I'm not intolerant...

A study commissioned by the Ministry of Justice has revealed that Estonian-speakers are more racist than Russian-speakers, but that Russian-speakers are less tolerant of minorities.

The survey, in which respondents were asked the questions "What kind of immigrants would you not want to work with?" and "What kind of people would you not want to work with?", saw Estonian-speakers outscoring their Russian-speaking countrymen across the board in terms of nationalities and religious groups they would rather not touch with a bargepole, but Russian-speakers being at times markedly more discriminatory when it came to 'social backgrounds'.

While it should be pointed out that at least half of those interviewed in both language groups said they would have no problems working with anyone regardless of their nationality or religion, it was the Estonian-speakers who displayed a much more noticeable reticence to have any dealings with Russians, Finns, Jews, Muslims, Blacks and Eastern Europeans. On the other hand, Russian-speakers were more illiberal when faced with Gays, Prostitutes, Criminals, Drug Addicts, HIV/AIDS Sufferers and the Disabled. Significantly more Estonian-speakers had no misgivings about such people, although in both language groups the overall percentage of the charitable was depressingly low.

Not that you have to look very far for reasons why: Estonian-speakers are generally against outsiders because they've been sat on by them for thousands of years, while Russian-speakers are more critical on 'moral' grounds because of their stronger religious roots. Everything else is likely the product of being a small country where many of these things are rarely seen or spoken about that was once part of a much larger system where such things were taboo, hushed up and/or punishable under the law.

To what end the study was commissioned nobody seems to know, but there you are.

Mis russofoobia, kus?

Karmo Tüür, a political scientist from the University of Tartu, had this to say on relations between Russia and Estonia in an article on Delfi yesterday:

There is only one country in the world that has a problem with the Baltic States, as it pretty much does with all of its neighbours: the Russian Federation. A great and powerful nation that seems to think it is constantly under threat.

Even its closest allies like Belarus get a cuff around the ears from time to time for deviant behaviour. Sociological vox populi show that it is their tiniest neighbours — the Baltic States and Georgia — that Russians consider most hostile.

The typical accusation the country levels at its former Soviet cellmates is that of 'Russophobia': that these tiny little countries are afraid of their great big neighbour and therefore constantly stirring up trouble. The best evidence of this is meant to be the way these countries behave towards Russians — the self-same Russians who descended upon the wretched outposts of the red empire in days of yore, bringing with them a bright future and socialism for all.

Latvia and Estonia are mauled with particular savagery for it, and Lithuania is regularly roped in for its share too, in a 'one in all in' kind of way. Discrimination is the most trivial of the charges laid at the three countries' doors: genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing are terms that are bandied about all too often.

And all because these countries — now fully-fledged members of the European Union — are alleged to flaunt a panoply of European norms. They forbid their residents and citizens from speaking Russian, you know, and, worse, force them to speak the national language!

I'd recommend to the people making these claims that they think about things a bit and look at the situation with eyes that have not been blinkered by propaganda.

Read the rest of the article (in Estonian) at http://www.delfi.ee/news/paevauudised/arvamus/article.php?id=16901720.