Abdul Turay

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 t...

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...

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.

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 q...

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...