Re: discrimination in the Baltics

On Apr 24, 5:00 pm, hol...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Holman) wrote:
In article
<23e6ed81-5ab2-4962-9eb5-29b3db265...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, vello

<vellok...@xxxxxx> wrote:
On Apr 24, 2:43=A0pm, hol...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Holman) wrote:
In article <legIl.4065$b04.2...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "J. Anderson"

<deletions>

You are american, Eugene, and some things are not easy to understand
with this background.

Vello, not all Americans regard me as an American. There are people who
claim quite vociferously that a peson with my appearance cannot possibly
be an American, reminding us that the Founding Fathers wrote the American
Constitution to specifically exclude the possibility of person with my
ethnic background ever being accepted as an American. I don't know how
closely you follow American politics, but there have been lawsuits,
demonstrations, and other noise in certain circles that Barack Obama's
presidency is illegitimate because he cannot be an American as they
unerstand the concept (see the sign athttp://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq303/gsadamb/landoftheskyrealty.jpg,
video athttp://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq303/gsadamb/landoftheskyrealty.jpg,
starting 2.44).

Well, "nation state" and even "country" are not
too old things - but it not means that division between "us" and
"others" is something created in last 200 years.

That is precisely what I wrote in a posting a few hours ago.

Crusaders 800 years
ago were pretty aware when they finished with "Livonia" and were ready
to attack "Land of Estonians". If you want to go even deeper in
history, remember what happens with those unable to spell word
"shibolet" correctly. Nation, or "ethnic group" like it is described
sometimes is one of most natural basis to make clear difference
between "ours" and "others" - do I understand what he says? Yes? He in
one of us. No? He's a foreigner. Estonian state is "de iure" even
younger then USA but de facto it is the same what it was for Crusaders
in 1200 and for our neighbours a long time earlier - a land where
estonians are living.

Thre is another side of it. All "nations" are the result of smaller, older
tribes consolidating. All but the most isolated ations ave interacted with
neighboring nations, peacefully through trade, intermarriage, and the
production of "love children", and aggressively through warfare, conquest,
rape, and abduction. Even though Estonians are regarded as a Baltic-Finnic
nation, most Estonians know that they have some German, Swedish, Russian,
Finnish, Latvian, Gyspy, Livonian, Polish, or nowadays, Armenian, Azeri,
Belarusian, Georgian, Kazakh, Ukrainian, Uzbek ancestry in their family
tree. You are also a melting-pot nation, even if not to the degree of the
Americans, although this fact is seldom acknowledged.

Eugene, I have single answer for both two first segments of your post:
real ethnicity has nothing to do with genes, it is not hard- but
software thing :-) Surely tribes and nations interacted all the time
changing their genes - but till one was not occupied/suppressed by
another, both continue to produce people of particular nation no
matter from "original" (there are not such thing) or "imported" genes.
If one grows up in swahili environent and knowing he is swahili - he
is. Despite statistically we can look for specific gene combinations
for particular nations, there is not a single gene to determine nation
of particular single person. So you perfectly to be both american and
a finn by your own choice - or to be both in the same time. So when I
talk about x thousand year old Estonia I mean that particular
territory has been owned by people sharing one particular language and
culture no matter how much "new blood" they get in history.

As I understand it, being an Estonian nowadays, whether a citizen of the
Estonian state or not, is primarily a matter of having Estonian as your
native language and, secondarily, for some people, of your appearance,
even if having Estonian as your native language probably overrides
appearance.

Dam, Eugene, you wrote two first cuts of your post and I made my
answer - just to discover in third that my position is clear for you
anyway :-) You should start from third cut :-)


The issue that we are discussing, as I understand it, is
whether the concept of being an Estonian can be extended to include people
who have Estonian citizenship, speak Estonian perfectly or almost
perfectly, but still prefer to use Russian as their public languages. Does
being Estonian preclude the possibility of having Russian as your first
language, or are other issues at stake? In Finland being a Finn does not
proclude the possibiity of having Swedish as your first language. We seak
of Swedish-speaking Finns, not of Finnish Swedes or of Finland-resident
Swedes.

I think it surely is possible but it takes not one generation - and
maybe not just two or three. In some ways it is harder today the
100-200 years ago coz for now we have mass media and internet over the
globe so if one wants, he may never left his mental and linguistic
world no matter how far from original homeland he/she resides. Doors
are much wide open in nation state, coz nation without control over
his territory have just language to differ between owns and others.
But it still needs a bravery and will to enter. Will at first. I was a
bit optimistic about this 10-15 years ago, but seemly it will be long
way to go.

I think that being a member of a visible minority whose Americanness is
often questioned in the land of my citizenship sensitizes me to this
issue, even if I might not understand it in precisely the manner that you
and others do.

Yeah, I'm not too much expert about visible minority problem. I
remember from school any "visible difference" - red hairs, non-
standard ear form may bring troubles for boy or girl. So maybe in
countries like US some difference will stay forever (till all get the
same intermediate body color :-)). But with Obama as elected
president, I think 99,9% of racial problems are over for US - there
will be white and non-white people but they act together as parts of
one body - US nation.

Regards,

Vello


Regards,
Eugene Holman





About Finnish and Estonian language situation - if history would let
germans here, there would be some possibility of Estonian-German
speaking state like it is with Swedish in Finland. But with russian? I
think it is more like after Empire Grand Duchy: Karelia lost his
finnish, Rest of Finland - their knowledge of imperial russian. Nor in
Finland, not in Estonia russian has never been deep inside society -
it was just tool to communicate with official regime.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

.

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