User:Digwuren/Workshop/Estophobia

Anti-Estonian sentiment or Estophobia (Estonian: Estofoobia) generally describes dislike or hate of the Estonian people or the Republic of Estonia

Attitude towards Estonia and Estonians by country

Russia

Estonia's most foreign political disagreements having been with Russia for the last three centuries, the sentiment is most widespread in Russia or among Russian people. A number of recent incidents can be traced back to Russian-language mass media.

Accusations of discrimination of minorities

Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the restoration of Estonia's independence, Russian Federation's officials have been regularly making various accusations alleging discrimination against minorities, particularly Russophone minorities, in Estonia and Latvia. These accusations tend to run down fast outside Russian Federation's territory, but since they are generally not countered in major Russian media channels, they, even the baseless ones, tend to linger on among Russia's residents.

As an example, a poll conducted in April 2007, has found that 59% of Russia's residents agree with the statement "Estonian authorities discriminate against Russophones in Estonia and deliberately provoke conflicts with Russia".

Accusations of fascism

A common approach of Estophobes is making accusations of fascism or Nazi-mindedness towards Estonians as a people, Estonia as a country, or particular celebrities or politicians. A recent example is the spin of Russian media displaying Rein Lang, Estonian minister of justice, as an open neo-Nazi based on a performance of Adolf, ironically, an anti-fascist drama, on his birthday party.

Bronze Soldier of Tallinn

Main article: Bronze Soldier of Tallinn

In April 2007, a long-standing controversy in Estonian politics, the question of the Bronze Soldier, came to a decision: archaeological digs would be carried through to determine whether any war dead are buried under the monument; if so, they would be relocated to a cemetery along with the monument — which would then be a sort of headstone — and if not, the monument would be dismantled and donated to a museum. Immediately, a number of anti-Estonian rumours arose, some of them traceable to the Night Watch pressure group, some traceable to the Nashi movement in Russia. Specifically, there were false rumours

• that the monument would be deliberately and irretrievably destroyed;
• that the bronze statue would be, or had been, melted up;
• that the bodies of the war dead would be excavated in a clumsy way (such as via the use of a bulldozer), and then thrown to trash;
• that the monument would be, or was, sawn into pieces;

• some later addendums, repeated by the State Duma delegation to Estonia, claimed that after such sawing, the bronze statue was clumsily patched up for reinstallation.

During the riots, other false rumours arose:

• that hundreds of ethnically Russian policemen would resign from the service so they could be forced to beat up ethnically Russian protesters;
• that the riots were a natural part of a peaceful protest action;
• that the dead participant, Dmitry Ganin, was stabbed to death by the Estonian police forces;
• that police cars would deliberately ram into crowd.

Many of these rumours were reported by Russian language and Russian news media as true, and various accusations of Nazism being a major political ideology and ethnic Russians or Russophones being discriminated against in Estonia were added. During the Nashi blockade on Estonian embassy in Russia, yet other false rumours arose:

• that during a protest, Sergey Fateyev, a leader of Russian youth group Locals, suffered minor injuries when the Estonian embassy's car accelerated into him.

See also

• And you are lynching Negroes
• Nashi (Ours)
• Prove that you are not a camel

Sources

• Regnum: Estonian Security Police annual report: REGNUM is leading in anti-Estonian information war
• 'Understandings of Russian Foreign Policy' by Ted Hopf
• 'History, Memory, and Identity in Post-Soviet Estonia: The End of a Collective Farm' by Sigrid Rausing
• 'Non-violence in ethnic relations in Estonia' by Ain Haas of Indiana University, published in Journal of Baltic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 1 (Spring 1996), pages 47–76
• 'Ethnic relations in Estonia, 1991' by Rein Taagepera of University of California, published in Journal of Baltic Studies, Volume 23, Issue 2 (Summer 1992), pages 121–132
• 'Ethnic Conflict in the Post-Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis' by Leokadia M Drobizheva et al: chapter 5, 'Ethnopolitical Conflict in Estonia' by Klara Hallik

External links

• The Raw Story/AFP April 28, 2007: Putin anger as Estonia row boils
• Sveriges Radio/Komsomolskaya Pravda May 11, 2007: Anti Estonian hysteria in northwest Russia (article contains incorrect translation from Russian)