10'000+ Estonians Singing For Freedoms & Tolerance — #KõigiEestiLaul
The People Still Have Hope…
On 14.04.2019, Tallinn Song Festival Grounds was filled with thousands of Estonians standing together for our freedom(s).
They came there to stand for all freedoms. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of self-actualization, artistic freedom, the freedom of doctors and teachers to do their work. The freedom to feel at home in Estonia. The freedom to stand up for your rights. The freedom to make decisions about your own body and mind. The freedom to be independent and different.
What started as a social media campaign with hundreds of people showing their dissatisfaction to today’s political situation, had now become an event with real people on the streets. With an appropriate twist for Estonians who love to sing at festivals.
The event itself featured non-political speeches, videos of people sharing their stories about Estonia and top local musicians on the stage. Including Ewert and The Two Dragons, Idealnõje Ljudi, Ivo ja Robert Linna with Kuradi Saar, Laura Põldvere, Lenna, Maian, Mari Kalkun, NOËP, Propazha, PX Band, Revals, Stefan, Svjata Vatra, Synne Valtri Band, Tam I Tut, Tanel Padar and Yasmyn.
Where did it all start?
A few weeks ago, Estonia had its Parliamentary election at which a liberal political party, The Estonian Reform Party, won with 28.9% of the votes. They were followed by a centrist, social-liberal political party, the Estonian Centre Party who got 23.1% of the votes.
All seemed fantastic as those two parties were thought to form a forward-looking government, as they are also members of the same ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) party in the European Union.
However, the latter decided to reject the invitation to form a joint coalition, instead starting to work towards making another one together with a national-conservative political party, the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE), and a conservative political party, Pro Patria. Although they were explicitly saying during the election period that they would not form a government with EKRE under no circumstance, as the party had been promoting populistic, anti-democratic and racist thought throughout its existence.
And this caused people to feel deceived, now having to fear that Estonia could potentially follow the suit of Hungary, the Philippines and Venezuela. Not fearing the right-winged or conservative politics but being afraid that the hate speech promoted by EKRE could turn into reality and that Estonia would take a route to close itself to the world.
That made a group of people come together and discuss how to ensure that Estonia would stay democratic, confident, protected, inclusive, caring, forward-looking and European in spirit. Moreover, working towards keeping the key foundations of our country to remain intact: democratic values, the rule of law and respect for all people, and steadfastly facing West. Believing that Estonia has to preserve an environment that lets people make better lives for themselves. Knowing that making Estonia more inclusive and more connected, also improves our security.
What’s going to happen next?
The coalition between Centre Party, EKRE and Pro Patria will most likely still come into effect. Leading to various changes in the political arena. Hopefully more good than bad.
Meanwhile, the people will keep on protesting and it’s believed that even if successful at first, the coalition will break up within the next two years.
However, this doesn’t mean that our fight would be over as there’s a reason why the extremists have been able to get elected in Estonia and across the world. And there’s no way for us to deny it.
The reality is that people are dissatisfied and there are a bunch of gaps in society. In our case, Russians haven’t fully integrated with Estonians, while there’s also the income gap between people living in Tallinn or rest of Estonia.
Thus, if anything, the current situation has made us think harder about reducing those gaps. The question is, who will be able to do that? Especially as it’s quite clear that people don’t support liberal parties as they used to, while most countries don’t seem to have conservative powers with a real vision that’s good for everyone.
Perhaps this encourages new people and parties to join the political arena, focusing less on politics and more on getting things done. Or perhaps this shows how we don’t even need politicians to solve such problems…
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