<TITLE: Politics Seminar 2
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: social sciences
DISCIPLINE: political science
EVENT TYPE: seminar presentation
FILE ID: USEMP01D
NOTES: continuation of and continued in USEMD01B, seminar also includes presentation USEMP01E

RECORDING DURATION: 22 min 58 sec

RECORDING DATE: 29.11.2001

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: 10

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 2

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Lithuanian; ACADEMIC ROLE: undergraduate; GENDER: female; AGE: 17-23

SS: several simultaneous speakers>


<S2> good afternoon @@ , well erm , erm the subject i erm chosen for my for my essay is the human rights in estonia and the oh i refer refer to the case of the russian speaking minority in in estonia i mean about their situation so er the number of the er the russian speaking people in estonia is quite big it's er one third of the population and er it's very often happens that erm it gives the estonian side that their that they often say they sometimes you you can hardly call them er minority because it's so they are so big number but erm , well i i think that er you you don't have to jud- or you shouldn't judge the erm minority by their by their number of the people but rather tha- by the power or the like the rights they have in the society and erm , well in that case they they are minority and erm , yeah we have example of for example south africa where whites are definitely not the the the the majority by the by the amount but , and blacks they are minority though their number is very big , so erm yeah and i think erm i don't want to distinguish their human rights from er rights of minority from the human rights it's kind of a the same thing at least for me , erm so why is there human rights well because i believe this is a er one of the main point which promote the european union and the united nation that like to be any kind of stable society you need a human rights first of all respect for the human rights so erm , there was a a speech of the president of the council erm er of the EU foreign ministry in 1998 and he said like erm human rights is a human future and and like we have all respect them and we are all responsible for supporting and promoting the human rights erm and like each human being is erm in respect of the nationality , or cultural group he or she belongs he has human rights inherent in him or her so well i kind of base my my , well my opin- or at- attitude on that so er <COUGH> so if the human human rights are our future then er it it feels sometimes strong with than we don't notice the conflicts or we don't name name them as a conflicts which is happens well right next doors so okay then the matter of the the conflict in estonia <BEGIN PREPARING OVERHEAD> oh and i i think i , like i just (very) briefly look at the oh , <END PREPARING OVERHEAD> at the history you know , yeah i mean the history of of of estonia it's very briefly so they diverse i i mean you can you can see that they were ruled by erm by scandinavians germans poles and russians and there was the swedish era and the russian era erm so they gained their independence in 1917 and er , er they existed as an independent republic till 1938 so and till then yeah the the soviets kind of er occupied the land and er yeah in 1939 so er yeah after the world war two erm , it was a big er big immigration of non-baltic peoples er to estonia erm basically because of the policy of erm industrialisation and and er yeah it was okay there was a policy of mixing nationalities of course and then it was because of the militarisation yeah particularly important estonia so er , i mean i i'm bringing this because this is a kind of brings the the the the matters of the conflict later so erm after the post-soviet period they gained independence in 1999 and er then it was er er they reformed their their citizen law on citizenship from the 1958 , er and then it was a presidential election where like er over 40 per cent of people they were wasn't unable to vote because they they they they weren't granted the citizenship and then it was 95 the language law and well this is also kind of important erm date for this conflict it was 1993 june 28 when there in narva where the (xx) estonia were the and where is the very big for russian league presenting majority in the they er gained their or they called called their local referendum and they asked for autonomy but okay that that was cancelled as an illegal by estonian officials so er so okay the kind of the the conflict is er ye- yeah and i i will also this <PREPARING OVERHEAD, P:15> @@ yeah it's er it's er how their percentage of their or like competition of population is going and you can you can just see like how russians they were kind of coming up in in in numbers so okay then er when this citizen the law on citizenship was er er yeah was taking or presented the only 80- 80,000 was granted the citizenship all the all the others they were left without i mean i'm trying very briefly i suppose you all know this but er , erm so which lead to that there was a , they couldn't like er there was er kind of a <SIC> unequality </SIC> in like er gaining the employment and like er yeah the political , <SIC> unequality </SIC> which they were of course russians speaking people they were very not very satisfied with and like there there is this little feature which thought all like in fact which is coming up is that erm . like for example there are many like at the moment there are many policemen unemployed or they have many va- vacancies for the policemen because er many people failed to to pass the law or to pass the the language test and this is er this is the the biggest problem because you can't get citizenship if you if you can't if you can't pass the language test yeah so it's it's briefly about the the problem , erm , so erm yeah er yeah if if come back to the like actual prob- problem is that erm , erm well in my essay kind of er trying to summarise the estonian point of view and er yeah i give my opinions on that erm so the main problem which i see from the estonian side is they they don't see it as a problem actu- that the problem of the russian minority they don't see it as a problem erm , so er erm like they they state or their statement is that erm yeah or estonians scholars they consider that estonia was occupied and okay it was like they state it was occupied by soviet union and erm that's why the world war two fi- finished for them only in 1992 er when they get their independence so er erm , so that now they are kind of in the process of liquidation the results of the war and long term occupation so they they they have to act in a way in this well it's like in a situation when it's like after (war) situation so erm and er okay this is big number of or the number of russian er russian speaking minorities it happened er not in a natural way it happened because of this yes as i already presented this policy of industrialisation and erm and erm , in the end like mixing nationalities er policy of soviet union so that's why they think that they have a right to consider them as occupants , erm , erm yeah then the next point they bring is that erm estonian culture and language and people they were oppressed for a very long time by the soviets and erm they consider that the soviet time was the most miserable er miserable in the history of er of estonia so now they finally get the rights to or they have to do everything possible to defend their state and like to , to do everything possible to protect them from the russian erm kind of like the russian culture shouldn't er again like erm what would be the word , to to not let them to build their this new cultural identity or and er well the next point is that er they consider that it's er actually duty of russian federation to to take care of the of the old russian russian nationality russian or russian people er like and gain or and give them the er the the citizenship so it was er a statement of the former estonian mini- minister of foreign affair he was er he was saying that er <READING ALOUD> none estonian citizen of former soviet union residing in residing in estonia must not be considered as stateless but they have to be regarded as citizens of russian federation and er the statement of russian people that they are stateless should be rejected as misleading </READING ALOUD> erm , well er okay and another point they bring is that er or which i found kind of er it's erm that the russian they always live in a communities and they didn't do anything to to kind of integrate into the estonian society and like to learn the language and so erm erm , yeah that's so that that it's it's very difficult to integrate them because as as far as they didn't do it for in like in 50 years then it's difficult to do it now and erm yeah there was another interesting point which they bring they they say that erm estonian people they still remeber how to practise democracy from being er when it was er independent republic er before the world war two so they still remember and the russians they don't and er like for , and another thing they say is that er that it wasn't really er for the- for them for the russians it the soviet period wasn't erm really terror in es- es- that's the way they call it like for the estonian people erm that they were that the russian culture wa- wasn't oppressed and er so they consider that soviet time was like a real psychological terror for the estonian for the estonians erm and erm so that's why they er and okay they say that it's not stalin but it's er this huge masses of russian who came to estonia and like er ruined the culture and er and oppressed the people and so er so that's why they kind of er they they show that suspicious towards the russian and their loyalty to this to the estonian state first by by that they they they they didn't learn the language and they were didn't integrate to the culture and then that okay that the soviets wasn't really terror for them so erm all this er this kind of points i er i picked from the what i've read erm or opinion and statements of of estonian officials and like scholars so er so and that their the kind of conclusion i made is that erm it's it's quite obvious that er estonian side they they don't see that russian has a right to complain in a way and er and the russians they are definitely not er very very favourable part of the society at the moment so erm , yeah yeah that's that was erm yeah what i would like to say about about this is just erm like about the occupation and the that the russians are occupant erm well i i agree it was a very very hard period for the estonia and i mean we all understand this er but erm , er well i believe that you have to start now from the , like to deal with the situation you have er and you have people and er like young generation of russians who definitely don't er consider themself as occupant or they never think this way and er so you you kind of should er see the situation you have and not really referring to the past all the time you don't have to forget the past but you have to kind of er see what you have now and er , i- it was erm it was er just like er i don't know how you find this but for me it was er was very @@ very well i don't know how to call this thing it's it was excellent thing it was speech of the current foreign minister , he was saying erm okay if anyone want to come to estonia to experience to experience soviet times he then he cho- choose the the very wrong place we are not post-soviet republic we are <SIC> pre-europenean europenean </SIC> republic and erm our our mind set is change er we look towards brussels , helsinki and stockholm and moscow for for for for us can be as well on the mars so erm this is er erm okay what i can like conclude is that they try to forget <COUGH> the past totally and like they they kind try to like to yeah i would say to get rid of any kind of trace of the soviet and of course they they might have right or they have a right for that er but it seems like the russian er the russian people in this case they are kind of er big reminder of this of this past so and that's why they er they should be something done with them so which i found a bit , yeah well </S2>
<S1> five minutes </S1>
<S2> five minutes <S1> yeah </S1> uh-huh okay yeah so erm , yeah then okay i agree with that the culture were oppressed and er but okay estonia wasn't the only republic which were oppressed erm i am going to bring the example of er of ukraine which were oppressed even in worse way i mean many people died like after the regime because they there wasn't agree and like erm erm but i want or i want i i hope that the government of the ru- ukraine after the independence they were we- and because it was movements in ukraine and people was very very much against the russian and they they wanted to cut any contacts with russia but okay i h- want to i hope to believe that the government was wise enough to er not to bring this conflict on the official level like not to let the movements to to the official ground and erm yeah erm yeah and about that yeah there there is a point in estonian side that like the russian they can there there's big a nu- number of russian they can weaken the state in a way as i told that that they can't be integrated so you can think other way around that it's such a big amount of people unsatisfied that er they they do can bring their or they can weaken the state from the inside er so i mean it's it's better to integrate them somehow because they want you can't get them disappear in one like so erm , yeah and again it's like there is the the last point would be that erm er , that they say that it wasn't really terror for russians though i'm not agreed because and again they accused soviet union that the policy was like generalising everything and like not looking at the individuals but well i believe this is exactly what they do they er many russians died as well or like they suffered because of the regime and er and the the population is so big so you can't it's like 150 millions of people so you can't really say that they all enjoyed the yeah i'm finishing @@ er </S2>
<S1> no no not in a hurry </S1>
<SS> @@ </SS>
<S2> yeah and erm yeah and then one reason why they actually bring this er that russian er well what i believe that they are suspicious towards why they are loyal or not to the state is that erm ab- about this referendum they often refer to that they tried to er proclaim the independence of this er narva region but like they might believe is that it was just frustration of the people and okay there was a majority there and it's very easy to manipulate the people when people don't know what is going on and like they're afraid so er yeah to summarise this erm i would say okay things won't get worse in this conflict definitely because er yeah i guess estonia won't let this problem er be on the way to the EU or like NATO so they they will keep the very low profile on the problem erm but i i'm fairly sure that in- integration will be very not very easy because it's al- they already kind of by the policy they built this erm , two societies which are un- unequal towards each other i would say and they they have this suspicious and like er so it should be still a lot to do to improve this and like okay the problem is that they don't really sincere want to integrate them that's er . because they do some improvements but it's more because the european union kind of like telling them that it it would be good to do so they just kind of please i see it like pleasing the european union and erm yeah and those russian who who lives there or like ukrainian and belarussians it is they can see that the estonia is their home because those who didn't they they left already so i guess the majority they think that it's their land and it's not really fair to like send them away because they were born there and live all their life so er and yeah i i think that er yeah i also believe that russians they can't be responsible for all like for all what is er , soviet's done because the pe- many people were also used and like erm there was okay the policy that erm the mixing nationalities and they were sent to not only to estonia but to ukraine to kazakhstan any country they it was this way so they in a way they were just manipulated by their government and er so you kind of in this kind of problem i see you have you should kind of view the individuals more than to just put people into the group put the labels and if you are , get not very good luck and you are in the group with with the bad label then you just treated the bad way er yeah so er ye- erm yeah i was mhm yeah just like to finish this erm because i started from the human rights and er i i want to say that like erm okay since universal declaration of human rights was established there was many things done like books seminars like activities like conferences towards the promoting and <SIC> securiting </SIC> of human rights but erm but it's like er strange because it seems like we notice the conflicts </S2>
<S1> mhm last minute </S1>
<S2> yeah we we notice the conflicts when it it got really violent and like when people start dying so only when we start paying attention i mean i i agree that there are many conflicts which which very violent and like people are dying but well after all that hu- like right to live is not the only right we have in the declaration so it looks like okay as far as you are s- alive so you have to be satisfied and like they also promoting there , the human dignity which is like upheld thing but like , to to feel this human dignity you need much more than just like be able to live like or no one is killing you </S2>
<S1> time </S1>
<S2> yeah so well i i so- somehow i found this that the case of this r- because yeah just the the last point why i brought this human er human rights in estonia because at this kind of problem it's the international community actually don't find any any any unrespect towards the human rights and this is also one strong maybe point from the when estonian side speaking because they any commission which were sent there they found that there was no big discrimination but people are frustrated people are like don't know what is going on the the people's life did like put upside down and like in some ways so er yeah and they they have this erm report every year the the commission they produce it's a progressive report where they kind of monitor which progress each applicant for the EU did and er ni- from 1996 till 2000 well it was always like that estonia fulfilling the the the the requirements towards the human rights so i believe this is kind of the conflict which is didn't read i mean i hope it it won't be violent of course but problem we have to pay more attention on this kind of things as well </S2>
