Shame and horror
When I found Estonia on the front page of BBC news, I was surprised; when I read the news, I was shocked. I checked with our Estonian news site Delfi, and I was horrified.
Mad, angry, vandalising crowds are taking over my town - breaking windows, overturning cars, looting shops and even burning smaller houses. I always thought of Estonians as highly civilised and reasonable people.
In the end of the 1980s, still under the strict Soviet regime, we proclaimed our will of independence by singing and joining our hands to form a long human chain through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 15 years ago, we faced Soviet tanks rolling into our capital with dignity.
Now, we have all we had been fighting for - our country, our freedom, liberal democracy and booming economy. But we must have lost something along the way, because today, Tallinn is witnessing chaos it has not seen since World War II, and morale it had not experienced in the darkest middle ages. The Bronze Soldier monument, which has triggered these awful events, might be a question of principle for some, but for me it is still a mere debate on modern history.
Today, I wonder - are we still humans?
Mad, angry, vandalising crowds are taking over my town - breaking windows, overturning cars, looting shops and even burning smaller houses. I always thought of Estonians as highly civilised and reasonable people.
In the end of the 1980s, still under the strict Soviet regime, we proclaimed our will of independence by singing and joining our hands to form a long human chain through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 15 years ago, we faced Soviet tanks rolling into our capital with dignity.
Now, we have all we had been fighting for - our country, our freedom, liberal democracy and booming economy. But we must have lost something along the way, because today, Tallinn is witnessing chaos it has not seen since World War II, and morale it had not experienced in the darkest middle ages. The Bronze Soldier monument, which has triggered these awful events, might be a question of principle for some, but for me it is still a mere debate on modern history.
Today, I wonder - are we still humans?
posted by Kristina at 10:49 PM
1 Comments:
Very human. All too human. Only human.
Only humans would do such things. Only humans feel such things. The minority against the majority. You're questioning the moral fabric of our lives based on what? Something that has spanned 6 decades now. How can we begin to understand the feelings of all sides?
Your post does a good job to show the nationalist point of view, that Estonians are independent, civilized and proud society. Your neighbors on the other hand?
I'm shocked at the news and disgusted with rioting and looting, but this issue seems quite serious.
How did you feel about having the monument in your city? Would those feelings be strong enough to warrant the actions of moving the statue?
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