-one will say “If we are becoming a Nordic country, why not have a Nordic economic system?”

This column will not pass judgement on whether these policies are right or not, but you'd expect someone to propose it. You'd expect an honest political debate. Instead we get timidity. We get Jüri Pihl talking about freeing the market and helping the invisible hand. That's a right-wing idea. It's the sort of thing Mart Laar would say. Does Pihl want to be Pihl, or does he want to be Mart Laar?

Now things are supposedly getting better and the opportunity has been lost. So what are the Sotsid to do to get votes?

The answer is out there, somewhere, but clearly not in Estonia. Maybe they should ask Tarja Halonen or Tony Blair? He's not doing much these day.

2010-07-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Room 101 A comparison between British kids and Estonian kids

Go West Where is Estonia exactly?

Venture Capitalist Allan Martinson view Follow up story

Musician Jaan Tätte view Follow up story

The greatest speech of all time A review of Unite Estonia a very successful political play held 8 May at Saku Suurhall.

For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories How the British elections will influence Estonia.

The libertarian tradition Why Estonian Health care is better than the USA

Brave new Estonia Estonian Independence day

Cancel the debt Haitian crisis

Who's in charge here How the leader of the opposition in Estonia can bully the PM.

The man who annoys Estonians: Q and A with Priit Pullerits Postimees did this in depth interview.

Black men, Estonian women the truth
An opinion piece. The title is self-explanatory.

Pyrrhic Victory
About the 2009 local elections in Estonia.

A black president for a small white nation

Laar's Dilemma About the former PM of Estonia.

Cult of Youth Why Estonia is run by kids

Quiet genius who brought East to the West How the Koran came to be published in Estonia.

Bigotry and denial Race relations in the Baltics in particular Lithuania

A hard landing indeed About the economic crisis

Let's eat potato peels and again

Fighting to preserve a Nation's heritage Lithuania's Jewish community

2010-07-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

Room 101
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 12 July 2010

In Orwell's 1984, the main protagonist, Winston Smith, is brutally tortured and mercilessly beaten in the Ministry of Love. In the course of his torment he becomes aware from other prisoners that there is a place inside the ministry where something even worse is going on; Room 101.

Later he is given the opportunity to ask a question on any subject what so ever, but he doesn't really want the answers to the questions he had been seeking throughout the story, he only wants to know one thing.

"What is in Room 101?"

In Room 101, it turns out, is the worst thing in the World. It varies from person to person. It could be death by fire, or burial alive. “It is worse than death, it is unendurably”. In Winston's case, for those of as we all know, it is rats.

Estonia has it's own Room 101, as any visitor to the country can observe. The notion of national extinction, the fear the nation might die because there simply aren't enough Estonians left any more,

This is a real fear it happened to the Livonians previously.

As a colleague said to me once: "What is important to me is that I can speak in my language to my grandchildren."

Alcohol abuse could make Room 101 a reality. Figures show that alcoholism is on the rise with the young. According to a report by the Estonian Institute of Economic report, in 2008 Estonia had the second highest alcohol consumption in Europe. The institute found that the average Estonian drank 11.9 litres of alcohol in 2008.

Hanno Pevkur, minister for social affairs in an interview with this newspaper this month squarely blamed breweries for making the problem worse for the young by making beer too strong.

The facts are both depressing and well known. If the nation's youth are all feckless drunks, to busy killing themselves in drink driving accidents, or too drunk to make love even, much less get married, just how are they going to procreate?

When my editor asked to write about this issue, I thought of Stephen Fry. Let me explain?

In Britain the concept of Room 101 is so well-known we even have a TV show called “Room 101” where celebrities put the things they hate or the things that just irritate them symbolically into the room. Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, and IT guru, put Room 101 into Room 101. I will do the same. Instead of writing about what is wrong with Estonia's young people I'd rather write about what is right with them.

In my experience, Estonian youth are exceptionally bright and talented and if my country had this kind of talent per capita, the rest of the World would trembling. It we had 20 million young people who were as resourceful, we would be ready to take over half the planet....again.

Everything I say is unscientific, it's anecdotal but I work with children and deal with them in my travels, as a teacher, a public servant, a trade unionist and as an organiser in a charity that helped homeless youth. I also have eight nephews, aged between 9 and 20 so I think I have some authority to make comparisons between the Estonian youngsters and British youngsters.

I'll start with the obvious. Estonian kids can speak languages. Most can speak two languages and many three or four. In the U.K. You are considered a bright 18 year old if you speak another language other than English. In Estonia you are considered an idiot if you can only speak Estonian.

Nothing much surprising there, what is surprising is that many Estonian youth can use English better than the English can.

One thirteen-year boy asked me to help him with an application for theatre “scool”. I was horrified that someone going to “scool” every “scoolday”, couldn't spell it.

Why was this? It is not something in the water supply or the food he eat. It is just there are huge gulfs in educational standards.

It's produced a situation where on the one hand my privately schooled 11 year-old nephew can write a poem so advanced that it reads like something written by an university undergraduate and on the other hand one bright 19 year old I know left school with no computer skills whatsoever, he even didn't know how to send e-mails

Come to think of it may be diet is a factor Not only do Estonian youth seem mentally smarter, they seem physically stronger. When I arm-wrestled my kid nephews I pushed their arms over so quickly it seemed like they weren't even trying. When I tried it with an Estonian boy about the same age, it was significantly harder.

To drive home the point he was cocky and confident enough to actually think he could win.

“I want a rematch,” he said.

If it is not one thing it another. At the school that I teach at, children are encouraged to develop extra-circular activities. There are many gifted musicians, artists, budding film-makers, actors and scientists.

It takes 10-15 years to get good at skill. Yet the young musicians I have come into contact with are already virtuosos. I found it hard to fathom how they could be so advanced. I seems the classically trained pianists and guitarists I teach must have been playing since they were embryos.

Britain invented rock music (as opposed to rock'n'roll, which America invented), but in terms of technical ability, young Estonians are better at it now.

There is also the hacker culture that created Skype. The same principle is true in Sweden and Finland. I have heard it argued that it is down to climate. Long cold winter nights mean nobody wants to go out, so kids have nothing better to do than to sit in their bedrooms and mess around on computers and guitars.

Estonians are even doing capitalism better. There is a strong entrepreneurial spirit among Estonian youth which is lacking in Britain. A lot has been said about the Soviet Union and the way it stifled competition ruining whole generations of Estonians, particular men,

But consider this, the generation born after 1990 grew up with the kind of jungle capitalism that we in the West associate with the Wild West or Chicago in the 1920's.

When asked about their experiences of early childhood many young people can remember how they parents would make ends meet by wheeler-dealing, finding what they could and selling it on.

In the 90's most Estonians were freelance businessmen, those that weren't, were starving. This has effected Estonian youth's world view as much as Sovietism.

The young are used to the idea you can't do well by working for someone else, and if you want to have a prosperous life and a pretty wife/nice husband, you have to work for yourself, preferably employing others.

In Britain young people are still waiting for state handouts.

This can-do attitude can go to bizarre lengths, I once asked a class of students what they thought of the idea of free higher education, as happens in Sweden and Finland.

British students would be jumping up and down in excitement at the prospect of no tuition fees.

Estonians thought it was better to pay.

“Why pay for something if you can get it for free?” I asked.
“Why not? there is no such thing as a free lunch,” came the reply.

As for the alcohol problem, I am not buying it. Either the Estonians who were reported as consuming copious amounts of alcohol were really Finnish day-trippers, or things have improved since the figures were compiled in 2008, or there is some other explanation for the figures no one has thought of.

It is clear to even to a casual observer drinking is a much bigger problem with youth in Britain and Ireland. No one who has spent a night out on the town in Newcastle or Dublin could possible think otherwise.

So why do think tanks and politicians keep talking down the youth of the nation?

The press want people to worry about things to keep them reading the paper. Think tanks need to highlight any perceived problem to get funding. And politicians can raise their profile but criticising industry. The alcohol and tobacco industries are easy targets because at the end day they are peddling a mild narcotic. All drama is based on conflict. It's the same reason why George Orwell created Room 101 in the first place.

2010-06-21T11:58:00.000-07:00

Go West, Follow-up article

Martinson: in up to 90 percent of business regions, we are in Eastern Europe.
First published Postimees 21 June 2010

In risk capitalist Allan Martinson's evaluation, we are for most people, generally, an Eastern European country and to become a Nordic country will take at least a generation.
Abdul Turay wrote in today's Postimees an opinion piece that in Europe, Estonia is beginning to be considered separately from the rest of Eastern Europe and is becoming more a part of the Nordic countries.

In Martinson's view the firms' structures and ownership relationship are on the one hand structurally Baltic and on the other hand leaning to the side of the Nordic countries.
“We have very many important firm still with a Baltic structure. Managers go between Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki or Stockholm.

“In economic thinking we are a part of Eastern Europe. In Europe we are to in business regions, as far as 80-90 percent of people are concerned, an Eastern European country. To Americans we are all one Europe. In a lot of places, we are not even on the map,” noted Martinson.
In Martinson's evaluation the world will change the next few years significantly and geographically grouping should not be the only way for Estonia to define itself.

“In a changing world there is a chance a totally new group of country will arise which define themselves largely by on image of high-value; countries which are quickly to move and quick to adapt, innovative and can surprise.

In my opinion with the next few years the world will change significantly and these geographical grouping won't be the only way how to define yourselves. There'll be more focus on high-value countries who like Tigers can innovate and surprise,” noted Martinson.
In his evaluation it would be useful to identify ourselves through geographic regions where someone takes up an identity and then we say that we also want to be this. The opportunity is to take up an identity which suit us more.

“When our economy per capita begins to account to 70-80 per cent of a Nordic country then we can start in this way to measure up. By this time we will possible seem different and think different,” commented Martinson.

2010-06-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Go West
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 21 June 2010

Some people, when they go abroad, are ashamed to tell people they are Estonian, even when it is clear that the person they are talking to is sophisticated enough to know such a country exists.

A person I knew once told me about a girl he met in a wine bar in London. On spotting that she had a slight accent he asked her which country she came from. Instead of saying the specific country, she paused a little and finally said she was from... well..... em......“a country in Northern Europe”.

This guy who has pretty good detective skills thought about this for a while and then said without any embellishing remarks: “You must be from Estonia.”

This guy described how the girl blushed and looked round uncomfortably, like he had found out a guilty secret.

He explained if she were from a “real” Northern European country like Denmark or Sweden
she would have said I'm Danish/Swedish end of story. Therefore she must be from some “obscure, dirt-poor, Eastern European, backwater” as he put it.

“There is only one country in 'Northern Europe' that fits that description,” he said.

Of course he didn't tell her that. I guess he was trying to hit on her at the time.

Where is Estonia anyway? Is it an Eastern European country or is it in the West. Is it a Baltic country, a Nordic country, or both? Maybe it is in Northern Europe.

Does any of this matter? From the example I gave above it’s clear at least from a personal sense of well-being for the Estonian abroad, it does.

If it was ever clear where Estonia is on a map of the world, recent events have changed all that.

Whilst it has been the goal of all three Baltic nations to become fully integrated “Western nations” in the past moves toward this have always happened in tandem. All three nations gained independence, joined the EU and joined NATO at the same time.

Though Estonia's economy has always been stronger, now it is now pulling ahead in real practical terms. It is already a member of the OECD (Organisation for the Economic Cooperation and Development) and next year finally it will get entry into the Eurozone.

All these hits, one after the other, have had instant benefits. Standard and Poors has upgraded Estonia's credit rating to A- on June 15. This makes it cheaper for the government to borrow money and goods and services more affordable for the average Estonian than for his counterparts elsewhere in the Baltics.

“Estonia has, in our view, consistently demonstrated the economic, fiscal, and labour market flexibility required to cope with the constraints of being in a monetary union,” the credit rating agency wrote in a press release.

In Latvia and Lithuania things are terrible. The IMF estimates that Latvia will have a total capital and financial account deficit of 4.2 billion Euros in 2009, and 1.5 billion Euros, or 9 per cent of GDP, in 2010. Analysts think Latvia and Lithuania are unlikely to ready for membership of the Euro at least until 2014 largely because of their huge government budget deficits and debt. Worse if their economies improve, it could actually make it less likely that they can join the Euro because as economies grow, inflation begins to kick in and keeping inflation on a tight leash is one of the requirements for Eurozone membership.

On June 11 2010, the Prime Minister Andrus Ansip met with his Latvian counterpart Valdis Dombrovskis to negotiate closer ties between Latvia and Estonia. The same day a report on future Estonian-Latvian Co-operation compiled by Anvar Samost from Estonia and Andris Razāns from Latvia was published. The report included 65 proposals in nine different areas including such things as joint tourism efforts and border co-operation.

But behind all the handshakes, warm smiles, and well crafted public pronouncements, a very different story is playing out.

Ansip is deftly pulling Estonia out of the Baltics and into the Nordics and into the West.

Estonia was "already one of the most integrated countries in the West in the Nordic region," Ansip told delegates at the Reform Party's general assembly June 15.

Speak to members of the government privately and they will make it quite clear the reason why they think Estonia is forging ahead : “We got it right and they (Latvia and Lithuania) got it wrong.”

A senior government source, who didn't wish to be named, told me the Lithuanian government made a mistake to give into public pressure and go on a spending binge when times were good, increasing pay for public sector workers, increasing pensions and so on. In Latvia the Parex bank crisis derailed any fiscal prudence.

The source said people in those countries think of Estonia as the regional success story.

“People in Latvia and Lithuania think that Estonia is not a Baltic country any more. They think it is a Nordic country.
“Estonians know that the situation is worse in Latvia and Lithuania,” the source said.

The source wasn't crowing though. There was no kahjurõõm (ed note, pleasure at another person's miserable). For him what was important was Estonia was doing well, not that other countries were doing badly.

“It is not a football game which one team has to win.
“We are not competing with Latvia.
“For us it is important to join OECD and the Eurozone. I don't think it is important to put countries in concrete boxes,” the source said.

There are signs that perceptions of Estonia are beginning to shift in Europe.

The Dutch newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ recently did a long feature on Estonia describing it as a - “front runner in the areas of high tech and innovation” and in the midst of a “spectacular recovery while the rest of Europe is just limping behind”.

There is still a long way to go though. In March 2010 two American economists Prof. Michael Hudson and Prof. Jeff Sommers wrote a damning report of the situation in the Baltics as a way of slamming monetarism and free-market economics. The article was entirely about Latvia but the two economists saw fit to lazily bandy the word “The Baltics” around as if this country was in exactly the same situation as Latvia when clearly it is not.

In a way our source is right. Economics is not a zero-sums game. For Estonia to win it doesn't mean that Latvia and Lithuania have to lose.

But it is good for the psychological well been of Estonians if the country is perceived as a Western nation, as a Nordic nation.

Finland has benefited from this for years. From a personal point of view, growing up in Britain, I always had a favourable view of Finland as a Nordic country. Most Brits think quality of life is great in the Nordics because of the generous social security system. I wasn't aware that Finland had once been part of the Russian Empire and still has strong connections with Russia until I went there.

I recently had to fly back to the U.K. On the plane on the way over I was sitting next to a young lady whose father was working in the U.K as a pathologist. She too was studying to be one. Her father's sole reason for going to the U.K was to earn money. On the other side was a Russian-speaking Estonian, she was in tears because she had to leave her young son behind. Next was a guy working in a meat-packing factory. His friend was over to visit him. They where wearing matching patriotic track suits.
A trainee doctor, a nanny, and a meat packer; people from different walks in life, but what they all had in common was they felt slightly uncomfortable about being Estonian and about having to come to U.K to earn money.

The meat-packer insisted on asking me questions in English, even though I answered them in Estonian. The budding pathologist flatly asked me why British people looked down on Estonians and Eastern Europeans.

“Because we think you are poor,” I said. This maybe be everything to do with the snobbery and stupidity of my countrymen and nothing to do with Estonians. Still if membership of the Euro and OECD means that in a few years no-one will be embarrassed to say: “yes I'm Estonian,” then let's go for it.

2010-05-11T01:20:00.001-07:00

Go West follow up article

Musician Jaan Tätte's view: As far as foreigners are concerned, we are Russian.
First published Postimees 21 July 2010

Musician and traveller Jaan Tätte's experience is that foreigners think Estonians are Russians and mostly Estonia has to be introduced via neighbouring countries.

In today's Postimees opinion piece Abdul Turay writes that gradually Estonia has started to be separate from other Eastern Europe countries and more and more it is becoming part of the Nordic countries. Postimees asked Tätt what his experience shows.

“When I meet with a foreigner and explain where Estonia is located, then we talk at first about Finland and Sweden. Yes And Russia is our neighbour,.... then there is understanding,” he said.

The musicians evaluation is foreigners think Estonia is Eastern European.
“The more intelligent understand that we want to belong to there the North but actually we belong still to the East,” he said.

“For many acquaintance it doesn't matter if we are well-dressed or can speak English well, still the thinking is that we are Russian. There is something in our appearance and nature that they think is actually Russian. The first offering is that “Ahah Russians” he described this situation frequently occurring.

2010-05-11T00:58:00.000-07:00

The greatest speech of all time.
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 11 May 2010

Think of every great speech from history. They all use parallelism.
Think of the beatitudes.

All blessed are the meek , All blessed are the peacemakers,All blessed are the poor.

Think of Martin Luther King's “I have a dream” speech.

Think of Winston Churchill Battle of Britain speech.

We shall fight on the beaches, We shall fight on the hill, We shall fight on the landing grounds.

Now we have a have candidate for great speech for our age. Andres Mähar, playing a disgruntled losing Unite Estonia candidate, ranting on a roof top and shouting f*** you to everybody; politicians, their supporters, country folk, the Janitor, even himself.

The “F*** you (Kai Perse)” speech.

“F*** you internet commentators, thanks to you, you can't get your point across without saying f*** you,” he said.

Estonia has one underlying political problem. People dislike the government, as they should be after years of failure and broken promises; people - especially the fine upstanding patriotic people who read this paper - also dislike the main opposition. Meanwhile the other parties are in the process of falling apart. If they are honest even supporters don't really trust any of the parties and believe they can make life better or fix the economy.

This situation has been going on for so long now that people have forgotten it is actually possible for politicians to be good at their jobs, honest and generally popular.

So along came Unite Estonia, a group of young actors with a clever marketing campaign. The press and even the public at large took it very seriously.
They thought maybe this could this be an answer. People so desperately wanted it to be true. Desperate times calls for desperate hope. Could Unite Estonia be a knight is shining armour, who slays the dragon, brings freedom to the people and saves the kingdom?

As we saw on Saturday Unite Estonia wasn't the knight, it was the court jester, the fool.

The fool isn't really a fool of course. Actually this stock character was probably the wisest person in the medieval trope. The fool poked fun at the established order of things, he changes pre-conceptions and makes you think. He doesn't influence the action in any way, he just highlights the absurdity or what is going on to the audience. Probably the most famous theatrical fool is in Shakespeare's King Lear.

If the media were expecting a saviour there were always going to be disappointed. Real life knights weren't heroes, they were hired thugs who went around forcing peasants to hand over grain to the lord of the manor.

Court jesters on the other hand were real. All kings employed them. King James I of Britain's fool tricked his king into signing over the kingdom to him for a day because the king never read any documents before signing them. The king got the point.

After the performance, some newspaper headlines expressed disappointment this was just a show. Even though it's been blindingly obvious to everyone that this was simply a play. Just a look at the mock election posters reveals the truth.

“Wait a second isn't that Marika Vaarik from Revenge Office...em hold on that looks like the guy who played Toomas Roo in Windward Land, em that's an ex-Vanilla Ninja surely.”

There must have been people in the auditorium who were taken up in the moment, even when it was clear this was all tomfoolery about the way that politics is conducted, they still wished this could be real and if there was a party like this they would vote for it.

It was Orson Wells stuff. In the 30s actor and director Orson Wells produced a radio play in which he managed to convince people that the Martians had invade. Thousands fled in panic.

They say crisises produces great art, well here is an example. The show's brilliant cast of actors stage designers and writers have managed to create something,that to my knowledge has never been done anywhere; a play staged to look like a political campaign, partly improvised and with actors, real politicians and the audience all taking part.

It poked fun at and showed up the inadequacies of the political system. Generally creative people in Estonia borrow ideas from elsewhere To wit, Keskerakond's most recent campaign with a long queue of people outside an unemployment office is a rip-off of a very famous campaign in Britain that dates back to the 70's and has been recently revived. “Labour isn't working”(see poster).

So this was that very special thing, an Estonian original. Indeed it hard to imagine how the same concept could be so successfully pulled off in another country.

The show itself was excellent, wonderfully staged, full of energy wit and emotion. Like a James Cameroon movie you could watch it with the volume turned off and still be entertained, still follow what was going on. The show was meticulous planned and thoroughly rehearsed, so of course it felt natural, even improvised.

Unite Estonia couldn't help but take a swipe at Keskerakond. No doubt their supports will say it was a cheap shot, since they are an easy target, but the play had a dig at everybody. No one was spared, not even Indrek Saar and Jaak Aaviksoo who were in the room.

The show had just the right balance of light-hearted and serious moments. If it had a theme it was, don't give away your right to decide your own destiny to elected officials, take responsibility for your life.

All the actors were great but special mention must goes to Jaak Prints whose acerbated performance held the show together.

Unite Estonia really illustrates the lines between show business and politics, always a fine one, has completely disintegrated. In Britain we say that politics is show business... for ugly people. In Estonia, the politicians aren't so bad looking, so it would seem politics is just show business.

It can't have been lost on many in the audience that here was one ex-Ninja, Lenna Kuurmaa, pretending to be a politician whereas her former band mate, Katrin Siska, is attempting to do the real thing.

There's a line in the classic 80s time travel movie, "Back to the Future" where a character from the 50s is given a camcorder and realises why the President of the United States in the 80s was B-movie actor, Ronald Regan.

“Amazing a portable TV studio. That's why your president is an actor, he'd have to look good on television,” he said.

Fast forward 25 years, in 2010 in Estonia all politicians are actors, they all have to look good on television.

Don't believe it? consider this.

Having worked in the field I can tell you that most of the time, even when politicians are giving interviews, apparent on the fly, what they are saying is actually scripted.

A top politician will have an army of people working behind him whose job it is to work out what questions any interviewers might possible think of and script appropriate answers. Quite often politician will have had a look at the questions before hand.

That's why politicians are never lost for words and always have facts and figures to back up what they are saying. And you thought they were so clever?

There are some who believe that politics is a about public service, like doing a stint in the army. If a citizen has somehow gained some kudos through he work in another field, he might be called upon by his fellow citizen to help run the country. If those days ever existed, they are long gone.

Now it seems that people go into politics because they can't sing, can't dance, , can't tell jokes, can't play a musical instrument but can act a little and want their ego's stroked. Some of them - without mentioning any names- can sing and dance, but their previous careers have hit the rocks.

But ultimately Unite Estonia leaves a lot of unanswered questions. The show may have been great fun; I am sure people left the auditorium feeling better about themselves and better about the future of the country. But in the end it's a court jester. A play is just a play. Unite Estonia may have livened things up, it's certainly help a lot of young people get interested in politics. What it didn't do and nor could never have done is answer the central dilemma the country is facing.
“If nobody believes in the government and no one believes in the opposition, just who is going to run the country come 2011?”
(Ed note: there will be a general election in 2011)

2010-05-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

For Europe's sake stop the Tories
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 4 May 2010

One brutal statistic brings home what Estonians really think of Britain. According to the British Office of National Statistics (ONS), more than eight times as many Latvians or 38140 registered workers and almost 13 times as many Lithuanians 57620 have emigrated to Britain in the last five years as have Estonians – 4520.

Clearly more than any other country in the region, Estonians don't dig Britain. They don't rate it as a place to live, work and make money; and they don't care about the British election.

The challenge therefore is to convince you that this coming election really does matter to Estonia.

What many Estonians don't realise is that far from being weak, in decline, with it's glory days behind it, Britain is strong, getting stronger and increasing it's influence in Europe and the World. To find out how and why, read on.

The man who becomes the next British Prime Minister could do a lot of damage. He could destroy the British state; there is a real danger of that happening. He could destroy the European Union; there is more than a slight possible of that happening. Ultimately he could destroy the world, …..at the press of a button. Still think the British elections don't matter?

Let's assume none of the candidates, Gordon Brown, the current prime minister (Labour), David Cameron (Conservatives) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) are not going to lose their mind and decide to use Britain's formidable array of strategic ballistic Trident nuclear missiles, though what to about Britain nuclear arsenal has been on the agenda for the first time in a generation; this still leaves the question of how this election could effect the EU, international relations and Anglo-Estonian relations on trade and immigration.

First let's look at how the system works. Under the British constitution there has to be an election every five years. This is not written down anywhere, it's just convention. In Britain a government can dissolve parliament and call an election at any time. It has has been known for elections to be held one after the other in quick succession when no-one was happy with the result.

The ruling party will usually call an election if it thinks it will win, after three or four years. The fact this government waited the whole five is an indication they don't fancy their chances.

British voters vote for individual candidates in 650 constituencies across the country. Each of the major parties will put forward a candidate in each constituencies. The party who gets the most constituencies, wins. The leader of that party, who himself represents a constituency, is then asked to form a government by the Queen.

The Conservatives, also called Tories, are the equivalent of IRL with one significant difference, they are anti-European. The Labour Party are technically the equivalent of the Social Democrats but in recent years, both in opposition and in government, they have pursued more right-wing policies including waging war in Iraq. The Liberal Democratic party sit with both Keskerakond and the Reform Party in the European Parliament. They are a liberal party but have co-opted some of policies you would expect from the left, including higher taxes for the wealthy, free education at university level and consistent opposition to the War in Iraq.

There are also many minor parties, some even win seats, in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Merkel and Sarkozy fear the Tories

The Conservatives may be centre-right but the prospect of a Conservative victory fills Europe's other centre-right leaders with dread. If they get into power it means trouble.
As the Economist March 31 states, in the modern Conservative party: “almost the only divide is between those who dislike the EU but think it would be better to stay in, and those you want to leave.”
The Conservatives have even refused to sit with other centre-right parties in the European Parliament because of their “federalist” ambitions.
Last year David Cameron was talking about a British referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, a treaty Britain had already ratified it. Although he has now abandoned this idea, many in the party would like to re-negotiate not only Lisbon but all other existing treaties including the Maastrict treaty, the founding document of the EU.

The Conservative party rank and file want to destroy to the Euro. They don't just want Britain to not join it, they want to destroy it. Their vision of a Europe is a loose free-trade organisation like the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) which includes Canada the USA and Mexico.

The Labour party are broadly committed to a stronger Europe but have been circumspect about joining the Euro.

The Liberal Democratics are the most pro-European party they would hold an immediate referendum on joining the Euro. This of course means educating the British people on what the European Union is all about.

Up until now the engine room of Europe has been Germany. With 80 million people, it is by some margin Europe's largest economy. It has traditionally provided the financial muscle and the moral fibre to keep the EU going. Germany's central position in handling the Greek crisis is continued proof of this.

Demographers believe in the next 30 years this situation will change. Largely due to immigration, Britain's population is expected to increase from 60 to at least 80 million by 2051. It is expected to increase to 65 million by 2016 already, according to ONS figures. Germany's population, like most other countries in Europe, will shrink in the same period.

London has overtaken New York as the World's most important financial hub this decade according to the Global Financial Index, it is far ahead of Frankfurt. Despite current setbacks, due to it geographical proximity to continental Europe and the East coast of America, many analysts believe it is likely that London will pull ahead in the future.

Britain is still the World 6th largest manufacturing economy, but it has made more of a switch to a knowledge economy than Germany has been able to.

All this means that Britain, and this is a first, is in the process of becoming Europe's single largest and most powerful country in 20 or 30 years.

The trouble is Britain is a country where; if there isn't outright hostility towards Europe, there is downright ignorance among the political elite.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think-tank, explains that in Britain: “People can get to the top in the media, business and the City without knowing anything at all about the European Union. Parliament is full of people who are proud to have little or no understanding of the EU.”
The prospect of Tory Britain as Europe's main bread winner is a potential for disaster. Europe needs strong leadership not need pigheaded, ignorant, Eurosceptics

Get out and stay out.

The British don't go in for self-promotion, there is no talk of a “British dream” but it isn't a bad place to live. The country offers a high standard of living to people to those who are doing well, like the USA and Canada, and a generous social security system to those who are not, like Sweden.

When this information became common knowledge, everywhere except Estonia it seems, it was like the California Gold Rush. In countries like Poland and Slovakia everybody and their sister moved to Britain. It was mass migration on a scale never before seen in British history.

Back in 2004 the British Home Office predicted that 50,000 people would settle in Britain when the eight accession countries including Estonia joined the EU.
In the end over a million people legally immigrated and half that number again off the books.
Put another way Britain increased it's population by more than the population of Estonia in a couple of years.

The new immigrants didn't just settle in big cities. Every town, every village, every hamlet, has seen its share of newcomers.

Now with the recession, the backlash is in full swing. The gutter press are full of banner headlines about “Eastern Europeans” rampaging through the streets, raping woman, smashing shop windows and taking British jobs. Eastern Europeans including Estonians get lumped into one category in Britain.

How central the issue is to this election was illustrated last week. Whilst out canvassing on the streets, Gordon Brown expressed what he really thought of an old lady when he thought his microphone was switched off. She had complained about Eastern Europeans “flocking in ” to the country.

“That was a disaster, the woman was a bigot,” Brown said to his aide.

The Prime Minister was criticised for being two-faced, but it could be argued the incident showed him in a good light. He is someone who doesn't like prejudice, not only as part of his public persona but privately. It's a shame therefore whatever he may feel privately, Brown has pandered to xenophobic sentiment by talk of “British jobs for British workers.”

However it is the Conservative party who would actually pursue xenophobic policies if elected. They want a cap on immigration. This would initially apply to people from outside of the European Union. There is no reason to suppose this policy would not be extended if it became clear that it wasn't working. This would make it more difficult for Estonians to live and work in Britain, if they are so minded. It would also create bad feeling if rights are suddenly taken away which Estonians currently enjoy.

To protect and defend

All three main political parties are committed to maintaining the British presence in Afghanistan. Britain has already withdrawn from Iraq.
David Cameron, Conservative leader, is known as an Atlanticist with strong personal ties with the Republican party. All the same, cost-cutting brought on by the recession, means Britain will find it difficult to engage in American-led foreign adventures to the same extent that it did under Tony Blair.
Conservatives would veto any attempts to build an effective European defence force. So if the Tories get in don't expect any beefing up of Estonia's defences.

What all this means is the Tories are bad for Estonia. They would slow down European integration they would make the EU weak and ineffective, if things got really bad and there was no co-operation they might even try to break it up. They would make life difficult for Estonians living in Britain and Britons living in Estonia and they wouldn't defend Estonia from foreign enemies.

A Labour government means things stay the same.

The Liberal Democratic are the best choice. They would strengthen Europe's defence, bring Britain to the heart of Europe, support the Euro and stamp out xenophobia, or try to.

Unfortunately the situation is like this. The Tories could win, Labour probably won't win and Liberal Democrats are never going to win.

The Liberal Democrats despite being second in the polls have only 62 MPs in the House of Commons out of a potential 650 MPs. Britain uses a winner takes all system, so the Liberal Democrats will come second or third in constituencies all over the country and not win that many seats.

It's not all sad though. The most likely result is that no party will get an outright majority. This is called a hung parliament.
The British people don't particular like the Conservatives, they have long memories and though they may be angry at Labour for failing these last two years; they haven't forgiven the Tories for the total mess they made of the economy in the early 90s.
Although it's not one of the main issues, the British people don't trust the Conservative's policies on Europe. The Tories are still known as the “nasty” party.
By rights the Conservative should be in government if they come out on top, but the two other parties are ideologically, morally and even personally more at ease with each other on whole range of issues.
There hasn't been a hung parliament since the 70s, so the truth is nobody knows what is going to happen. British politics doesn't have a culture of coalition government. There could even be another election in a few months.
Britain is heading assuredly into uncertainty and that can't be a good thing for Britain or for Europe.

2010-03-31T05:10:00.000-07:00

The libertarian tradition
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 30 March 2010

“There is nothing nice about the USA. When you go to hospital you have to pay”

So sang legendary Scottish punk band the Exploited in their seminal track “F**k the USA”

Estonian medical practitioners make the same point albeit rather more tactfully.
“In the US people are not even in the health system, it is not working,” Dr Margus Viigimaa, President of the Centre for Cardiology said.

He goes on to explain that when the health system in Estonia was set up in the 90s they borrowed ideas for Sweden and Britain but not from the United States.

The healthcare debate not only show that Estonia is in many ways a better place to live than the United States. It also shows the people who oppose health care reform, American libertarians, are dangerous not just to Americans but to the Estonia nation. To understand why we have to look at how Americans see themselves and their place in the World.

The passage of the health care bill through Congress March 19 represents a triumph for the Obama administration, he is the first president to successfully reform the health care system since Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The bill expands Medicare and Medicaid for the elderly and those on low incomes, provides for reduction in prescription dugs, outlaws insurers refusing cover because of pre-existing conditions and sets up state exchanges where citizens can buy insurance.

However what the bill won't do is the very thing the president set out to achieve, provide universal health care for all Americans.

Because of opposition from the Republican and some Democrats, the final version of the bill - which has in any case been sent back to Congress for fine tuning - is not at all clear cut. It's a thousand pages of compromise and fudge that virtually no-one has read, not least the congressmen who voted on it.

As the Financial Times reported on March 23, about 23 million Americans will still have no health care coverage after the bill becomes law, that is a little better than the supposedly 32 million Americans with no health insurance today but universal health care it is not. The bill also doesn't provide coverage for those people who are in America illegally, some of whom are Estonian.

Most Americans worry constantly about health care. Health cost are ruinously expensive. People routinely go bankrupt because they can't afford their medical costs. Medical bills are the biggest single cause of bankruptcy.

Documentary film-maker Michael Moore in his health care film “Sicko” depicts a scene where a sick women to thrown into the street like garbage by a hospital because she had no money and no health insurance.

If you care to look, you can find videos on the internet about charities operating in the United States where people queue from morning until night to get health care. These charities were originally set up to provide health care in Third World countries.

In Estonia although hospitals and clinics are privately run and privately owned, the principle behind which the health system in Estonia operates is essentially socialist.

Health care is paid for out of a central fund which taxpayers pay into. Anybody can use it more or less for free, even non-citizens who have residency, but only people who are working pay into it.

It's Marxism in the purest sense of the meaning built around a capitalist shell.

“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” as Karl Marx wrote.

The system compares favourably to any system in the world.

“The value for money is higher than Europe. It has been officially studied,” said Dr Viigimaa.

“The financial system is quite effective. All General Practitioners are paid the same money for the whole country. People's belief in the state system is quite good. We have in Estonia only one private insurance company,” he said.

Estonia spends between 5.0 to 5.4 per cent of its GDP its on health care cost whereas the United States spend more than three times that amount about 16 per cent, yet Estonia can provide lifetime care for everybody whereas the United States can not.

How is it that an “emerging economy” like Estonia treats its people and even its guests better than the richest, most powerful, country in the World?

The United States has no universal health care because it is not provided for in the constitution.
The United States was not founded as a democracy; democracy was a dirty word in the 18th Century. It was founded as a constitutional republic with rule of law, separation of powers and checks and balances to prevent tyranny or mob-rule/democracy.

When the founding fathers talked about freedom but they meant freedom of individuals from government intervention and government taxes.

Today there is a growing faction of people called libertarians. They believe the constitution should be strictly adhered to. They oppose big government. They argue that universal health means more taxes and more government intervention, in people's life. They believes it means European-style socialism.

To the libertarians the health care reforms are unconstitutional and un-American.

Many people believe Europe adopts ideas from America, but actually in terms of how to run a society the opposite is true. For the past 150 years the United States has moved away from those ideas set out in the constitution and adopted ideas first tried in Europe, especially the U.K.

Had Americans stuck to the principles in the constitution; there would be no public schooling, nor state pensions, nor employment benefits. There would be no social security, no Federal Reserve Bank, no public health insurance of any kind; but black people would still be slaves and women wouldn't still have the vote.

As Gideon Rachman, right-wing, pro-American, columnist writing in the Financial Times puts it: “Healthcare reform has nudged the US a bit closer toward the European ideas of social solidarity- and further away from America's own tradition of rugged individualism”

Libertarians believe that the free market capitalism always provides the best goods and services because competition for customers will force down prices. Usually this is true, but with health care this is simply not the case because health care prices are often perfectly elastic.

If you are the parent of a child with painful leukaemia. And that child is screaming in agony all through the day and all through the night, you would pay any price to get your hands on a drug that would alleviate that pain. You'd borrow from friends, sell your house. You'd rob a bank if you knew how. A drug company with a patent on that drug can charge any price they like. In a system based on the free market is it any wonder that Americans are going bankrupt to pay for health care costs?

There is one other thing that the United States has adopted from Britain and this is where Estonian need to be interested.

In the 1950's Britain handed over the role of global champion of Western values - or global bully depending on your point of view - to the United States

The trouble for those Estonians who are relying on the United States to provide for the nation's security, forever, is as far as libertarians are concerned, this is unconstitutional and un-American also. The founding fathers specifically warned the the young republic about getting involved in foreign entanglements and foreign war, not because they didn't want the country to be strong, but because wars, like healthcare, require more taxes and more government intervention to maintain large standing armies.

In most powerful countries the most right-wing people want their countries to expand their global reach and influence, in the United States right-wing libertarians want to shrink it.

If libertarians are against paying too much tax to defend themselves, how do you think they feel about the paying taxes to defend Estonia?

The danger is not here and now, the current administration is very far from libertarian as the results in the vote show.

But libertarian thinking is a growing force both in American public life and in the Republican party. All Republican congressmen voted against the health care bill and have vowed to keep on fighting. The debate on the health care has also switched many Americans on to understanding what libertarian thinking is all about.

The Libertarians may have lost the vote but they are still fighting for the soul of America.

If in some time in the distant future, libertarianism has taken over, the United States has revert back into isolationism it had before the 1940s and N.A.T.O no longer exists, will people remember it all started with defeat in a domestic bill about healthcare?

In the long term, decision makers in Estonia need to be aware of this strand of the American psyche, and look to other ways to maintain national security.

2010-02-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

ETV Interview

2009-12-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

2009-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

Who's in charge here?
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 23 December 2009

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is an eccentric chap. He is from an aristocratic background, earns the equivalent of 2,500,000 kroon a year, is wealthy anyway, but he likes to get about by public transport. As mayor he holds sway over millions of people. He is charge of a budget that runs into billions of pounds, he makes decisions for one of the world's three financial hubs, he's a powerful man.

The mayor of Tallinn you all know. He is runs a city of about 400,000 people with a budget of 700 million kroon. He is by some measure more powerful. In fact even the mayor of a small town like Haapsalu, a man by the name of Urmas Sukles, is more powerful than Boris Johnson. How so? To understand this we have to look at the way local government is run in Estonia

On paper there is nothing usual about local government. By the standards of many countries, Estonia has a remarkably simple system. Many countries have several tiers of local government, and convoluted, centuries-old, system. Sometimes local authorities have overlapping and conflicting responsibilities. Here in Estonia, local government is built on a single tier system.

When the local government system was set up in the 90s, the framers of the system had their eye on membership of the European Union already. Certainly they wanted Estonia to be part of the European family of nations.

Those of you who think that the European Union doesn't have any idealism, think again. The European Union is very idealistic, it's about giving power back to the people.

The principle behind the Union, written into the founding Treaty of Maastricht, is that things should be run, wherever possible, at a local level. Ordinary citizens should elected local decision-maker to run each village or hamlet. This system is called subsidiarity.

National government can only step in, if things can't be decided at a local level. They have responsibility for defence, border control, national finance, international relations, national education and so forth.

The principles of subsidiarity and decentralisation are written into the Estonian constitution which states:

“All local issues will be resolved and regulated by local authorities, which shall operate independently in accordance with the law.”

The key word is “independently”.

Although each county in Estonia has a governor appointed by and answerable to the Prime Minister, the key decision makers for most things are the local governments.

They are responsible for education, transport, social welfare, roads and safety, administration, culture, water supply, sports and grounds, health care, housing, city planning, business environment, public safety, youth work and environment protection.

So if the mayor of Haapsalu decides that all sausages are evil, because he had a stomach bug one morning, and assuming he can get the city government to agree to it, he can ban the sale of all sausages in the town market forever, or at least as long as he is in power; and the national government of the day can do nothing to stop him, without breaking the constitution

Even though all countries in the European Union subscribe to the principle of subsidiarity, in practice many countries find it difficult to apply.

In the United Kingdom with its centuries old way of doing things and unwritten constitution the national government can and do, step in and make decisions that in Estonia would have to be made at a local level.

Boris Johnson couldn't stop the sale of a single sausage. It's outside his remit. The Greater London Authority only has responsibility for transport, police, fire and rescue, development and strategic planning.

The British government could get rid of the of mayor of London altogether if they wanted to, abolishing the office and the the city government. This was done in the 1980s when a right-wing national government scrapped a left-wing local government.

Who has more power?

If we want to use a real world example, the city of Tallinn can make people from other parts of the country pay more for buses and trams, and the national government can do nothing about that.

In London the city government was once abolished precisely because it wanted to make people pay LESS for public transport.

Who has more power?

Local governments in Estonia have real tax raising powers. As well as it's share of centrally established taxes and allocation from the state budget, the city of Tallinn gets income from loans, the rent or sale city owned property.

The city of Tallinn just approved the budget and as we are all aware, this include a brand new one per cent sales tax to start in June 2010, as well as a tax on boats. Savisaar could if he wanted tax all sorts of things, medicines, foods, clothes, carpets.

He can even intimidate the Prime Minister how he should run his affairs. Earlier this month he suggested he would scrap the one percent sales tax if PM Andrus Ansip lowered VAT by two percentage points.

And what tax raising powers does the mayor of London have. None at all. That's right absolutely zilch. The mayor has a budget and is given money by central government. Local councils in Britain like elsewhere in Europe, and in Estonia, get most of their income from central government allocations. They have very limited tax raising powers they do earn income from a tax on property. It's called council tax and its the only type of tax that's allowed at a local level. The national government can restrict the amount council tax local council can charge. If you don't own property you don't pay.

Who has more power?

One foreigner was more angry than Estonians about all this.

“In ANY western country, a local mayor would be politically dead if he ever tried to interfere in the national government policies, ” he wrote on a news forum.

Some have pointed out that what is more shocking is not that Savisaar is dictating terms to the national government, basically blackmailing them, for want of a better word, but that Ansip and the government did not make a big deal out of it.

In any other country there would already be a bill winging it's way through Parliament curtailing the power of the local government.

Of course the principles of decentralisation and subsidiarity are noble ones, but Estonia is a decentralised nation with a too powerful centre.

Tallinn not only gets one third of all states money allocated to local government it also gets four fifth of all direct investment into the country. As far as the outside world is concerned, Tallinn is Estonia.

When the centre is so large, it makes a nonsense of decentralisation.

Foreigners visitors to Estonia are often puzzled by the fact that the leader of the opposition would want to be mayor. With this kind of power, why wouldn't he be? In fact who wouldn't rather be in local politics than in national politics.

So Boris Johnson may run a city of millions, but he can't make them pay more for soap, he can't decide breakfast for them; and he certainly can't bully the Prime Minister. No mayor can do that, except in Estonia it seems.

Tell me, who has more power?

2009-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Pyrrhic victory
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 23 October 2009

Tallinn let out a collective howl of anguish this Sunday night. Everybody knew what the results of the local elections would be, yet still people didn't want to believe it was true.

It was a resounding victory, an absolute triumph for the Centre party, or so it seems. They got an absolute majority in Tallinn, 53.5 per cent of the votes, better than last time round.

Overall they did better than even recent polls have predicted. The Centre party won 31.1 percent of the popular vote. If this result was reflected in a general election it would make the Centre Party the large single party in Riigikogu.

At least as far as Tallinn is concerned I was wrong about one thing. Savisaar is not “almost” the champion of the silent majority. He is simply the champion of the silent majority

Tallinn is the big prize and as mayor Edgar Savisaar will continue to be a major player in national affairs. In a highly centralised country like Estonia it means that in terms of real power and influence he is second only to Ansip.

Many people were personally upset by the result. I am sure readers know co-workers who came into the office scowling. Maybe you were one of them You have probably read stories about the campaign for Tallinners to register as residents in other parts of Estonia, of the vomit that was deliberately thrown in front of City Hall this Wednesday, of the half-joking plan to tear down Lasnamae and deprive Savisaar of support.

But things could be worse. They actually are worse in other countries.

The Centre party could be running the whole of Estonia. Actually I'll rephrase that, the Centre party “would be” running the whole of Estonia, but for one thing; the party list electoral system.

I touched on this in another article but I will go into a bit more in detail here.

There's a country not that far away where one party rules with an iron fist and has done for the past 12 years. The ruling party has an absolute mandate to do what ever it likes. The opposition can and do complain , but they can do nothing because most of the MPs are from the ruling party. This country has no written constitution so the ruling party could in theory turn the country into a totalitarian state with one piece of legislation.

The majority of people didn't vote for this party. They got only 35.3 per cent of the popular vote at the last election, only 3 per cent more than the main opposition party.

We have put up with this system in the UK because it's the way things have always been. The last time we had a government which most people voted for was 1945 when the Labour party won 51 per cent of the vote on progressive political platform.

Most English-speaking countries operate a first past-the-post system. In each constituency the candidate who gets more votes wins the seat. Other parties may come second, third, fourth all over the country and not actually win many, or any, seats.

In the US this system, which they inherited from its mother country, is the reason why there are only two parties. In Britain there are three parties, but in practice more like two and a half. At each election we have a Mexican stand-off with two adults and a midget. The midget always loses.

In Estonia seats are allocated to parties on the bases of the proportion of votes that they got. This system encourages lot of parties, political deal-making and coalition governments as we see.

But here's the rub, the electoral system in Estonia was designed to stop people like Savisaar. And stop him it will. One of the purposes of proportional representation is to prevent populist leaders, promising bread and circuses sweeping to power. We can call it the tyranny of the silent majority .

The party list system in Estonia, also called the d'Hont system, was invented by American founding father Thomas Jefferson. It's used for congressional apportionment. Jefferson hated demagogues and populist leaders.

Thanks to PR in order to get leadership of the nation, Savisaar needs to work with other parties. He knows that.

Last week Savisaar offered a collaborative agreement to the other mayoral candidates. The offer was rejected. For once the cynics are wrong, I believe Savisaar is for real. He really did want the other candidates to sign the document. He must have known the offer would be ignored but he thought it was worth a try. It also explains his overtures to the People's Union of Estonia this week.

You'd think that after such a triumph Saavisar would get on with the business of running Tallinn, safe in the knowledge that at least in the capital he has a popular mandate.

Not a bit of it, he is thinking ahead to 2011. He likes to be mayor but he wants to be Prime Minister. More accurately he craves to be Prime Minister

Here is a prediction. In the months and years to come as the 2011 looms, you can expect more of the same. The Centre party will keep making public offers of co-operation with other parties and the other parties will continue to rebut them. Unless one of the other parties caves in, it will build into a crescendo.

You can sure that if the Centre party gets the most votes in the next General election, Savisaar will accuse them of being undemocratic, if he still has no deal.

Certainly PR has it’s flaws. It means people are not voting for individual candidates. It means that people with no credentials or background, other than a skill for brown-nosing, get elected. It encourages a culture of political deal-making behind closed doors. It makes political parties put forward candidates who are young and attractive, but have no intention of serving in public office.

I won't go in detail about the Centre party campaign, enough has been written about it already. I'll simply say it was crass, unscrupulous and wrong.

Through this campaign Savisaar may have succeeded in doing the impossible. He has alienated his opponents even more than they were already alienated. He might just have scuppered any chance of co-operation between his party and other parties and therefore his own chance of getting what he craves..

After he triumph over the Romans at the battle of Heraclea the Greek general Pyrrhus is reputed to have said: “One more victory like that and we won't need any more defeats.”

In the months and years to come people may look back on the Centre Party's triumph at these elections and decide that it was a pyrrhic victory.

2009-11-20T01:43:00.001-08:00

Abdul Turay: The man who annoys Estonians
Interview by Priit Pullerits
Published Postimees 14 November 2009

He came here like a breath of fresh air. Some say he is showing us how the world sees us. Others question how he dare say something about us.
A year ago, a black man shocked Estonia when he wrote a couple of sentences in Postimees which enraged the nation.

“Suppose in three or four years, Russia decided to try its luck and attack Narva. We can be certain the United States and the whole West will condemn it publicly. But don't rule out the possibility that the United States and NATO are actually doing nothing, because the President's wife is privately thinking:
'Ah... Estonia, isn't that the little small-minded white country, to hell with them.'”

Curiously this do not lead to Turay becoming a pariah, quite the opposite. Through his work he has become an opinion leader (though he himself does not agree with the title). His opinion pieces have become eagerly anticipated and he is not cheated these anticipations.

In this week's column he decided definitively to settle the question why Estonian women prefer foreign men.

Namely, he argued, Estonian women prefer Estonian men after all.
Who is this black man who dares to talk so vigorously to a white society?

He was born and raised in England (Ed note: Britain), studied history at University in London, worked thereafter on the newspaper the Hong Kong Standard and in Taiwan on the China News. After returning to Britain, he went into public service. He led projects and wrote speeches (Ed note: and letters) for ministers.

Last year he came to Estonia together with his Estonian spouse to be Editor-in-Chief of the English-language newspaper The Baltic Times.

But soon he put that job behind him because the paper's owners refused to pay some of their employers.

Now Turay teaches at The Old Town Educational College; and he writes in addition for Postimees and Web sites.

How much courage do you need to come from a foreign country and start to write opinion articles here?

Quiet a lot; I am always nervous: do I have the authority to write about something? I am not Estonian, I don't speak Estonian particular well, I can read, but I need a dictionary. How can I write about economics or politics, if I am not an economist? So it needs courage.

Do many people listen to what you write?

Indeed, they listen but that doesn't mean that they always agree with me. A lot do not agree, but they at least think.

Sometimes it appears that you are tying to be provocative. Is that so?

No, I am just trying to be honest. It's said (Ed note: quoting Malcolm McLaren) that if you write something that doesn't annoy anybody, then you are doing something wrong.

Some people get annoyed simply because I am writing, and I can't do anything about that.

However there must be another reason why there is a turbulent reaction to your writing, What's your opinion?

Maybe the reason is this. As Barbi Pilvre(lecturer and political analyst) has said, in Estonia the same group of people are writing all the time and even if they write something very smart and special, people don't react because it's done by the same writers. I am different, I write in a different way and I have different things to say; that can be interesting.

How do people here relate to Foreigners?

If you are a foreigner, then it is automatically assumed that you are a tourist. People come and ask money from you almost every day. I have notice this more and more after the recession began.

Estonians are provincial, but the whole World is becoming like this. This is somewhat worrying. You'd think because of globalisation it would be the other way round. I am noticing also Britain (Ed note: he wrote England but I would have said Britain) is more provincial than 10-15 years ago. If you look at the British press for example it is all about local figures. Twenty years ago the picture the media painted was more international.

How do you feel walking in Estonian streets? Is it odd or different?

I am used to it. I grew up in a town where everybody was white. And if you are a child then you don't think this way. You can't see a white world, but only the neighbourhood, where you live, and if you are the only black child then you are used to this. That's your world.

But you notice that you are stared at sometimes?

Adults pretend not to stare, but children really stare. There is a big difference in how Estonian children and how, for example, Chinese children behave. Estonian children are just curious but Chinese children are sometimes afraid.

Once I was standing on a Hong Kong train platform and there was a woman with a child staring at me behind his mother's shirt. I started to fool with him slightly, I pulled faces, but his mother said that I shouldn't do that as the child was afraid. This has never happened here. In Estonia children are simply curious they are not afraid of anyone.

What was the most difficult to get use to in Estonia?

(He thinks for a long time) I don't like Estonian food especially. Obviously there is a reason why there are no Estonian restaurants in the rest of the World (laughs). You put sour cream on everything. I am not a big fan of Estonian food. There is not also a lot of variety of cuisines.

You have tried blood sausage?

Yes of course, In Britain there is something like this. We call it Black Pudding; and I don't especially like it.

What do you feel is strange of peculiar in Estonia?

Estonia are balanced, they rarely speak or express their emotions. But all the same they tell you all sorts of confidential thing which people from other cultures won't, even if you know the other person well. You can get closer to Estonians than with people from other cultures, where you do not talk about certain things for years. Therefore you have many open relationships with Estonians.

I was married before and I only discovered certain things about my wife after three year, which I didn't know. But I know similar thing about Estonian friends although I hadn't even known them so long.

You have written opinion pieces about Edgar Savisaar(Mayor of Tallinn, leader of the Centre Party) Mart Laar(Leader of IRL) What is your political viewpoint?

In Britain I was a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is the same here as the Centre party. I would define myself as an Adam Smith Liberal. Estonia has two party in the position of the centre, the Centre Party and the Reform Party

Even the right-wing IRL is more close to the centre than the equivalent party in Britain. Estonian politics is more grey in tone. There isn't strong opposition to the European Union or to membership of the Euro from the right, whilst in Britain the right-wing is strongly against the Euro.

So it is difficult to say what party I endorse. In any case, I am not a social democrat. In the long run socialism would be the best idea but then you need some type of “Star Trek” technology, like making water out of thin air, to make it work. Until we have this technology, socialism can't function.

Which way would you vote in parliament if you could vote?

For the Reform Party or IRL(Ed note: I can vote)

Interesting because the IRL embodies Estonian patriotism. Explain!

The IRL stands for liberal and conservative values. When I was young I was a Conservative, but the British Conservative party in the past 20 years has moved from Pro-Europeanism to Euroscepticism.

In Estonia, The IRL is both pro-Europe and pro-Estonia. They don't see a conflict between patriotism and internationalism. In Britain patriotism mean this that you must be against Europe. Therefore I have difficulty in supporting the Conservative party.

When it come to the question of the Reform party, they have made some mistakes when in government. I am not especially endorsing the Centre Party. They don't even have an ideology, except for populism and people know this. Even those who vote for the Centre Party know this. They do not represent anything other than getting back into power.

Have you noticed stress between Estonians and Russian?

The whole world saw this two years ago

Can Estonians and Russian reconcile?

This is a difficult challenge. The problem between Estonians and Russians is similar to the problems in Northern Ireland. The difference is it's a lot worse there and it's been going on for centuries.

The Protestants were originally a different ethnic group. They were brought there from Scotland to crowd out the Irish majority group. They looked different, they had a different language, different names. After four century the two group are very similar, the names and language are similar, but the conflict is still bitter. They don't live in the same areas, they don't talk to each other

I went to a school where there were Protestants and Catholics and there was conflict even there. One Protestant kid told me that he had nothing against Asians or Blacks, as long as I wasn't Catholic.

So it is difficult to say how to say how the problem between Estonians and Russians will be resolved. I don't have a solution for this. I don't believe anybody does.

Furthermore the emotions to these questions are too strong. So if anybody makes a proposal then he gets shouted down. And even if something is undertaken, it doesn't mean that this problem would be resolved. Look at Northern Ireland.

Despite the huge number of Russians, there is not especially much ethnic diversity in the Estonia. Would increasing diversity be beneficial?

The question is not whether Estonia needs more cultural diversity. Cultural diversity will come if you have a successful country. If diversity doesn't come then it's because the country is not successful. The Europe Union has a lot of countries that are already diverse, so this will happen also in Estonia if there is something here to attract a computer specialist or a doctor, for example a good salary. When people don't come its because there is nothing to attract them.

With success comes diversity, there is nothing that can be done to stop it, except leaving the European Union and if you did this you wouldn't get any more EU money, which is a bad outcome.

Is it good, when people of other background come here, or is it a risk to Estonia as the Estonian population is small?

Yes some people are worried about this. But I think that Estonian culture is very strong and will live on. You have preserved your own language despite 800 years of occupation.

The challenge is can you take it to the next level where people who are not from the Estonian population, speak also Estonian and have themselves become Estonian. This is a difficult task, because nobody wants to lose their own roots and origins.

Under what condition would you yourself become Estonian?

Then if I feel that people take me for that, if they are feel comfortable with me and dot want to eat me [after writing something] Estonians don't have a civic sense of national identity. It's difficult to be adopted here. People won't take you as Estonian.

It's harder to become Estonian than to become British or American.

But if you stay here for 10 year do you hope that you'll start to feel more Estonian?

It got to be so, if I stayed here for 10 years and my children come from here.

I've heard you are Moslem?

I am not religious. My parents are Moslem but I was raised with the Anglican faith. I can't really call myself a Moslem because I don't even know the rituals.(Ed note: I went on to say that Islam is a compassionate, humanist religion which has been misunderstood in the West. But they didn't publish this part of the interview)

Say what keeps you here?

My spouse probably.

And you've not had enough of it yet?

(Laughs) yes a woman is enough motivation to be here.

What does your spouse do?

She works in government service. She is modest and I must honour her wishes. She doesn't want attention or her name made public.

What do you plan to do here?

I have certain goals, but firstly I must raise some capital. These plans can change as my mother's health is not the best. If it gets worse it could be that I must go back home. This is not difficult because I am on leave from my work in the UK. My place there still exists but I don't get a salary now.

Would you like to stay?

Yes I would indeed, until my Estonian gets better

Do you feel that you want to do something after your writing. You will still be of value in Estonia because your writing is anticipated?

Yes some people expect it, but not everybody.

Looking back on Abdul Turay's opinion pieces.

But one thing is clear for anyone who cares about Estonia; we should all do whatever we can to make sure the bank don’t go bust and stop Putin’s gang from coming here, even if it means living on potato peels. (Let's eat potato peels)

Now Ansip must realise that it was a mistake to hold up Ireland as a model for Estonia to follow. (The hairdresser who ruined Tallinn)

What is clear is that Laar is in a bind. If he is truly a believer in the free market he would go to the people and say: “Look, if I get back into power, I will do nothing... doing something will only make the situation worse, we must take the pain.” (Laar's dilemma)

There is more to Edgar Savisaar than Estonia's answer to Brad Pitt though. He is more of a cross between the aforementioned Hollywood star, Richard Nixon and Jesus. (Savisaar: Estonia's sexiest man)

The electoral system in Estonia was designed to stop people like Savisaar. And stop him it will.(Pyrrhic victory)

I hope I don't sound to dumb in stating the obvious. Estonian women prefer Estonian men and it is normal and natural that they should. (Black men and Estonian women: the truth)

2009-11-11T02:35:00.000-08:00

Black men, Estonian women: the truth
By Abdul Turay

Published Postimees 11 November 2009

Well that got your attention; the headline I mean. Any story on this subject, the technical term is miscegenation, is bound to get punters. The yellow media, women's magazines and reality TV shows are obsessed with the subject. Not a month goes by without some publication writing about it. Anne and Style, for example, recently ran a long feature about mixed couples.

Most of these stories are muddle-headed and wrong. There's paranoia in this country that there is an army of dark-skinned men form Turkey, the tropics, some place south, who are going to make off with the nation's women. It's never going to happen. I'll explain why in a minute.

Seriously, I think there are more important things to think about and worry about. I worry about feeding my family. I worry about other people being able to feed their families, so I write about politics and economics.

But the press won't leave me, or any other black person in Estonia for that matter, alone.
A women's magazine contacted me once to join a round table discussion about foreign men and Estonian women. I told them I wasn't interested.
A well-known T.V. presenter asked me to go on her show to talk about foreign men and Estonian women. I told her I wasn't interested.
A journalist asked me about foreign men and Estonian women. You can guess my answer.

Since the issue is out there and because there is so much nonsense that's been broadcast and written about it, I have decided to set the record straight. I am hoping against hope that this piece will be the definitive story on the subject and the press will henceforth steer clear of it.

I hope I don't sound too dumb in stating the obvious. Estonian women prefer Estonian men and it is normal and natural that they should.

There are a million and one reasons for this, the underlying principle is it's more comfortable for anyone to be in a relationship with someone who speaks the same language and shares the same culture.

What it boils down to is an Estonian woman can joke with an Estonian man with something like: “How many times do I have to wash the same man's socks?” and not have to spend 20 minutes explaining what she means.

Not only are Estonian men, in my opinion, tall and good-looking, at least compared to the foreign men I see around Tallinn, with the type of looks that are popular in the Mediterranean, but they have skills that Western men don't seem to have. An Estonian guy knows how to be a “man”. He can put up a shelf, he can chop wood.

Of course some local women date foreigners. Part of the reason appears to be that there aren't enough Estonian men to go around. But some women like what foreign men have to offer. Foreign men can appear sophisticated and urbane. Foreign men in Estonia are by definition travelled, women like that.

But actually, the best way to appear sophisticated and urbane is not to be a foreigner. The best way to appear sophisticated and urbane is to be an Estonian guy socialising with foreigners. There are two guys in a club, a black guy and his Estonian friend, who gets the interest? who gets the girl? Think about it.

The number of Estonian women who are even remotely interested in foreign men is no more than in other countries and a lot less than most. The figures back this up. In the U.K. an estimated 30 per cent of all black women, my sister included, are married to or living with white partners. Could you imagine if 30 per cent of all Estonian women had Russian-speaking partners or vice versa? And Estonian and Russians are the same race.

What this demonstrates is for people to get along what matters is culture, not race.

All those black women, like my sister, share the same culture with their husbands. They speak the same language, have grown up with the same TV shows, have read the same books and played the same school yard games.

And what about black men in Estonia? I know a lot of anecdotal tales about foreign men in general and black men in particular who are complete failures with Estonian women.

I knew of one guy who was over here playing basketball. As a professional sportsman earning a good salary by Estonian standards you'd think he'd have no problem getting women. Think again. He could never get any woman to commit to him. He was looking for love, he was getting brief encounters. He felt exploited. He was frustrated and angry

“I really hate Estonian women,” he said.

I knew another basketball player. He was a real nice chap. His girl dumped him anyway, when the right Estonian guy came along. She gave no warning and no explanation, just “goodbye”. He was fairly philosophical about the experience; which was big of him because he had only stayed in the country for that girl. He has now left Estonia.

And there are others with even less success. Take a friend of mine, let's call him John Doe. He's 28, American, articulate, attractive, a graduate student, highly intelligent, and to make life really easy for him, white. He's been in Estonia for over two years. In that time he hasn't dated a single woman, not one. He said he found it difficult to have any kind of meaningful dialogue with Estonian women. He found it especially hard to talk to those women who hadn't spent any time abroad.

Just to demonstrate how farcical all the stuff that is usually written in the press about this issue is; let's get back to the women's magazine and their round table discussion. They did eventually rope in somebody to take part. And who was this expert on Estonian women? you've guessed it, John Doe.

There was the women's media asking John Doe why more and more Estonia women are picking foreign men as partners, not realising the real story was right under their noses, namely: “How come there are all these foreign men living in Estonia now who can't get near a local women?”

So what happens when an Estonian women through accident or fate does end up with a foreign men.

Simple, they Estonianise them. It is universally true that foreign men with Estonian partners all develop a keen interest in Estonian language and culture. I don't know a foreigner who has been with an Estonian woman for any significant period of time who doesn't have a passion for Estonian culture. With some people it can become an obsession, but that's a subject for another article.

You'd think that an Estonian woman married to a Dutchman or American would chose to live in the United States or Holland. Salaries are higher there after all. However often the couple chose to live in Estonia. If you've ever wondered why, now you have your answer. It’s part of the process whereby those clever Estonian women customise their men folk, combining the best of Dutch or American with the best of Estonian.

Any guy with an Estonian woman will eventually learn how to chop wood or put up a shelf.

Not everybody adapts though. Take our dumped basketball player. After two years in Estonia he wouldn't have known who Mart Sander was, if he came up to him and smacked him in the face.

Things are looking up for John Doe though. He's met a blond, chatty, waitress in Vapiano whom he really likes.
“Why don't you ask her out?” I said to him over dinner.
“What do you know about her, do you even know her name?”
“Yes of course I know her name, it's Opi ...em... Opilane,” he said. (Ed note: Õpilane is the Estonian word for student or trainee)

2009-10-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

Black man flies solo
By Mart Zirnask
Published Eesti Ekspress 2 October 2009

Political observer Abdul Turay columns' are causing politician to line up, publicly to churn out replies. What lies behind this phenomenon?

One day, Abdul Turay was walking through a small birch-edged Tallinn parking lot
Suddenly a young gentleman, driving a car shouted out: “Hey nigger, you fucking nigger! Get the fuck out of my country!!”

For fun Turay answered him in French (which he learned in his native country of Great Britain). The other person was silently surprised for a moment and then carried on shouting abuse.......also in French.

“Totally unbelievable,” Turay said rolling with laughter.

“Then I thought for a moment that this is indeed an odd country.”

Turay didn't say there is large scale racism in Estonia. He did say he has had more positive experiences than negative ones.

But he wouldn't permit the paper to name the cafe where we rested for a chat. (Ed note: because it's near where I live). As of last spring, Turay goes regularly to a sports club carrying a bag with boxing gear for self-defence.

Abdul Turay came out of nowhere. He is Black, agnostic, his family are Moslem, he went to a Catholic school (Ed note: It was actually an Anglican school the reporter made an error). To our way of thinking he is a minority of a minority.

From last November he has written for Postimees; about how NATO in all probability won't waste time defending Estonia against Russia, how Mart Laar's economic ideology is hopelessly in a bind and how Russia could theoretically buy up Estonian banks from the Swedes.

In his last opinion piece about Edgar Savisaar, Turay wrote that the mayor of Tallinn didn't offer the country anything of substance other than “oozing sexual magnetism”.

“Yes indeed Savisaar- he simply demanded a satirical analysis,” Turay said, squeezing a blue sweet wrapper and thinking a little.

“He's a very complete character! And Laar is a heavyweight, worldwide icon, a pioneer of an economy system, who theoretically could be Prime Minister again. It occur to me to ask, what would he do now, but I hadn't read or seen anything about this," Turay said.

Turay's arguments have brought immediate and public response from the likes of Mart Laar, Marko Mihkelson, Kadri Simson and Priit Pullerits (Ed note: politicians and newspaper editors). This foreign, black man, who struggles in Estonian, but has a surprisingly good understand of the political history, is really publicly shaking things up.

At one time Turay worked for newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan. When he went abroad for the first time long ago, his father explained that he should bear in mind that he was in some way an ambassador.

“Wherever I go, the first thing that people see is that I am black, But I myself consider myself British. So what am I am ambassador for? I became immediately apparent, I am an ambassador for Black Britons,” Turay said.

Turay heaves a mild sigh. But he isn't smiling currently, his brown eyes are focused somewhere else as they examine with glowingly attention his conversation partner.

“If I had been singing or playing (basket) ball, then no one would be bothered, because this is what people expect a black man should be doing. But if a black person writes in a newspaper then it's a big deal.

“The majority of Estonians simply don't have contact with foreigners. When they see one they think probably they must be here on holiday. But actually quite a lot of ex-pats know what's going on," he said.

Abdul Turay has read bits and pieces of Kalevipoeg, he has seen Tonis Magi in concert and listens sometimes to Raimond Valgre. Everyday with a dictionary at his fingertips, he keeps track of our papers, political blogs and broadcasts.

“Marko Mihkelson's blog is quiet challenging. And my old lady doesn't help me, mostly,” he complained.

Turay's "old lady" is Estonian (they aren't married) this was the main reason why he came to Estonia more permanently.

He first visited in the year 2002, Turay wanted simply to see the country because it was missing an aristocracy.

“This is quite unusual for English people.

"Moreover who would not like to live in such a country,” he said.

For clarification: Turay's West African father belonged to the generation, which after the war rebuilt England. Estonia is his opportunity to take part in the same process.

Turay's Estonian teacher, Maire Aarsalu, reported how her student researches his opinion pieces “He would you speak with people about the Centre party,” she said.

It seemed to her that he sympathises with the Russians living in Estonia because they are a minority like him.

All the same, the lesson in all those well worn articles about Estonians and Russians is that rubbing things up remains delicate.

"He still doesn't perceive this situation quite well,” Aarsalu said.

Turay himself believes that in the near future a vitality will grow out of Estonia, which will bring the minorities together. And not just the Russians, if the country succeeds, then it will attracts all sorts of nationalities to the country.

“But if Putin's gang were really to attack Estonian, I would be the first man who grabs a gun," Turay said.

Turay gave an interview to one foreign portal where he stated that the election of Barack Obama “opened door for me personally”.

As his own background is in writing, does he feel comfortable with the American president's slogan “change we need”.

“No! I am not standing for political office and the Centre party has already hijacked this slogan," Turay laughingly said.

Before coming to Estonia, for 12 years he wrote speeches for ministers in England (Ed note: The United Kingdom).

Actually he is formally a domestic government worker. He also belongs to the Liberal Democratic party. This is the party whose direct counterpart in Estonia would be the Centre party.

But by Estonian standards Abdul Turay is more right-wing.

And one last thing, before Abdul Turay emerged, the only black person in the Estonian media was Arkaadi A. Who was an invention of political and cultural analyst, Mart Juur in his humorous column.

Arkaadi was the beloved friend of our national leaders He divided Arnold Rüütel's presidential rally previous media agreement. And in the age of the popular front, he rescued the familiar Savisaar from behind prison wall.

In all seriousness, Express editors were openly speculating whether Juur had also simply invented Turay.

“Really you can see why this question came up. Is there really such a person? I don't go out especially much and nobody really sees me around,” Turay chuckles.

When asked what politicians he knew personally he casually answered.

“Only Andrus Ansip (Ed note: The Estonian prime minister) I had dinner with him once when I was at the Baltic Times!”

SB1 The destroyer of the culture of discussion.

By Barbi Pilvre TLU RASI lecturer.

The Abdul Turay phenomenon brings to the fore some Estonian cultural taboos, which are related to race.

The political and economic analytical premier league in Estonia is a famously narrow group of people. Open discussion is characterised by a settled hierarchy. We have a lot of well-known experts in their particular areas. Bystanders are not let in, not because they lack competence, but because we have this authoritarian discussion culture. Men write about men's issues and women write about women's issues. The themes are black and white. If the hierarchy had a chance they would keep it that way as the media loves to protect experts.

Now a foreign black man, living in Estonia, who has made off with a local girl, is tackling very difficult subjects which have not yet been talked about by white pure-blooded Estonian person with any degree of sophistication. He talks appropriately, emphatically but in a calm low voice. To quote professor Rein Taagepera: "There is nothing as carefully humorous as Estonian debating culture."

Even Russian-speaking people don't use the opportunity to ask, the public, politicians, and the country in general, key questions using Estonian.

So first a Finn can provoke Estonians by giving an evil interpretation of “our history”. (Ed note: a reference to a Finnish professor who was banned from Estonia for saying the Soviet occupation was legitimate). And now we have the writings of this one black man.

Abdul Turay has caused such a high level of reaction, and that shows that our political elite are in a sense surprised, even shocked, even if the average white columnist had the same courage, there would be no response from the top at all.

Abdul Turay is a highly welcome local connection.

2009-09-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

Playboy cover girl and Estonian Foreign Policy
From Marko Mihkelson's Blog
Published 24 August

I do not regularly read the weekly paper The Baltic Times, but sometimes, especially whilst flying, it catches the eye. It's one of the few, if not the only English language press publications, which reflects events in the Baltics.

I am not up-to-date about who is behind this publication today and what is going on with the editorial line. But especially recently, I have noticed very bizarre editorial choice and stories of questionable journalistic value being published.

Yesterday on a plane back from Riga I picked up and read TBT's latest number (August 20-26 668). In the attached opinion piece stared back the heading: “The difficult lessons of Estonia's foreign policy”, authored by Tartu University “political scientist and foreign policy analyst” Anna-Maria Galojan

With this somewhat ambitious title she glorified herself. Galojan's story is one of strangest articles I have read about Estonian foreign policy in the last few years. She speak about how Estonian politicians and diplomats are using only their emotions to deal with democracy, human rights and economics. The example she brings forward was support last year for Georgian President Saakasvili (who was attacked in South Ossetia). What needs to happen now, is for this to be replace with disapproval (as the latter is persona non grata in the West)

It was interesting on what she based this odd opinion. Estonia has always supported both Georgian democratic reform and territorial integrity, not one or the other in policy making.

As a second example, the Playboy cover girl spoke about how Estonian foreign policy officials keep up only connections with the US Republican party. Again where did such as idea come from? The issue is not parties but policies which the administration is driving forward, be this Democrat or Republican

"Our foreign policy must also be balanced by developing positive relationships with our neighbours, including Russia, and with the very experienced British Commonwealth of Nations," Galojan points as the goal of Estonian foreign policy.

The issue is after all that our foreign policy should be consistent. Though there is always room for improvement.

But the criticisms which I have repeated here in the blog, when all is said and done, go to promote this thinking.

However Galojan's article, in all circumstance, will make quiet a few people very curious and puzzled.

I believe that TBT editors and journalists should assess the quality of stories before publishing them. I speak here as a former editor of Postimees, not as a politician active in foreign policy.

One more thought. As mentioned previously The Baltic Times is one of only a few English language news publications. There are certainly very few. In my opinion it would be extremely useful and even economically profitable to establish an English language multimedia operative news and opinion portal.

2009-09-08T13:37:00.000-07:00

Estonia needs a bail out package (Response to The sexiest man in Estonia)
by Kadri Simson Centre party faction chairperson
Postimees 4 September

On 2 September, British journalist, Abdul Turay commented about my position that Estonia needs to boost its economy with a support packet model like US president Obama's.

Looking critical at the content of the article, gives rise to the question, did the foreign journalist critically read through the proposal. The journalist understands that aid packets by the governments of the USA and Great Britain are above all to get banks out of difficulties and points to how this proposal is irrelevant in Estonia, as here we don't have our own banks.

Unfortunately Turay is fighting with non-existent adversaries, because my proposals for an economic boost packet didn't even deal with banks, in that part. Obama package content, which deserves to be followed in Estonia, is compensation for decrease in internal demand through state orders, which will enable jobs to be preserved.

The crisis package has been taken up in Germany and France and their economies show signs of economic recovery, relatively successfully. So to name crisis packages dumb is indeed a fallacy. As proved by the performance of Estonia which is so far without a decent crisis package.

(Editor's note: Normally I don't comment on responses to my articles. I just publish them and let the reader decide. But with this one I felt I had to say something.

Ms Simson, the bail out package in the USA was designed primarily for banks, that is a fact. These new New Deal, rampant Keynesian, aspects of package, were tacked on later as an afterthought.
By talking specifically about the Obama package in the USA, you make a comparison between the US and Estonian economies. They are not comparable. That was my criticism and it is still legitimate.

It's only when I published my article that you backtracked and started to talk about Germany and France. As yourself have said, it's too early to say whether this crisis is over. If that is true in the USA, surely it is true in Germany and France?

You still haven't answered the main question I posed, at all. How is this country going to pay for this, with no mechanism for deficit spending? Raising taxes perhaps. That won't go down to well with Centre Party supporters and kind of defeats the point, don't you think?)

2009-09-02T02:59:00.000-07:00

The sexiest man in Estonia
Return of the silent majority (well almost)
By Abdul Turay
Published Postimees 2 September 2009

The three faces of Savisaar

At a festival at Linnahall a public figure stepped on the stage, gave a speech and announced it was his birthday. The crowd oohed and aahed like he was a movie star. They were lapping up his every word, they loved him. This was more than just charisma, this was pure sexual magnetism. Unless the paper have stuck a picture of Brad Pitt next to the story, you know where this is heading.

There is more to Edgar Savisaar than Estonia's answer to Brad Pitt though. He is more of a cross between the aforementioned Hollywood star, Richard Nixon and Jesus.

A visitor to Estonia would get the impression that everybody, everywhere hates the mayor of Tallinn. A friend described how her 14 year old daughter had scrawled abuse on Savisaar's poster, which for some inexplicable reason was in the school poster board. Actually she didn't finish the word. She got as far as “SIT” before a teacher caught her.

“My daughter did a very bad thing,” my friend said smiling broadly.

Another “friend” threatened not to talk to me again if I joined the Centre party. He wasn't smiling.

Yet month after month, opinion polls tell a different story. The Centre party consistently comes ahead of every other party. And not just a little ahead, but by 5 to 10 points. In a country which has half a dozen political parties, all with a chance of winning seats in Parliament, this is a huge margin.

Watching the crowd cheer him on at the festival, you realise Savisaar has tapped into something that no other politician in Estonia has been able to. He is the champion of the silent majority.

The term “silent majority” was first coined to describe those people who supported the late US president Richard Nixon. He won the 1968 election by a comfortable margin and went on to win the 1972 by an even greater margin, despite being passionately hated by large swathes of the American population. The same type of people who hated Nixon, hate Savisaar; the young, the educated, the intelligentsia, the urban, the well-to-do, the left leaning and the forward-thinking right.

The silent majority were and are blue-collar, politically inactive and don't have a voice in the media. They were against 60s' counter culture and for traditional American institutions.

They liked Nixon, their counterparts in Estonia today, like Savisaar. It simply isn't the case that only Russian-speakers support him. Anyone who worries about paying the rent and having enough food, supports Savisaar. Pensioners, who have to turn down the heat in winter because they can't afford their bills, support Savisaar. Check-out girls, who work all hours of the day but still don't have enough money to enjoy themselves, support Savisaar. People, who don't comment on Postimees articles because they don't have a computer, support Savisaar.

Strictly speaking, this group of people is not the majority of course. You can't have a majority when you have a multi-party system.

For them Savisaar is a sort of a sort of tin-foil Jesus. He promises to fed the hungry, heal the sick and provide for the old. Yet he puts forward no tangible plans as to how all this will be paid for. It will be a miracle.

Savisaar's program is what political analysts used to call “sexy.” So sexy that people continue to back him even when they don't really believe him. Savisaar's supporters may be poor but they are not stupid.

“I know that he probably won't deliver what he promises but he is the only one who is offering us anything at all, so I will continue to support him,” a Russian-speaking friend said to me once.

There is little point in discussing Savisaar's flaws. You are all familiar with them. The similarities with Nixon are eerie. He is accused of; taping political enemies, cronyism, nepotism, political opportunism and corruption. Some of you will be old enough to remember that Nixon came to a very sticky end. The only US president to be forced to resign.

Nixon also had great achievements. Nixon pursued a policy of détente with the communist block and the Soviet Union. He ended the first phase of the Cold War and built a relationship with China that is still flourishing today.

Nixon was a man of the right. Working things out with Russia seemed like pragmatism. With Savisaar it seems like cynicism.

It's ironic then that Savisaar's attempts to heal the rift between Russia and Estonia have led to the entire establishment and one teenage girl to pour scorn and contempt on him and his party.

There is an old English saying that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. In Savisaar's case, as many people believe, being unpatriotic has made him a scoundrel

Still Savisaar is an enigma. He is a very clever man. Technically he is Dr Savisaar Phd. So why does he allow the people around him to keep spouting nonsense?

The latest was from Kadri Simson, rising young star of the party. She recently suggested in this paper that we have a bailout package for Estonia like the one in the USA.

I'm British, we have had a bailout package in the UK already, I've just come from the UK. It is a very, very, dumb idea.

In the USA and UK bails-out were considered a necessary evil to stop British and American banks from going bankrupt and destroying Wall Street and the City of London (London's financial hub).

Estonia doesn't have a City of London or a Wall Street. Estonia doesn't even have home-grown banks. The banks are Swedish. And they are not going bankrupt.

And how is the country going to pay for it without devaluing the currency, as has happened in both the USA and the UK.

I refuse to believe Simson doesn't understand basic economics. I think it’s more likely that she is playing to a typical Centre party populist agenda. The Centre party needs to show that it has ideas and give the patriotic people of Estonia the illusion that they are in control of their own economy and therefore their own country.

Some people read these pronouncements and feel a patriotic rush.

“Yes we can manage our own affairs,” they think. It's all about sex appeal.

If Estonia had a first-past-the post system, Savisaar's party would be in power already, despite all the vitriol that has been poured on him over the years.

He commented recently that the Centre party isn't going to be part of any electoral alliance and Centre party candidates will continue to stand under the Centre party name.

If he is not trying to be a dictator and he doesn't want to work with other parties then what exactly does he want? What is he good for?

The Centre party doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting back into power as things stand, and for the very reasons Savisaar has stated. He doesn't want to work with other parties. Supporters of other parties hate him so much that they won't allow their leaders to work with him.

Benjamin Disraeli once said the role of the opposition was to: “suggest nothing, criticise everything and turn out the government.”

We have two out of three. It isn't good enough.

So Savisaar is not letting the country down with (alleged) corruption or shameless populism. He is letting the country down by not delivering an effective opposition. He is letting the country down by not being able to get back in power.

Thanks to Savisaar, Estonia is becoming, as the saying goes: “a banana republic without the bananas”, that is a one-coalition state. Ansip may go, but it's going to be the same crew running things. The conductor may change but the tune remains the same.

Still we should be grateful for what we have. The man oozes sex appeal. If there is any doubt about it, one needs only to look in the pages of Kroonika for his latest shenanigans.

At least he has something to fall back on. If Savisaar decides to throw in the towel he could always consider emigrating to the USA and pursuing a career in show business. It's high time Estonia had its own Hollywood superstar.

2009-08-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

How Estonia made Michael Jackson a megastar
By Abdul Turay

Years ago as an undergraduate student I had conversation with someone who was studying psychology. I didn't know anything about the subject at the time, so I asked him what he thought of Sigmund Freud.

He said something so simple and so sage that I have never forgotten it.

“He was a genius, but he was one genius out of many geniuses.”

What he meant was that fame and genius are not the same things. Freud was one of a number of men and women doing ground breaking work in his field. Though he became more generally known by the public at large, Freud wasn't better than these other pioneers, he was simply more famous.

The same principle can be applied to any field; physics, acting, invention, history and pop music.

Some would have us believe that Michael Jackson was somehow superior to everybody else working in showbiz. That he was the world's greatest entertainer, a megastar in a premier league all by himself.

He was none of those things.

I was living in the USA about the time that “Bad” came out. This was an album aimed at my target group, teenagers. We didn't like it, we didn't like him and we couldn't fathom who the hell was buying this overblown, self obsessed, pretentious, rubbish.

To be fair Jackson's career had its ups as well as its down. He did some good stuff, he did some really good stuff, but he did some em........ bad stuff, not to mention the downright silly stuff.

So why all the hyperbole especially from young people not old enough to remember his career peak “Thriller”?

Estonia made Michael Jackson. Not just Estonia of course but all the countries of the former Soviet Block, the Middle East, Africa, the Far East and Latin America. He was the biggest thing everywhere it seems except his own backyard.

Michael Jackson hasn't been especially popular in his own country for decades and the sales figures back this up. None of the albums Michael Jackson released in the 90s were the top selling albums for that year in the USA. A couple of them weren't even in the top 10.

Some of the claims about Michael Jackson are just plain lies. It is a complete fiction that Michael Jackson has sold 750 million units in total. A Wall Street Journal investigation on 15 July debunked this popular myth. It's not even clear if “Thriller” is the biggest selling album in the USA of all time. It is globally, but in the USA it is vying with an Eagles album for top place.

Michael Jackson has actually sold 200 million units worldwide. To put that in context, Michael Jackson's one time great rival, whose career declined in the early 80s, Donny Osmond, has sold 100 million units, and those figures are accurate. So in the end "Michael" was only twice as successful as "Donny", despite the fact that Donny didn't have a single hit record between 1979 and 1989.

Yet the average Estonian under the age of 30 probably hasn't even heard of Donny Osmond, whereas everybody knows Michael Jackson.

The explanation for this is simply. Michael Jackson was American. And he was the top American entertainer in the mid-80s at the height of the Cold War. He came to symbolise America.

Many Estonians, like the unwashed, huddled, masses from the rest of the developing world, looked to the USA as a shining land. It embodied freedom and prosperity. We call these people American Wannabes.

When the USA eventually won the Cold War, American Wannabes needed a symbol. Jackson fell into that role really by default. American Wannabes liked Michael Jackson because they thought that's what Americans liked.

The point is beautifully illustrated by something a close friend told me when I first met her years ago. Like a lot of young Estonian women, she was a hopeless American Wannabe. She isn't so much now. She liked Michael Jackson of course and the Rolling Stones and AC/DC. She told me she had only just discovered the Rolling Stones were British.

She described her stepfather having a rock history book. She was shocked to discover, on looking through it, that actually ALL her favourite rock bands were British.

With a couple of notable exceptions, none of the World's top artists in 80s fitted the profile unwashed, American Wannabes wanted. None of the World's top artists were actually American.

People have forgotten it now, but back in the 80s at the height of the Cold War most rock stars were British. Elton John, Depeche Mode, George Michael, Phil Collins, Fleetwood Mac, Duran Duran, Queen, Bowie, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Ozzy, etc; were all British.

I was in the USA at the time and most of my contemporaries took for granted that most music came from the UK in the same sense that people took for granted that most movies came from Hollywood.

Some rock stars had other nationalities. U2, without a doubt the biggest rock band in the English-speaking world in the 80s, were Irish. AC/DC were Australian; as was Kylie.

Other stars didn't suit for some other reason. Prince was just too weird for the conservative tastes of the Second and Third World. Frank Sinatra was too old. And Elvis, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were dead.

That left Madonna and Michael Jackson. You could argue Michael Jackson is weird too, but no one thought that in 1985. Besides, his music has never been weird sounding.

Once the USA "won" the Cold War Michael Jackson's star went up, as the representative of US culture at a time when the sales of his records were dropping off in his own country. So if Michael Jackson had been from anywhere else, he wouldn't have had the same level of adulation. The irony is that Michael Jackson's act wasn't especially American. He could have come from anywhere.

Really the role of American icon for American Wannabes should rightfully have gone to Bruce Springstein. By the late 80s he was putting on a better show than Michael Jackson, he was undeniably more popular, he sold more records and he was more quintessentially American. But Springstein's star didn't take off outside the English-speaking world at all.

The trouble was his act was based on language. Michael Jackson's and Madonna's act was based on dance. Your typical American Wannabe hairdresser, living in Haapsalu in 1989, didn't speak English. She couldn't have known that Springstein was singing heartfelt, witty, songs with biting social commentary, but she could enjoy Michael Jackson and Madonna swinging their hips and shaking their booties.

Also Springstein is honest about his country and therefore somewhat cynical about it. Any American Wannabe, sad-faced clown, who does eventually master English is going to realise this. And the last thing an American Wannabe wants to hear is: “America sucks”.

In knowing Jackson the unwashed, huddled, American Wannabe masses in places like Taiwan, El Salvador, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Estonia felt that they knew USA. In actuality this has never been true.

None of this means Michael Jackson was crap. I have enjoyed his music along with many other people. His gig was good, sometimes it was great. He was a genius, one genius out of many geniuses.

2009-08-13T15:20:00.000-07:00

Paradise Lost

By Abdul Turay 11 August 2009

Finally the Estonian immigration authorities have done something of which they can be proud of. They are getting rid of a very nasty man. Anyone who follows current affairs in Estonia may have vaguely have heard of Craig Cobb, a bearded, 57 year old, extreme right-wing American who for the past few years has made Estonia his home.

He hoped to make this country the centre for his one man campaign to promote so-called white nationalism.

Tallinn is host to Cobb's Podblanc site, where mostly Russian skinhead thugs post videos of themselves committing acts of brutal violence against men, women, and even small children from ethnic minorities in Russia.

Those of us who have been coming to Estonia for some years, either as visitors, investors, or as more permanent guests, have been sadden to see some of the more unsavoury characters from our part of the world show up here.

Cobb is of course the worse example of this phenomenon. It's like the situation Alex Garland described in “the beach.” whereby a pristine island paradise is turned into a hell when all the idiots show up.

Once it seemed Estonia was paradise for foreigners because of the warm welcome we received here. In the 90s and early 2000s everybody had a positive view about people from the West.

Once it seemed Estonians of all classes, fed on a diet of Hollywood movies and Australian soaps, saw Westerners as champions of democracy and freedom, We were beautiful, charming and rich. Or so I have heard. It probably was never that rosy but it seemed that way. Now Estonians must think we are the scum of the Earth.

It's hard to believe it now but a few years ago, typically Estonians believed that the average Englishman was a gentleman. I remember arguing with my partner when I first met her that British tourists were totally uncouth and far worse than Finnish tourists. She didn't buy it. This was before an army of young British men pissed and vomited all over Tallinn.

Thankfully the stags have stopped coming in such large numbers. They may have ruined my country's reputation but ultimately they were just a nuisance, they are harmless. This fellow Cobb, is not.

The most infamous video on the site was a beheading in the forest of two men from central Asia, posted by Russian neo-Nazis. It is without a doubt the single most disgusting and horrible thing I have ever seen.

In the video the two men are shown kneeling with their hands tied. Behind them are five masked men holding a swastika flag.

One of their captors takes an axe and slices the prisoner's head open like a melon. Blood pours everywhere. The captors then throw the corpse into a shallow grave.

The second prisoner looks on in horror and awaits his fate. He pleads with his captors. Another of the captors takes an axe and swings at the kneeling man but he is clumsy and he doesn't kill him. Blood pours out of him like water from a tap. The man repeatedly hacks at the man's head and body. Eventually the captor shoots the man in the head. Then this corpse is thrown into a shallow grave.

The video ends with a plea to support the cause and send donations to a postal address in Tallinn, Estonia.

Cobb didn't just confine himself to the web, he engaged in street propaganda. Last year Cobb videoed and harangue a crowd at a concert by the American rap-artist 50 Cent.

“The last thing you want is niggers in Estonia, death to niggers,” he shouted.

As well as blacks and Jews, Cobb has campaigned against other groups of people. He has made bizarre claims that the Chinese were deliberately infecting Estonian women with STDs.

“They're picking up used rubbers from the streets of China and then they toss them into a vat and recycle them somehow to make hair bands, these hair bands are literally capable of transmitting STDs ,” Cobb said.

Despite being almost 60, Cobb was prone to prowl the streets of Tallinn making unwanted approaches to young women whom he described as “exquisitely beautiful.”

Imagine if you are a 16 year old girl who loves all things American, and then the first American you ever meet is a dirty old man spouting hatred of Jews and Blacks.

A colleague of mine, a fellow journalist, was approached by him. Needless to say she didn't take him up on his offer.

This I think in the whole rub. Cobb is motivated by sexual frustration and envy more than by anything else.

I could spout platitudes about how there are good and bad people everywhere but unfortunately it is not as simple as that.

There are people like Craig Cobb running around over Western Europe and North America. Some of them even hold elective office. The rise of the organised Far-right is a real problem in even supposedly liberal countries like Norway and Holland. There's a Far-right in Estonia of course but they just aren't that organised.

At least Cobb is on the way out. But unfortunately people like him have succeeded in one thing. They have ruined the reputation of Westerners in Estonia.

2009-08-11T17:35:00.000-07:00

News.
Interviews, profiles and criticism of yours truly
Extracts from an interview with Home and Family
Interview on ETV
More Interview on ETV
Q and A Interview with Priit Pullerits
Black man flies solo

2009-08-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

The hated white man
By Priit Pullerits

Published Postimees 13 November 2008

We Estonians have now been warned. Black British journalist, Abdul Turay, imputed in Tuesday's Postimees that we treat black people badly and threatened that if Russia attacked Narva, the USA won't undertake to do something about it, because as Turay imagined President Barack Obama's wife Michelle would then say to her husband.

“Ah Estonia. Isn't that the little, small-minded, white country, to hell with them.”

How come we get this angry, gleeful and belligerent tone addressed at the Estonian land and the Estonian people. It probably stems from Turay's disappointment that we don't treat him or his racial compatriots with sufficient dignity and rights.

But it can't be claimed somehow that Turay's racial compatriots over in America, (where the President-elect presumably will help stop racism), have attitudes towards white people that are tolerant and friendly. Experience says the opposite is true.

One time whilst heading out, I stopped my car in Phoenix, Arizona city centre, to take a picture in front of the State Congress Building. I had scarcely taken my camera out when a threatening-looking band of black people began to assembly. I rapidly made tracks.

Another time in New York I asked a black person if he would let me take a picture with him in the shot. He pushed into his black leather coat's side lapel and exposed a cane from under it. I got the jest and backed off.

Some years back in Broadway, New York, I fell victim to a black blackmailer. He provoked a clash with me. He dropped a bottle in a paper bag and pressured me with his body language which didn't leave room for argument that I have to reward the misfortune.

In the Capitol, Washington, I was passing one time into a shop. In the front hanging about were some black youths. They can't have been more than a couples of steps away, I listened to their abhorrent spite.

In Washington's suburb, Bethesda, a black person ensnared me one evening. His car stopped next to my car and he asked if I could tow him along for a minute as his legs were too weak (to push it). He said he lived in a nearby room. Bethesda is an expensive part of town to be driving a jalopy. This dilapidated man, all things being equal, couldn't somehow live there. It was actually this feeling that saved me from falling victim to this black man.

White people must take care where to go in America. There are parts of cities such a South Central, Los Angeles, Anacostia, Washington or Opa-Locka, Miami, where you can't, for safety's sake, stick your nose. Unfortunately I don't know any parts of towns (in America) where black people can not safely go about their business.

In the same way you can't imagine that if John McCain had been elected president, someone would threaten Turay's racial compatriots :“Ah Africa, isn't that the big war-torn black continent, to hell with them.”

2009-07-25T14:16:00.001-07:00

Freedom is the best solution
By Mart Laar
Published Postimees 18 July 2009

A response to the article “Laar's dilemma”

This week Abdul Turay asked how to get Estonia out of the crisis, if the basis of our success is in Milton Friedman and Austrian economy school principles. There is doubt about the two ideas and the two theories are caught up in conflict. Furthermore conservative policies have been replaced by left-wing ones.

Actually this has been talked about a lot. There has been a reversal of fortune. Now Friedman, the free market and low taxes get abused as people continually point to this as the reason as to why the crisis emerged. The world did the opposite in the 1930s and paid dearly for this. Now the great powers generally avoid protectionism and taxes have fallen more than they have risen. But it is government intervention in the economy that has grown, not doubt in the free market.

I didn't go ahead with my economic reforms in Estonia for five years on the basis of some sort of elaborate theories, but on the basis of common sense. Until a short while ago it was clear that the country was managing well and benefiting by holding a balance. It had become clear that people can organise their own lives better than the government can.

The government's task is to permit good conditions for free enterprise. But without firm watchful guidance of the government the invisible hand of the market can't operate effectively. It was because we forgot this principle that Estonia was left out of the Eurozone, which has been our biggest economic and political failure since independence.

But beating about the bush doesn't help matters. Therefore I have no choice but to answer Turay's question, how to restore belief in Estonia again? Economic success in Estonia as elsewhere relies on investment. But there in no chance confidence will be restored without belief in Estonian recovery and in her economy.

For this to happen we must keep the country fiscally stable. If we can't do this when the money runs out at the end of the year Estonia will be in the same situation as Latvia.

It is inevitably a necessary decision to cutback on the budget. We must in addition cutback on administrative expenses. Also social security expenditure, which was optimistically raised, must be cutback by at least 10 per cent as well.

Budget cutback aren't goals in themselves. If we can't put life into the economy by taking steps to keep away the explosive growth in unemployment then we'll have one budget deficit after another and Estonia won't get out of the crisis.

The tax burden has now risen to the highest level of all times in Estonia. Further tax increases are unthinkable. Budgetary consideration shouldn't reduce free enterprise – for farmers to get investment and support, enterprise needs to to stay alive. Money from the EU will also help out. An enterprise support package is passing through government, the last part of these proceeding must be a parliamentary priority.

We must activate concrete programs to fight unemployment. We need especially to take care in curbing the growing unemployment of youngsters, here the solution would be an additional support plan to help them to acquire higher education or vocational skills.

It will be impossible to keep or create new jobs in the workplace if money and investment doesn't start to move. At this very moment we need honest work out of the Government. Many thanks are due to Estonia's neighbours who have raised the ghost of devaluation causing uncertainty and postponing investment.

It is through privatisation that international investors will rediscover their interest and will come to our Estonian economy. This means selling unnecessary national enterprises and long term operational activities in rented form. In concrete terms this mean that the government's minority share in Eesti Energia must be opened for sale to the public. Tallinn Airport's operational activities must be sold in the long term. The government's majority shares in Eesti Post must be sold to strategic investors and Eesti Loto's operational activities should be sold.This should not be happening to fill treasury coffers but to revitalise investor interest.

And finally we need to tell the world, if we had a time of Mister NATO and Mister EU now has come the time for Mister Investment to get to work. Investors expect the government to have a concrete plan to get out of the crisis. Estonia has managed to cut its own budget but this in itself is not enough. Whether these steps answer Friedman or Austrian School theories I honestly don't care to say. What is important now is not theory, but getting Estonia out of the crisis.

Mart Laar is the Leader of Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica (Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit.) He was the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and again from 1999 to 2002

2009-07-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

It's a Global Election
By Amy Goodman
First published in syndication across North America 21 July 2008

TALLINN, Estonia –

When I arrived in Estonia last week – a former Soviet republic that lies just south of Finland – everyone had an opinion on Barack Obama's speech in Berlin. The headline of the British Daily Telegraph we picked up in Finland blared "New walls must not divide us," with half-page photos of the American presidential candidate silhouetted against a sea of 200,000 people.

One of the first people I met in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, was Abdul Turay, the editor in chief of The Baltic Times, an English-language weekly that covers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three Baltic nations. Granted, he's not a typical resident for this country of largely fair-haired light-skinned people: Turay is a black Briton whose parents come from the West African nations of Liberia and Sierra Leone. And he is Muslim. While Estonia has no mosques, he notes with pride that the Quran has just been translated into Estonian, and to the publisher's surprise, it's been an instant best-seller here.

I asked Turay what Obama's candidacy means to him. "It'll open doors for me personally if he becomes president," he said. "It's a momentous thing to have a black president, given America's history. Some people say it's not a big deal, but it is a very big deal. The U.S. is a model for the world. If people see a black man can be president of the U.S., maybe they will see me differently. If he's special, I'm special."

As for Obama's politics, Turay says he doesn't actually think Obama's foreign policy will be that different from fellow presidential candidate John McCain's. He said he was surprised after reading Obama's first book, "Dreams From My Father": "He's almost talking about black nationalism. He's very liberal. He's very much a black politician, whereas today he's a politician who happens to be black." I asked him to explain. "I think that's a question for Barack Obama, not me," he said.

Turay marvels at the importance of the U.S. elections here: "There's more interest in the American election than in the Lithuanian election, which is right next door. It's a global election."

Estonia may be a world away from the United States, but it is intimately tied to U.S. foreign policy. When the U.S. went looking for other countries to join the coalition to attack Iraq and Afghanistan, to give the occupations international legitimacy, Estonia was a charter member – along with numerous other former Soviet-bloc countries of Eastern Europe. President Bush went to Estonia in 2006 to thank them. In 2004, none other than Sens. McCain and Hillary Clinton visited the Baltic nation together as part of a congressional delegation. The story goes that Clinton challenged McCain to a vodka-drinking contest, an Estonian tradition. McCain accepted. When Clinton's aide was asked about it, he replied, "What happens in Estonia, stays in Estonia."

Many feel the Baltic nations' participation in the occupations was quid pro quo for their membership in NATO. Estonia has paid a price, as its soldiers have lost their lives in both Iraq and Afghanistan – the latter a place where Estonian soldiers have died before, as conscripts of the Soviet Army when it invaded Afghanistan in 1979.

A decade later, Estonia was the scene of a nonviolent revolution. Singing has long been a national pastime, and song festivals, in which thousands come together to sing, are a tradition. In April 1988, this gathering turned into a vehicle for mass mobilization. In the Estonian capital, with the country's banned blue, black and white flag unfurled on the back of a motorbike, hundreds of thousands began singing the forbidden national anthem. The movement gained momentum throughout the three Baltic nations. In August 1989, 2 million people joined hands in a Baltic chain spanning hundreds of miles, from Tallinn to Riga to Vilnius, the capitals of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, respectively. Estonia and its Baltic neighbors won their independence in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Now, Turay observes, "Estonia looks to America." With Berlin's wall now gone, Turay hopes other walls will soon fall, too. "If the president of America is a black person, other countries will realize that we have people who look like the president who are doing something important. ... I think it will happen everywhere."

Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour.

2009-07-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

Revisiting school days
By Abdul Turay
First Published Jun 11, 2008

My spouse’s father is a fisherman. Since she grew up with the sea I once took her to see the first sea clocks in Greenwich. These 18th century inventions made safe sea travel possible for the first time.

First I showed her the drama “Longitude,” which tells the story of how the clocks were created. Inventor John Harrison went through hell making the things. This gave the visit an extra poignancy for my partner because she knew the human story behind the clocks.

This is a good recommendation for any site-seeing tour. If you read the book or see the film first, then you will enjoy the place you go to see more.

Palamuse is a small town in Jogeva County. It has just 2,500 people. It is most famous as the place where Oscars Luts, a 20th century Estonian writer, went to school.
Luts is often compared to Dickens, but with less blood and guts. One of his most famous works, Kevade (Spring), is about his school days. That school is now a museum. Near the school house is the old church where Luts prayed and the river where he played as a child.

Kevade is a coming of age story about a group of friends, each one in his own way an outsider. There is a young, scallywag, Toots: lanky, loser, Kiir, and romantic, dreamer, Arno. The main love interest is the earthy, good-natured, Teele. All three main characters make a play to win her heart at some point in the trilogy.
Luts takes the story forward with “Suvi” and “Toot’s wedding” set in the dying years of the Russian Empire, and “Sugis,” set in the first Estonian republic. The “Kevade” movie was filmed on location 1969 and is widely regarded as one of the best Estonian films ever made.
Two sequels were made, “Suvi” (1976) and “Sugis” (1990), both starring the same actors in early adulthood and mid-life.

It is difficult to stress how important these films are to really understanding Estonia. All Estonians have seen the movies without exception. In fact, all Estonians have seen these films many times. So if you have a genuine interest in country you have to see it.
It is gratifying that the school house looks exactly like it does in the movie, as does the little stream. However, visiting the site does raise some issues – there is a scene in the movie where one of the characters sinks a raft to the bottom of the stream. I wondered how this is possible given that the stream is only knee deep at any given point.

It was also satisfying to discover that the characters that you meet in the book and the film are based on real people. Joseph Toots was based on a prosperous farmer who was a good friend of Luts. Sadly, the real Toots died at a young age just before the outbreak of World War II.
There is always an element of sadness when a building such as this is turned into a museum. The Edwardian photos, school desks and fake inkpots only give you a vague sense of school must have been like at the turn of the century. The school house still stands but all the vitality has been drained out of it. The sensation is like looking at a stuffed animal, killed and filled with sawdust.

The church is still functional, and though it is as unremarkable a church as any in Estonia it means more than most churches because, frankly, it’s in a movie.
Palamuse is for those people who are really interested in Estonian culture, those who want to find out what the “real Teele” and the “real Toots” actually looked like. If you are not interested in Estonian culture, what are you doing here? If you happen to be passing that way have a look, but remember see the film first.

Palamuse schoolhouse
Open every day
10 a.m. -6 p.m.

2009-07-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

Opinion

Here you'll find a selection of Estonian-related published opinions and responses to them

Socialists have a conscience

(Here is a very old article that I finally got round to translating)

Why the World is silence about the Estonian election

Why I write in Estonia

Room 101

Go West

The greatest speech of all time
For Europe's sake: Stop the Tories

The libertarian tradition

Brave New Estonia

Cancel the debt

Who's in charge here
Black men Estonian women: The truth

Pyrrhic Victory About the local elections in Estonia
The sexiest man in Estonia
Kadri Simson's MP response
Michael Jackson needed Estonia more than his own country
The Playboy bunny and foreign policy By Marko Mikhelson MP
Paradise Lost
Laar's dilemma About the IRL Leader and Former PM
Freedom is the best solution
His response

The hairdresser who ruined Tallinn
How to become Estonian
Let's eat potato peels
Cult of youth
A black president for a small white country
First published in Postimees 11 November 2008.
This article enraged a lot of people. Find out what all the fuss was about here
The hated white man
First published in Postimees 13 November 08
A response to A black president for a small white country by postimees senior editor, Priit Pullerits
About Michael Jackson
First published Postimees 27 June

2009-07-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Features

Presenting a selection of published feature articles about Estonia and its neighbours on a wide range of topics. Some stories were written with a pen-name.