Abdul Turay

to 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 o...

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 s...

Go West, Follow-up article Martinson: in up to 90 percent of business regions, we are in Eastern Europe. Fir st 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 Easte...

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 ...

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...

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...