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.