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.

Some of my best friends really ARE black

Many Russian-speakers in Estonia may be finding themselves in the unlikely position tonight of saying those very words. You see, Doudou Diène*, the UN's man on racism mentioned in the previous post, has caused a bit of a stir. Less than two days after being assured by the prime minister that such things are officially frowned upon in the country, he has come out and slammed the state's record on discrimination.

Several articles appeared online in quick succession after Diène spoke at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs today, including UN rapporteur concerned about discrimination and Diene: Language Inspectorate seems harsh. He claimed that the Estonian government paid no attention to discrimination as an issue and failed to listen to the citizens on whose behalf it purports to work.

Diène also highlighted the sticking point of citizenship, and pointed out that the very existence of a Language Inspectorate is viewed by many as discriminatory in nature. “The fact that there are still people living in Estonia who have no citizenship status is evidence enough that there are serious problems,” he said. “The system as a whole needs to be reviewed.”

However, it was the Special Rapporteur's recommendations regarding the language situation in the country that proved most controversial (and which have, predictably, incited the biggest backlash). Diène insisted that with the Russian minority forming such a major part of Estonian society, Russian should be given national language status.

“Estonia needs to move from a defensive position to one that is more multicultural,” he advised. “If 30 percent of the people in society are Russian speakers, it's not wise to ignore the fact.” He nevertheless conceded that requiring citizens to be able to speak Estonian was perfectly understandable, and that everyone in the country should do so.

While Diène pulls no punches, he certainly throws a lot of them. A summary of one of his reports states: "The members of foreign communities and national minorities who spoke to Diène explained, often with great emotion, how they experienced on a daily basis racism, discrimination, a xenophobic atmosphere, a feeling of loneliness within the population and fear of certain institutions." And that was about Switzerland (see link below). Seems no one is immune, however different their circumstances.

Still, for reasons of history alone, it's never going to happen. Russian being adopted as a national language alongside Estonian, I mean. Harri Tiido, someone high up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has already come out denouncing the UN guru's findings, pointing out that everything Diène has said is purely his opinion, and that none of his recommendations are binding - they are simply that: recommendations.

"He went looking for discrimination and he found it," Tiido countered tonight in a presumably rather hastily organised interview on Eesti Raadio. "It's all about how you perceive things. Just because one person thinks they're being discriminated against doesn't mean you're dealing with discrimination in any legal sense."

Tiido alleges that Diène twisted the few tangible facts he was presented with into a nationwide epidemic of racism and xenophobia. "Of course there are pockets of racism in Estonia - we all know what's been going on in Tartu. When I spoke privately to Diène, I told him that was a case of a group of skinheads we know about and whose numbers are relatively small, but by then he'd already decided what he was going to say."

In a fairly typical response to someone championing the rights of minorities in a country where they tend not to enjoy any, Tiido concluded by saying that the Senagalese envoy had taken a very one-sided view of the local situation: “Talking to Diène, it was obvious he feels that any group that constitutes a minority has certain rights. But in thinking that way he forgets that the majority have rights too, and that in fighting for the rights of minorities, the rights of the majority have to be respected as well.”

But why is granting rights to minorities always interpreted by the majority as the loss of their own?

http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/swissinfo.html?siteSect=43&sid=7662246

*now with an è!

Some of my best friends are black

Two days after prime minister Andrus Ansip assured Doudou Diene - the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance, himself from Senegal - that although racism is not unknown in Estonia it is denounced at the highest levels comes news of yet another local attack on a black student.

"Racism is condemned in Estonia in the strongest terms," Ansip said, adding that Estonia has been a cultural melting pot throughout its history, and remains so today, with 120 different nationalities represented in the country. "And the state will do everything it can to ensure that Estonia is a good home for these minorities in the future, too."

He and his government might want to concentrate on the present, though: September has seen another black student attacked by nationalist skinheads in Tartu, the educational heartland of the nation and self-proclaimed 'City of Good Thoughts' (which, given a better translation of heade mõtete linn would be 'city of good ideas', makes me wonder whether the irony is lost on them in any of this).

Ansip would praise Eesti Päevaleht Offline for the censorious line they take on the matter: "It goes without saying that the idiocy of considering someone lesser than yourself purely on the basis of the colour of their skin should have no place in a civilised society. One black student is worth a million times more to Estonia than a gang of narrow-minded, egg-headed, fatherland-venerating high school dropouts.

"Why, you're asking? But let me ask you: did this student come to Estonia to live it up on the generous unemployment benefits? Or because of the thousands of euros he could stuff his overalls with in some blue-collar job? Or so he could hijack a plane from Raadi airfield and fly it into Tartu's one and only highrise tower? No. He came here to get an education. A foreigner came to Estonia to get an education! That's a real I bow to you to the people who have managed to build up the kind of educational institutions that entice people to come here to study from far-off places. But if they're subjected to a hail of stones as soon as they get here, all they'll take away with them is a view of Estonia as some tiny, backward, xenophobic state."

Of course, if it weren't for the skinheads, they would never get that impression.

http://www.postimees.ee/260907/esileht/siseuudised/285521.php

http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/401839