В черномъ свѣтѣ

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Остылый запахъ благовонiй

рѣчей казенныхъ пустозвонъ

быть можетъ уже нетъ Эстонiи

и языкъ ужъ умерщвленъ

и намъ быть можетъ не простили

что родились мы не туда

и что мы никогда не жили

и не воскреснемъ никогда

Childishness or Proxy Cold War

In theory, politicians have the right to express their views, in practice they haven't. Politics cannnot ignore diplomacy with its etiquette. This was one of the main reasons why I left politics to be a free person, a writer. Unfortunately, some Estonian politicians don't understand or simply prefer to ignore this limitation. As to our President T. H. Ilves, he seems still to imagine he is a free intellectual who can say what he feels or thinks about everything and everybody, regardless of his position or the effects his outpourings may have. There have been some minor scandals, but nothing very serious. His insulting remarks have not been taken seriously. So what? Pure and simple: our President and thanks to him, Estonian state is not taken very seriously. Most probably not something we should be happy or proud of. Now, another of our politicians, namely the minister of defence, Urmas Reinsalu has joined the free speech club publishing an article about the situation in pre-election Georgia in the Wall Street Journal. In his article, he divides the Georgian political spectrum in good and bad guys, the latter, of course, being nothing else than Russian agents. I an not 100% sure Mr. Reinsalu thinks what he writes, perhaps his attack on some Georgian opposition figures and Russia serves the interests of some forces who are interested in blocking a possible détente in relations between Russia and the West, especially a rapprochement between Russia and "the Old Europe", the emergency of a kind of "Eurussia". Such forces certainly exist both in the US, but also in Russia itself. And letting the small East European states to spoil the party and go on with their small-scale private war is a quite smart move by those forces. But for us, who willingly or naively serve as their proxies, the results of this new old Big Game can be serious, even disastrous.