Georgian-Russian War: the Western response
- Thread starter Winner
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Snorrius
Librivorator
Probably Estonians are not as crazy as Czechs...
RedRalph
Deity
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charming... ethnic cleansing still fashionable in central europe them
What part of word "occupation" don't you understand? If you shoot the head of a family, deport the rest of family into Siberia and move into their house, does that make this house your own?
About half of these people are still first generation immigrants, actually. As for the other half - what does it tell about one, if he has been living in Estonia (independent from USSR for 17 years now) for a lifetime and has not bothered to
learn a single word of Estonian language? No - Estonians must speak Russian to them, right? When they are so terribly, terribly oppressed here, why don't they get the f*ck back to where they came from - their homeland, where everything is obviously wonderful?! There is only this tiny piece of land for us. Our ancestors have been living here for 9000 years. I want to live here too, I want my children to live here and I want them to speak their own language. There are vast swaths of Russia for Russians. Why don't they go and live there?
The answer is that majority of them are actually normal people who have no problems with acquiring their citizenship according to current process, i.e showing some respect towards Estonian people. It is Kremlin who speaks on their behalf and complains and complains...and there are some who can not accept that they are not the master-race here any more and therefore go along. But luckily they are not too many.
Aleksey_aka_al
Smiley
You are so big exaggerater that one can lose his sympathy easily.
Pokurcz
Emperor
I'm only discussing with you in one other thread, and I have answered everything there sofar, when I have had time, so you must be mixing me up with someone else.
I can not comprehend how you, a guy I have grown to respect, can have such exagerated ideas about half of the world being your nations enemy.
Gelion
Retired Captain
Thanks for the commercial as the American say
(no pun intended)It is not half the world, but only the US, UK and allied nations. If they stop their military advancement in EE, cool down the media I could then change my view. So far I've got my reasons for what I am saying.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
Not really. There is plenty of Russians here, and they fall into 3 categories:
1) Russian gangsters
2) Russian rich (pretty much the same as the 1st category)
3) Russian dissidents.
I like the third category. I'd like more of them here, because they're the elite of the Russian nation - clever, educated, intelligent, kind. These qualities are obviously not liked by the Kremlin clique.
Gelion
Retired Captain
I got my time now.
An ethnic Russian comes to a shop in newly established Estonia and starts to ask for something in really bad Estonian. The Estonian guy says: "do not worry, I know Russian." The Russian then responds: "We listened to your Russian for 50 years, now listen to our Estonian"
This is a similar case and surely Russian can exist peacefully as a national language in neighboring states.
Procedure for obtaining Estonian citizenship via naturalization and statistics regarding number of persons naturalized:
http://www.mig.ee/index.php/mg/eng/e...an_citizenship[/quote]
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Articles 2, 6, 15, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29
can be argued to be violated with respect to right to Language and Ethnicity.
From wiki on Estonia it says that:
"[Russian] taught as a compulsory second language during the Soviet era."
Compulsory SECOND language.
Why can't Estonia match Soviet standards? I am not even talking about EU standards.
I am glad this is the case. As I already noted in the other thread the Russian employed at this site is really bad quality (looks like machine translation). I hope it is corrected in the near future.
Interesting and party good news too. Here's a joke on the issue from our times:
An ethnic Russian comes to a shop in newly established Estonia and starts to ask for something in really bad Estonian. The Estonian guy says: "do not worry, I know Russian." The Russian then responds: "We listened to your Russian for 50 years, now listen to our Estonian"
I understand the issues of a minor language nation in a global world, especially when most of it speaks English. I just want to point out the example of Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and others who have found means to make all minority languages official at some level or the other. Yes, Russians have not been there a long time, but so haven't the Chinese in Taiwan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Taiwan)Why is it not official? Well, there is ~140 million Russians and ~1 million Estonians. We are, frankly, rightfully worried about Estonian language and culture lasting in a bit longer perspective. Besides, it is, imho, really very basic courtesy to learn to speak language of the country you are living in on some level. Is it really too much to ask for?If one really doesn't want to learn it - there is huge country were one can speak Russian for one's heart's content right next to us. Not to mention it being his historic homeland.
This is a similar case and surely Russian can exist peacefully as a national language in neighboring states.
Because it is not a foreign language! It is a native tongue of 1/4 to 1/3 of the population. In Europe such issues are resolved in favor of minorities.
This is what worries me. Both languages should be taught and schools filled by choice. If not both are offered then this violates UN convention on Human Rights.
This I understand, bad news for Estonia too.
It does not. It integrates Russians into Estonia by defying them the right to education.
Yes, but if the right to education is not respected then the ethnic language becomes threatened. I welcome integration, I am strongly against "conversion".
Okay.... I do not much about it either. Need to look for more sources.... :SActually, I do not know anything about it. Nor can I imagine hiw could anyone be forced to change his/her name.
I could agree with you there, but these people WERE citizens of Estonia when the vote on independence was taking place. Legally this means that their right of citizenship was taken away from them with independence taking place. Not a good thing to do IMHO.
Why not make the country bilingual at some level. It would make it a lot easier to pass that exam. I am sure people would be a LOT more willing to learn Estonian if they need to know both languages in order to (re)-gain their citizenship. As I already mentioned, the whole process of "giving them citizenship" is based on them giving up their rights to minority privileges. Why are they without nationality anyway? NOTHING like this ever happened in ex-USSR only in the Baltic states.
Because these immigrants were citizens whose vote was eligible in 1990 (r was it 1989?). Because Estonians are a kind and good willed people that are willing to forgive and live in peace?
The fact is that Russians are there weather you want them or not. BY making the process more humane you could avoid considerable trouble.
Russia gave citizenship to former RSFSR citizens to avoid problems with people from other republics. Any Russian who was a citizen of USSR can get a Russian passport IIRC.
Procedure for obtaining Estonian citizenship via naturalization and statistics regarding number of persons naturalized:
http://www.mig.ee/index.php/mg/eng/e...an_citizenship[/quote]
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40,000 people is a good number, but it is over 8 years out of a total number of 400,000+ people. The work is done, but very slowly. If the government is indeed interested in solving this "problem" they could find other solutions IMHO.
http://www.un.org/events/humanrights/udhr60/index.shtmlAnd on final note, none of these issued can afaik be claimed as deprivation of human rights as such...
Articles 2, 6, 15, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29
can be argued to be violated with respect to right to Language and Ethnicity.
From wiki on Estonia it says that:
"[Russian] taught as a compulsory second language during the Soviet era."
Compulsory SECOND language.
Why can't Estonia match Soviet standards? I am not even talking about EU standards.
Pokurcz
Emperor
Thanks for the commercial as the American say
It is not half the world, but only the US, UK and allied nations. If they stop their military advancement in EE, cool down the media I could then change my view. So far I've got my reasons for what I am saying.
You see reasons, I see delusions.
It is realy upsetting.
Gelion
Retired Captain
I've stated the reasons over and over in this forum. if you like... search for them.
You may or may not be right about me. I pray that in 10 or 20 years we could say that I was wrong.
Ecofarm
Deity
Sorry, we're gonna stick with a free press over here. Looks like you are just gonna have to be pissed
And about that 'military advancement' thing... the US is not the one taking land.
Russia needs to finish its crumbling. Let the last of the KGB die, let the USSR finally pass into history. End rulership by the mob and old-guard reds, become a western democracy I could then change my view.
Pokurcz
Emperor
Your resons are delusional. At least as "emotional" as you claim Winner's are.
Yes, but they came after 1989. I am not quite happy with two categories but they are not danger for state. Other eastern european gangs are not much better.
You forgot about youngsters of rich studying in Prague, in Charles university are there large numbers, they have apartments in centre of Prague. Their fathers live in Russia and are some kind of oligarchs. I was drinking with two russian girls of this kind in their apartment with soviet anthem as background
Gelion
Retired Captain
I invited you to do the forum search. Do as you please.
Well, it is "official at some level". Our constitution clearly states that if at least half of inhabitants in some local municipality speak some other language, then this language is considered second official language in said municipality. 95% of Russians in Estonia live in Tallinn or North-Eastern part of the country. Local municipalities are all very much bilingual there.
http://www.narva.ee/rus/
http://www.tallinn.ee/rus
Sure, and Estonians are the actual minority. "Russian minority" is but optical illusion. In reality they are just one part of 140million Russian diaspora just the other side of imaginary line.
And both ARE taught and schools ARE filled by choice. If you are really interested, then this page gives overview about the reform, in Russian. http://www.hm.ee/index.php?249457.
What is the big deal about citizenship anyway? If one really wants to become Estonian citizen, to give his share in building and leading this small country of ours, then he certainly would have to know Estonian at least on some level, as well as to know our constitution. If one does not care about neither of these things, why would he want to become Estonian citizen in the first place? To turn it into mini-Russia?
As demonstrated above, we are pretty bilingual imho.
But that is how it works now, doesn't it?
Exactly what kind of minority privileges and how are they "giving up"?
They can still go to Russian schools. They can still get info in Russian. They can still drink their tea from samovar, vodka from teaglass and play karmoshka. The only thing they lose is ability to go to Russia without visa. (Imho this is one of the main reasons why many have opted not to take Estonian citizenship, and as you can see the reason lies in Russia).Some additional good will from their part would not go amiss either. I'd say we've come half way. But that is of course always debatable.
Because USSR ceased to be and ESSR was never legal entity and left no legal descendant either. It happened only here because Baltics became part of USSR under unique conditions. Plus, afaik Russian minority was simply largely pogrommed out of Central Asian republics weren't they? How come I never hear complaints about that?
Apparently part of address somehow got substituted with punctuation...
http://www.mig.ee/index.php/mg/rus/grazhdanstvo_estonii/hodatajstvo_o_grazhdanstve_estonii
Maybe that'll work.
If you look at the table below you can see that it is a total of ~150 000 since 1992.
... but in view of above, this argument would hardly hold...
I am not sure I follow you. Russian is taught is schools to that day.
Sorry, missed that for the first time. Are you really sincerely afraid that we could "convert" such a large number of ethnic Russians living so close to their original diaspora to the effect that "their language becomes threatened"?
How do you think it has been possible for some of them to live independent Estonia for nearly 20 years without speaking the native language?
The answer is they never really needed it. The country IS bilingual to the extent that they could all manage perfectly well without it, effectively forcing everybody else to communicate in Russian with them. But if these people want to become citizens of Estonia they should express some degree goodwill and loyalty to Estonian state - e.g by overcoming this ignorance towards original population. Nobody forbids them to speak Russian amongst themselves or go to Russian schools or to see Russian plays or whatever else.
And again, large number of them does not see the problem. I have good number of Russian friends and colleagues, who speak fluent Estonian and are not less Russians for that. My own wife is half Belorussian. My brother-in-law is Ukrainian. Believe me, it is mostly just Kremlin who tries to show things much worse than they actually are, in hopes to destabilize the situation here and create negative PR for Baltics.
Interesting indeed...only I would have bolded other parts:
...Then, on 12 August, Russian jets bombed the village, destroying dozens of homes. For a week afterwards, the feared maradyori marauding gangs of South Ossetians and other irregular militias surged down the road from Tskhinvali in an orgy of looting, torching and killing.
Now, its people are stuck in limbo. The Russians have established a checkpoint further down the road at Karaleti, preventing those who fled from returning to help their elderly relatives.
But while there was initial fury among the residents at the "Ossetian dogs" who had robbed and trashed their homes...
...But there is nothing of military importance in this village, and the bombing raids came days after the Georgian army had fled. ...
So you've managed to bomb some poor peasants into submission. They are willing to choose their own life over integrity of their country. Wow. How proud you must feel right now.
...Then, on 12 August, Russian jets bombed the village, destroying dozens of homes. For a week afterwards, the feared maradyori marauding gangs of South Ossetians and other irregular militias surged down the road from Tskhinvali in an orgy of looting, torching and killing.
Now, its people are stuck in limbo. The Russians have established a checkpoint further down the road at Karaleti, preventing those who fled from returning to help their elderly relatives.
But while there was initial fury among the residents at the "Ossetian dogs" who had robbed and trashed their homes...
...But there is nothing of military importance in this village, and the bombing raids came days after the Georgian army had fled. ...
So you've managed to bomb some poor peasants into submission. They are willing to choose their own life over integrity of their country. Wow. How proud you must feel right now.
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