COMMENTARY: "Oh, sorry, I thought you were Estonian"

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By Susanna Niinivaara in Moscow
     
      I was looking on a short distance away when a noisy group of a few dozen activists shouted anti-Estonian slogans outside the gates of the Estonian Embassy in Moscow on Monday afternoon. Dozens of Russian police were standing by and keeping an eye on the blockading demonstrators.
     
"Aren't you frightened, then?" a Russian activist in his twenties asked me defiantly.
      I responded with some surprise, questioning whether it was somehow dangerous for a Finnish newspaper reporter to be standing there.
      The young man reddened and began to apologise profusely. He had overheard me talking with someone and had drawn his own conclusions from my accent: "I'm terribly sorry, I thought you were Estonian."
      In other words, an Estonian would certainly have reason to be fearful for his or her safety in Russia.
     
If the demonstrators have assembled with peaceful intentions, as they claim, then there should be no reason for Finns or Estonians alike to have any trepidation about going out on the streets of Moscow.
      On the other side of the embassy compound, I got to hear that if Estonia does not restore the disputed bronze statue and Soviet World War II memorial to its original site in the centre of Tallinn, the activists camped outside the embassy are considering going a stage further in their protests and taking the building apart.
     
Demonstrations are an integral part of democracy, whether they are in support of those in power or critical of them.
      Expressing one's own opinion on issues sometimes requires more by way of courage, and sometimes less.
      In Moscow, it calls for rather less in the bravery department to yell that the Estonians are fascists than it does to lambast the current Russian regime for shortcomings in democracy, since criticism of the Kremlin carries the threat of a night or two in jail.
      But from whichever side of the fence it comes, this kind of adolescent use of intimidation reeks of base cowardice, and it should not have a voice.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.5.2007


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish PM denounces Russian demands for resignation of Estonian government (2.5.2007)

SUSANNA NIINIVAARA / Helsingin Sanomat
susanna.niinivaara@hs.fi