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Descendants of a gang of pirates. Published Postimees  5 August  2013  Monarchy is in the news in Belgium, in Britain it's always in the news. Let's tell it how it is in the Estonian republic. A few hundred years ago, a gang of vicious pirates, led by a power-crazed psychopath, invaded my country. Like the knights of Teutonic Order in this part of the World, they spread destruction before them. They pillaged and raped and slaughtered vast numbers of people leaving much of the country as wasteland and enslaved the survivors. Like the Soviets they killed off anybody who had money or drove them into exile. For hundreds of years the British Isles, like Estonia was oppressed by the descendants of this band of thugs, who spoke a different language and had different customs. The pirates were known as the Normans. Their leader was known as William the Conqueror. In Estonia you finally got rid of the Baltic Germans, in England we never got rid of the N
Mere Anarchy Published Postimees   4 July 2013  Fed up with reading with all the stuff that has been happening at the centre of Estonian politics, lets take a look at the stuff that is happening on the fringes. Estonia's young left-wing community, the anarchists had a problem. They couldn't seem to get away from the opposite numbers, the Neo-Nazis and Fascist types. The Neo-Nazis would attacked them in Tartu's bars, in the grim housing estates where some of them lived, in the seaside town of Pärnu and outside gay clubs. Eventually a group of Anarchists got together and came up with the solution. They would set up their own centre. It would be a place to gather, share ideas, hold concerts, do social evenings, have language courses to help to improve relations between Ethnic Estonians and Russian speakers. It would be a place to organise and spread the message of building a civil society and best of all it would be far away from the Neo-Nazis. T
Cut it Out Published Postimees   28 May 2013 What's up with the immigration people? On lots of different levels and in lots of different ways the authorities; whether there are border guards, police, or civil servants drafting bills; appear to be getting things horribly wrong. I will tell three stories. They all have to do with immigration and are otherwise unconnected. They all have an underlying theme. The first story is my own story. I am aware that police officers and border guards do difficult and necessary jobs under challenging circumstances. I am also aware that the police and border guards have done good things in the past, BUT....guys could you please stop harassing me. I have been stopped three times in the last month, once in Old Town, once in Kristiine centre and most recently at the Port of Tallinn when I was coming back from Sweden. At the port, I was with my Estonian family. My niece who is six is scared of police. She thinks naughty the police will c
Thatcher's Legacy to Britain, Estonia and the World Published Postimees 13 April 2013  For Estonia, Baroness Thatcher legacy is largely good. She was a tireless crusader against the Soviet Empire and against socialism which she always hated. Her robust foreign policy in Ireland, the Falkland Island and elsewhere led to the West standing up to and defeating communism. She could not have anticipated the collapse of the Soviet Union but that's what ended up happening. Margaret Thatcher's economic policies were the template, Mart Laar and others followed to transform the Estonian economy in the 90s. In Britain the reaction to the Baroness's death has been mixed, some mourned, others celebrated. To understand why, you have know what was going on in Britain before and what has happened subsequently. I will begin. Britain before Thatcher was a pretty depressing place. The country was going to hell, a child could notice it. My earliest memories are of sitting
The Conservative solution Published Postimees 31 March 2013  I really struggled with this article. As a non-Estonian I have always felt I have no right to suggest things. I comment, I ask questions. But I am now a permanent resident, I have family ties here and I am paying my taxes so here it goes. Like many people I got a letter last week from a lobby group calling itself the "Foundation for the Family and the Defence of Traditions". As we all know these people oppose the draft proposal for neutral gender civil unions. Over the past few years, the row over the issue has swallowed up the debate over every other type of minority right. A student who wanted to interview me about minority rights, ended up spending the whole interview talking about gay rights. He really was not interested in anything else. Like most people from my background, I am a social conservative and economically social liberal. For example, I support the monarchy, I was a litt
Conservative Solutions The big issue in Estonia now is rights cohabitation rights for same-sex couple. An opinion pieces on this subject. Britain and Referunda Why Cameron will lose the next election and we will have a government more favourable to Europe and Estonia...   Read on  The Second Sex We are are told that we live in a male dominated society, that men have it easier than women; there are people who make a living by telling us this. I think that men have it tough and the situation is getting worse. I believe that feminism., or at least the radical form of it that has come to dominate, is wrong., and the effects of feminism that are causing great harm in my own country and in the rest of the Anglo-sphere are beginning to crop up here .. Read on Chartist versus the World It was just perfect timing, I write a book discussing amongst other things, whether Estonian political culture is failing on not, and a month later, some of the country's leading minds, let's