reede, mai 26, 2006

Laanet Bans Pronkssõdur Protests

Estonian Interior Minister Kalle Laanets is your typical Estonian public servant - young and faced with difficult decisions. At age 41, he is of the same generation of post-Soviet leadership as Finance Minister Aivar Sõerd and Education Minister Mailis Reps - people born long after WWII yet somehow caught up in the historical melee.

Can you believe that? Fighting over history? So angry that you are willing to become agitated and violent for something that has actually little bearing over your life here and now, in the present? It happens everywhere. It's some kind of human disease.

Well anyway, as of today rallies for and against the bronze soldier in central Tallinn have been banned. That means that neither Tiit Madisson from Isamaalit nor Vladimir Lebedov - a founder of Intermovement and an opponent of independence from the 80s - can hold rallies and argue about who killed who in World War II in front of the controversial memorial and May 9 party zone.

While the move seems undemocratic, banning sounds scary, it's actually not. It's fairly common to not allow protests in certain municipal areas in this zion of democracy known as the United States of America. And it is a safety issue.

But it has attracted the attention of international media.

1 kommentaar:

Anonüümne ütles ...

"That means that neither Tiit Madisson from Isamaalit nor Vladimir Lebedov"


Since when is Madisson in Isamaaliit???????????
By my data he was in ERSP in 1992, but left it to form his own ERKL before 1995; and later has belonged to Centre Party (beginning 2000s), and Peoples Union (2003-2004).
And Lebedov is still Lebedev.