A Question of Moral and Self-Respect
Already for the past few years, if not longer, not a week has gone by
without there appearing another concerned article by some
intellectual about the crisis of trust and alienation that has struck
the political life of this country.
Something is seriously amiss in the relationship between the state
and the larger society – it seems as if the state is living a life
of her own somewhere high above and the democratic dialogue has been
replaced by a state-centered monologue... even in the West the
democracy is brewing, the system we have considered the fairest and
the best guarantee for personal freedoms is suffering setbacks. More
and more there is talk of democracy being hijacked by the political
elite and that parliamentary system in its current form has become
obsolete. That the parties lack vision and are merely corporate
clubs. Often it can be heard that the gap between the elite and the
Estonians has never been as wide as it is now. Even more commonplace
are the comparisons with the Estonian SSR.
I fear that in reality we have merely grown up as a state. The time
of childhood idealism is past, we have matured as a democracy. We
have professional politicians and a professional civil service. The
time of holding hands and mass singing demonstrations is history
which will never return. The state has always been a thing in itself,
an instrument to move from chaos to order, identical everywhere and
always. The state dictates her terms in order to survive. Yes, she is
one jealous and egoistic lady who demands complete commitment.
Concepts such as justice, freedom, nationality she sees as
competitors. The state loves to be lead by a party that in essence
were Marxist and with a quivering voice and a thumping heart would
speak of the supremacy of a certain economic model, be this model
bent on serving the international proletariat or the international
capital.
Defeating the grassroots
Those who have fallen to the embrace of the state, be them ministers
or civil servants, will act instinctively by her prescriptions. They
repel grassroots movements because clearly these have not been
created in the interest of strengthening the state. So yes, I believe
we have grown up as a state. We have note achieved a free republic of
Estonians but rather the Republic of Estonia. It functions perfectly
as a state alongside hundreds others of its kind, fulfilling its
international obligations, supporting duly the European banking
sector... The energy of this state is directed outwards, towards
other states, because cooperation makes them all stronger.
What takes place in the inside? The party and the government no
longer speak of Estonians and the national interests of Estonians.
The interests of Estonians do not help the state to survive as much
the interests of the international financial capital. The result is
another rampant russification in Estonia, especially in Tallinn. It
is hard to find work in Tallinn without knowing Russian and
conducting business solely in Estonian has become difficult – you
are simply not understood. The state watches all this with
contentment. At the time of this article1
eight years passes from the day when the state had its people beat up
at Lihula in order to kill another grassroots movement.
The corporal punishment handed out in Lihula did not merely kill the
national aspect in the Estonian politics – it marked the beginning
of a period characteristic for style of communication from above to
below. Bloodhounds and batons in Lihula's autumn evening seemed to be
a good motive to erect another memorial two years later. And
regrettably this gives even more reason to talk of freedom-fighting.
The communication with public mostly takes place on two levels. First
is the restrained and fine-tuned self-praise of a PR expert. This
rhetoric always comes back to the “value-based politics,
transparency of the decision-making process, and sharing the positive
experience of the e-State” which in August culminated with claims
that the wages in Estonia have grown faster than the prices, and that
the European Stability Mechanism is a question of self-respect and
our moral duty. Seeming earnest while joking cynically is no doubt
another sign of a matured state.
Noteworthy is the circumstance when the state started, via the mouth
of a minister, to speak of moral and self-respect. Take notice –
this was not during some internal question, but rather when the
international financial capital was in trouble.
A language of decrees and restrictions
The other level of communication is based on arrogance and a sense of
superiority. What was said to us when ACTA, spitting to the face of
individual freedoms, was imported to the country? What was said when
a strike took place and teachers demanded a fair salary? What is
being said when the party, taken hostage by the euro, passes the
European Stability Mechanism no matter what. This is being said: fuck
off!
It is the civil service that makes up most of the state and writes
its laws. They, the civil servants, have perhaps an even bigger
understanding of state's needs than the politicians in the cabinet,
their numbers are just that: times bigger. Perhaps it is the ever
marginal role of the people's representative body that defines this
parliamentary crisis. The career and self-actualization of a civil
servant who spends his whole life in an office very much lies in
creating legislation.
Years spent in a state institution tend to blur one's sense of
reality. Estonia's growing and overpopulated bureaucracy produces a
mass of laws that no parliament could ever chew through in detail.
This results in flawed, confusing and inconsiderate laws which often
originate from departmental interests or someone's personal
fanaticism. Every organization will at some point start living and
growing for its own sake, not for its intended goal.
The self-actualization of the civil servant is all the more
successful if he organically grasps the growth needs of the
institution and works toward that end. Unfortunately the laws are
becoming increasingly cruel, even spiteful. The languages of decrees
and restrictions tends to become the only language the state
instinctively has for its subjects. I sensed this when working in a
public office more and more: there is a prevailing mentality that it
is necessary to forbid, limit and restrain more. The people have too
many rights and not enough obligations. The people have to be forced
to report themselves, to register themselves, they need to be
counted, mapped, polled. The state needs this.
Healthism
Take for example the restrictions of the new tobacco law. The
officials do not even hide the fact that its purpose has been to make
the lives of people uncomfortable. Several scientists that have
researched in healthism claim that this inevitably leads to
totalitarianism – a state hijacked by puritans enforces conventions
and limits personal freedoms. People's activities are categorized to
healthy and unhealthy. The latter need be banned, eradicated from the
society. The ideal of the state is a citizen who is weighed,
measured, counted, a registered resident, digitized, without a
nationality, healthy and always smiling. One who gladly greets
healthism, big brother and a new era of silence.
Here's a small hint to the Ministry of Social Affairs where there
seems to be difficulties in focusing on the important. How big is the
pension of those Estonian intellectuals who during the occupation
kept alive the Estonian language and culture and thanks to whom our
independence became possible? How worthy does the state consider the
contribution of those who endured the real repression of the USSR so
that the ministers of today could speak of the European common values
and maintaining self-respect?
The answer is 300 euros. And that is the true measure of our moral
and self-respect.
1The
article was first published on 30 August 2012. The author refers to
the
controversial removal of a memorial monument in Lihula on 2
September 2004.
