Hey... Some facts are not completely correct (Estonia about Russia).

By Merili

The Russians were not forced to go to Estonia. Narva, for example was around 90 % Estonian city before the II WW, later Estonians were deported to death camps in Siberia and they were replaced by people from Ukraine, Russia etc. They were promised apartments for free in Estonia. It was also known that Estonia is in a better state than any other "Soviet country".

During Stalin times Russian language was forced upon Estonians. It's not the fault of the people who are born here but for Estonians biggest identity is the language. And nothing else. Estonians immediately accept people who respect them and speak even a bit of Estonian. Not to forget that only 1 million speaks the language. So as the language would disappear. Small country does not always have the luxury to make the same actions as bigger ones.

Plus a question : how come several Russians still speak the language and say that they think if they life in a country and want to c all this home, they should know the language. Nobody speaks about perfection. In job markets Russians who speak Estonians get better paid and are more desired than Estonians who speak perfect English. So it is not that black and white. From one hand : it's the conditions for the Russians who came here in dream of having free apartments and work and better conditions but what was the price ? Each Estonian family (by statistics) has somebody who was deported or killed by the Soviets. Usually without a trial and not just by ideological matters. That was not so long time ago.

Nobody asks Jewish people to "Move on and not complain!". But somehow Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are asked to do that. Why ? It is important for all the nations to deal with their pain and of course state wants recognition from other countries. I've had so many conversations finding out that people in central Europe and even in Sweden, don't even know that so big percentage of people was killed. Nor did they know about other horrible things. I'm not blaming Russians who in fact didn't have anything to do with it but it's not possible to see Estonia as post-communist part of Russia as IT IS NOT. There is a huge difference between Turkish immigration to Germany or Swedish minority in Finland and replacing one nation with another (as it was in Estonia). That was planned work, not just normal immigration. It was Stalin's plan. Not 100 % of course, but mainly.

Unfortunately not all schoolbooks teach this, especially in Russia where many happenings that were essential are not even being mentioned (deporting to Siberia). If I chose to move to Sweden I would not even DREAM of not ever learning the language. Even though if my parents never did, for example. How come Estonians don't have the same right ?

I am not connecting Russians with Russia's politics and I have friends among local Russians and in Russia. None f their or their friends sees this as a problem. I have heard comments though that: "Why should we learn this language ?! It is not our language ! We don't like Estonia nor Estonians! This is not our home!" Why should any country just give away a citizenship to such people ? BUT I also don't agree with Reformierakond's (right wing coalition Party) view where economic growth is only goal and all the rest can develop from itself. I think integration programmes were not good, if not to say almost non existent. Somehow in government they were naive to expect that this huge change in the society will just go by itself. Silly ! Integration programmes are important for everybody, especially for Estonians, of course.

Small country like this needs people who are willing to contribute and who do not hate the country they live in (I am not also saying that they should love Estonia...). Somehow, only one side comes out whenever most foreigners are giving their expertise. It all starts from 90-s and essential 40-s and 50-s or even I WW and Republic of Estonia is being left put completely. How come ? Is that even a research ? I could say that if it is night time it means the Sun has disappeared and it is like this all over the world, if I study facts I will know that sun shines in another side of Earth and will rise next day... This is what you get when you forget or underestimate essential facts. I really hope this all will have a solution easiest and best to everybody. But I know such things are never easy. Patience for all !

Comments

[Peteris Cedrins]

Have you read the Treaty, Dane? Article 8: "Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to national citizenship and shall not replace it."

[Giustino]

1. The government has estimated that there will be no stateless people in Estonia by 2015. Over the past five years, the percentage of the population with no citizenship decreased by a third. Now 8.2 percent of the population has undetermined citizenship.

2. I have met "other" minorities in Estonia, and they are very much proud of being Ukrainians or Georgians or Kazakhs. Not to mention Finns, Swedes, or Germans. Just because you would like them to be "Russians" doesn't make them Russians.

I guess I could just as easily lump Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroese, Frisians, and Danes together and call them "Swedes" right? I mean, they're all basically the same.

3. I don't see how a person living on a territory has a "human right" to that territory's citizenship, even if they are born there.

If my wife and I had our children in Denmark, even as permanent residents, we would still have to apply for citizenship. And if that child had not sought Danish citizenship and also had a child in Denmark with a non-citizen, the offspring *still would not have Danish citizenship*.

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/entreelibre/Laurette/country/denmarktxt.html

Moreover, I don't think that I have any "human right" to Estonian citizenship, even if my children were born here and I live and work here. I accept that I would have to naturalize, like everyone else.

Estonia is not a de novo state. It's statehood has existed since 1918. Estonians that moved away from Estonia in 1917 did not get citizenship. The thousands of military personnel and Soviet workers who were in Estonia in 1991 did not get it either, and I believe justifiably so.

As I pointed out in point 1, we are soon approaching the point where there will be no stateless people in Estonia. At that point, you can apologize for being wrong.

[Dane]

Try to read the Lisbon Treaty. It constitutes that EU will have a Federal State Constitution and the new Union will have its own government, with a legislative, executive and judicial arm, its own political President, its own citizenry and citizenship, its own human and civil rights code, its own currency, economic policy and revenue, its own international treaty-making powers, foreign policy, foreign minister, diplomatic corps and United Nations voice, its own crime and justice code and Public Prosecutor.
Therefore the Maastricht agreement will be void. That agreement was the first to specify a EU citizenship, but stated that it would run beside the national citizenship. This will now be changed.

Denmark originally rejected the Maastricht treaty because they feared that the creation of a EU citizenship would affect the survival of Danish citizenship.

Exactly this will however now happen. So in a few years there will be no Danish, Estonian or Latvian, or any other EU member state, citizenship, only the EU citizenship.
And as EU will get a President with 5-year term, and a foreign minister, the local member state governments are to only rule on domestic issues, whereas citizenship will not be one, so whether you like it or not, all non-citizens in Estonia and Latvia will eventually be granted EU-citizenship with no demands for tests etc., and all Estonian and Latvian citizens will be revoked of their local citizenship and also be given a EU-citizenship.

[Peteris Cedrins]

Even assuming that the Lisbon Reform Treaty is ratified by all of the member states, as it probably will be, the EU will remain a union of independent sovereign states, not "one country." It's not a neo-USSR, and it is not going to turn our countries into "regions" or force us to change our citizenship laws, which are fully in line with European law. If non-citizens wish to become citizens, they can go through a simple naturalization process. More than 200 000 persons in Estonia and Latvia have done so.

[Dane]

It does not sound so strange after all. Danish citizenship, why not…? after the ratification of the coming Lisbon treaty, the difference between the citizenships throughout the European Union will diminish, as EU will become more than ever before, one country, with one president and one foreign minister, so the Estonian and Latvian citizenship circus is about to end, as EU will not accept all the non-citizens there. Estonia and Latvia will be forced to grant them citizenship with no demands and with a red EU-passport. Still it may take a few years and in the meantime Estonia and Latvia still acts like immature children in their sandbox looking back on how things were seventy years ago, in their brief 20 years of independence, instead of facing the realities that things are as they are. You cannot alter history, and the Russians presently living in Estonia and Latvia were not the oppressors, they are ordinary people, and should be treated equally whether their ancestors lived in a marsh near Tartu or near Novgorod, because without them both these countries would be nothing today, so sharpen yourself and throw this nonsense revenge out the window, and embrace all your citizens, before you will be forced to do so, being a simple region in the new union, with no authorities on this account. Show that you at least can act better than the real oppressors, who took you by force into the old evil union.

[Estland]

We should give them Danish citizenship.
If Denmark's government objects we should call this revenge and "not true democracy". Just kidding.

The fact of illegally crossing the border of an occupied country and settling there as "citizen" doesn't make one citizen. This is the rule of law. Democracy is safeguarded when it is the citizens of the country in question who decide if they want to grant their country's citizenship to foreign citizens or not, not foreign citizens themselves deciding to take our country's citizenship.

[Dane]

I do not only talk of non-citizens, I talk of all those who choose to take a citizenship of another country, that was not their home country, like the Russian Federation, in order to at least not be left as aliens of their country like you say the smaller percentage have done. So as a fact, you have one third of your own population who has been deprived their human rights, in that way that they have been refused citizenship in their own country, as whether you like it or not it is their country too. Many of them has been born there, surely under another rule, but you cannot turn back time seventy years and claim that they are not citizens then, unless it is a question of revenge. You dislike these people, because they or their ancestors came to the country during the Soviet time, therefore you justify the “punishment” you put upon them. This is a disgrace for a modern Europe, whichever way you look at it.

The integration is a total failure, as there is no such thing in Estonia and Latvia. Those, who have obtained citizenship by taking the degrading tests, are mostly young people, and as they see that their parents and grandparent are deprived their rights, they very much dislike the authorities and the so called ethnic Estonians and Latvians, who commit such bad deeds. So although they become citizens they never become ethnic, of course, and the tension between ethnic and non-ethnic citizens remains, and the non-ethnic citizens remain true to the non-citizens and those of Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, Kazakhstani, Georgian etc. citizenship… so even to mention successful integration when it comes to Estonia and Latvia are totally ridiculous, as both countries are divided into ethnic and non-ethnic population, and the ruling class are the ethnic that does everything in its power to suppress the non-ethnic population, by first of all of depriving one third of its population of its human rights.

[Peteris Cedrins]

Dane, I see little point in debate if one party to the discussion doesn't hear the other. You repeat, for instance, your contention that we "deprived one-third of its [sic] own population of their human rights." Firstly, as I already pointed out, non-citizens are not a third of the population. They're about 8,5% of the population in Estonia and 18% of the population in Latvia. That is not a third in any mathematics. Secondly, they weren't deprived of their citizenship (which makes your comparison to the Nuremberg Laws darkly ludicrous). They were _never_ citizens of the Republic of Latvia or the Republic of Estonia. They were citizens of an empire that had forcibly occupied our countries and ceased to exist. "Unconditional citizenship" is not a human right.

As to how "bad" it is, or how it's motivated by "revenge," I'll quote the eminent journalist Edward Lucas:

"Estonia, like Latvia next door, decided to give these uninvited guests a free choice. They could go back to Russia. They could stay but adopt Russian citizenship. They could take local citizenship (assuming they were prepared to learn the language). Or they could stay on as non-citizens, able to work but not to vote.

"Put like that, it may sound fair. But initially it prompted howls of protest against 'discrimination', not only from Russia but from Western human-rights bodies. The Estonians didn’t flinch. A 'zero option'—giving citizenship to all comers—would be a disaster, they argued, ending any chance of restoring the Estonian language in public life, and of recreating a strong, confident national identity.

"They were right. More than 100,000 of the Soviet-era migrants have learnt Estonian and gained citizenship. In 1992, 32% of the population had no citizenship. Now the figure is 10%."

http://edwardlucas.blogspot.com/2006/12/estonia-and-amnesty.html

Revenge has little to do with it, Dane -- rebuilding our countries, which are historically diverse, liberal, and exceedingly tolerant, is the point -- and it's been successful. Naturalization is easy. I do not plan to hand my country to people too lazy, apathetic or hateful to go through the process.

Citizenship entails not only rights but also heavy responsibilities. As to your speculation about why some choose Russian citizenship -- your theories merely display your ignorance. Until a couple of years ago in Latvia, for example, Latvian citizenship also entailed conscription. Not so popular among young people, believe me. Then there are those who are truly linked to Russia -- go there frequently, have relatives there, etc. Russian citizenship was often ideal for them. Then there's the fact that very many Russian citizens and non-citizens continue living in a Russia of the mind, or even a USSR. Because we are free countries, this is easy to do. Where I live, and probably in Narva also, New Year's midnight is celebrated twice by many -- once on Moscow time, an hour earlier. Some people refer to Putin as "our President." Many people cannot speak Latvian, feel no attachment to the nation-state, live in Russian media space (devoted to Balt-bashing), and effectively maintain the isolated imperialistic thinking that dominated two decades ago. A person who can't even understand the political discourse in our countries and denies historical fact (e.g., the vast majority of ethnic Russians denies the occupation, according to surveys -- the percentage even higher than among Russians in Russia [and btw considerably higher than among the non-Russian minorities you wish to declare "Russian"...]), ought to be given the right to vote?

It's very unfortunate that some wonderful persons get caught in between. Their human rights aren't violated, though -- the main reason so many don't naturalize is that there's just not much of a reason to; the naturalization rate soared mainly because of its EU added value (i.e., LV or EST citizenship is also EU citizenship, and fake passports sell for as much as 100 000 euros...).

I know people who buckled down and studied for only a few weeks to naturalize. That's part of what integration is -- learn a little and integrate into this wonderful society. Your comparison to apartheid is even worse than your invocation of the Nuremberg laws -- the point of apartheid was to _prevent_ integration. You can't change the color of your skin. You _can_ learn a language, and that doesn't require you to forget your mother tongue.

I think Estonia and Latvia offer excellent examples of successful integration and minorities policies. Both were at the forefront of such policies already in 1919 (the Latvian law guaranteeing education in minority languages was one of the first of its kind, and Estonia granted extremely broad cultural autonomy to its minorities).

[Dane]

The reason why there are so many living in Estonia and Latvia without having citizenship of their residing country, whether they are stateless or as they could not get the national citizenship, and therefore chose the Russian, Ukrainian or a citizenship from another country, but still do consider Estonia and Latvia their home country, is merely, which ever way you chose to look at it, a result of an ethnic revenge towards people with a linguistic or genealogic relation to Russia or Soviet Union.

It is beyond any doubt that the Soviet did commit extreme atrocities towards Latvians and Estonians, but also as well towards Russians. Still I fail to see why this should justify that Latvia and Estonia, as countries, and stipulated in their legislations, have deprived one-third of its own population of their human rights, just because they or their ancestors came to live in the country on the wrong side of a date almost 70 years ago.
There is no justification that the Latvian and Estonian government does such bad acts. One would have some kind of understanding if the discrimination was merely carried out by individuals, but to put active discrimination and revoking of human rights into legislation with presidential and governmental consent is simply scandalous.
The only comparisons that ring in my mind are the South African “apartheid” and the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany in the early 1930’s.

There may be fear for your neighbour in the East, but do not let that drive you into unjust and stupid acts. Treat your own inhabitants, whatever origin they may have, with equal rights and dignity and unconditional citizenship of course to everyone living in the country before 1991 and of course their direct descents, only then the wounds may heal, and the Russophobia that is so widespread throughout Estonia and Latvia may diminish. However it may be too late of course. But fortunately now both countries are part of a new Union, which after the coming incorporation of the new Treaty of Lisbon, will turn even more into one country, and thus gradually diminishing the extreme nationalistic tendencies in Estonia and Latvia.

Still it is quite shameful that Estonia and Latvia themselves not have been able to cope with integration, and neither being able to show the world that they at least would act in a better way than that of their former oppressors.

[Peteris Cedrins]

I'll respond to Dane's comment above with regard to Latvia -- there are considerable similarities between the citizenship policies, but also some important differences (for instance, Estonian non-citizens can vote in local elections, Estonia extended citizenship to those who registered with the Citizens' Congress, etc.).

Regarding prewar citizens being "accepted as citizens simply because their ancestors came to the country earlier than another" -- that's a rather disingenuous misinterpretation. They're citizens because they were citizens or are descended from citizens. Latvia had an extremely high rate of citizenship between the wars. Then as now, citizenship had nothing to do with ethnicity. You'll find plenty of countries where citizenship is jus sanguinis rather than jus solis, and policies that blend the two. It's not that they got here earlier -- it's that they have this essential connection to the Republic. The non-citizens don't lack citizenship because they came "later" -- they lack it because they never had it. They didn't come to "this country" -- they came to occupied territory that had been forcibly and illegally incorporated into the USSR. They can naturalize, and well over 100 000 persons have done so in Latvia.

More than half of the ethnic Russians in Latvia hold Latvian citizenship, either by descent or through naturalization. Latvia has far fewer resident RF citizens than Estonia, per capita -- but they are indeed included in stats on minorities.

We do not split stats on so-called "Russophones" to minimize the Russian percentage. Ethnic identity in the statistics is based on self-identification, not whence the person came. There are Ukrainians, Tatars, Belarusians, Poles, Roma, Jews, etc. who retain their identity, and you seem to be suggesting that they all be classified as "Russians." On the contrary, many minorities have happily re-established themselves -- there are Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish schools, for example. Indeed, many of these minorities were partially russified during the occupation (the minority schools were shuttered soon after the tanks rolled in), and as a consequence Russian is still the public language for many (just as it is for ethnic Latvians in Narva). I can assure you that many a Pole in Daugavpils (where there are nearly as many Poles as there are Latvians, and where I live), would be rather infuriated at the suggestion that he or she be declared a "Russian," however.

Latvia has worked very hard at becoming a European democracy, and it has succeeded admirably. I see no reason to believe that granting blanket citizenship to everyone here, including the not insubstantial minority that opposed the very existence of this country, would have inspired speedier integration. Integration is proceeding apace -- if perhaps one in five Russophones could speak some Latvian at the end of the occupation, more than half can do so now (and by the way, that percentage is higher among non-Russians who aren't native Lettophones). In other words, the language problem _is_ much lesser, as a result of the policies most Russophones oppose.

There are certainly problems and failings, as there are everywhere, and I have plenty of friends both Latvian and Russian (and Tatar and Mordvin, etc.) who vehemently disagree with our citizenship, language, and education policies, wholly or in part. Personally, though, to be blunt -- I think the idea that handing out passports would have inspired integration is a dubious one. If you look at the positions of PCTVL or SC in Latvia, and they get a large share of the vote -- their proposed policies would merely perpetuate asymmetrical bilingualism and the divide in society. There's a profound difference between integrating in a "Ruslatviya" and in the Republic of Latvia.

I also think that you're actually denigrating the individual free will of the persons you're trying to "defend" as some monolithic group -- some people took Russian citizenship only because they didn't want to live as stateless persons? Couldn't it be because they feel more of a connection to Russia than they do to the countries in which they live?

The main reason Lithuania doesn't have the same problems is that it wasn't as russified as Estonia and especially Latvia were; integrating 5,1% of the population is considerably easier.

And as to one third of the population being deprived of political influence -- in Latvia, non-citizens are about 18% of the population, which is not a third but less than a fifth. Naturalization requirements are comparatively liberal -- and the children of non-citizens born after independence was restored don't need to take any tests.

We're currently marking the 17th anniversary of the "January Events" -- the defense of our fledgling democracies against Soviet aggression in 1991. I hate to spoil your inspired view of unconditional surrender I mean citizenship -- but it would be rather tawdry to forget that there were large numbers of people, mostly Russophones, who actively opposed democracy and the restoration of independence even when innocent people were being shot. There were also some ethnic Russians on the barricades, and few forget that. Their "value" to the Republic is quite different, just as their values are. If Latvia has made a grave mistake, it's not bestowing citizenship on those non-citizens who registered with the Citizens' Committee. But the idea of handing out passports to everyone who lives in a place is neither especially "European" nor "democratic," in my view -- doing so would simply lower the value of citizenship.

There's plenty of room for disagreement, Dane -- but ignoring historical and political realities is neither illuminating nor helpful. Doesn't a body politic have rights? Does what Loeber called our "lame continuity" count for nothing? Does recovering from half a century of rape and russification mean that you'd best begin a "European democracy" with a phantom tabula rasa?

The citizens answered, democratically.

[Dane]

First of all, forget about Lithuania, as they do not have the same problems as Estonia and Latvia. They let everybody become citizens of the independent nation after the fall of Soviet. It is only Estonia and Latvia, that themselves create problems in their countries.
Estonia and Latvia was part of the Russian empire for a few hundred years until the independence in 1918, which means that Russians have always been part of the countries and was also citizens in the independent countries after 1918. After Soviet only the former citizens of the pre-war Latvia and Estonia and their descendants would automatically become citizens in the countries, which now means that there are citizens that do not master the local languages but are accepted as citizens simply because their ancestors came to the country earlier than another. Also every year a number of Russians are granted citizenship without any demands of language, simply because they have in a positive way contributed to the growth of the country (read: wealthy businessmen who have created job opportunities and who through their wealth cannot be overseen by the ruling establishment) Also this places a shadow on the politicians who decide who should receive such a citizenship, as to how they expect to be personally thanked for this.
Many Russians living in Estonia and Latvia are citizens of the Russian Federation, as they wanted to have a citizenship and not to live like many other as stateless persons. They do not appear in the official statistics of minorities. Also the Estonian statistics split the non-citizens into Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Kazakhstan etc. after which part of the former Soviet Union their ancestors came from. All this to minimise in the official statistics the vision of the size of the Russians minority living there.
But statistics cannot hide the real problem that Estonia and Latvia are not democracies in the way that the rest of the world defines democracy. One third of the population have been deprived the right of any political influence, and thus significant influence of their own future. This is a disgrace to the Estonia and Latvia, and to the rest of the EU, that they do not push harder to solve this problem, as if everybody unconditionally were granted citizenship, the languageproblem and many other problems would be much lesser, as then most people would feel part of the nation, knowing that they have the same value as any other person in the country, and therefore naturally would try to adapt the language as one thing. It is always much easier to make people want to do something than to try to force them, and punish them it they do not. Of course some old people may not learn the language, but were they citizens they would push their children to integrate and learn the language.
So if Estonia and Latvia would work on becoming democracies in the western European way, things would be much much smoother...