From: f33012l@puukko.hut.fi (Janne Kivel{)
Subject: Re: "democratic" Estonia
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 11:21:06 GMT

avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov) writes:

>Total bullshit. My native city is Nalchick, Northern Caucasus, and i can
>assure you that Russians feel much less pressure there. In fact, they're
>"neutral side" in Georgian-Ossetian, Georgian-Abkhazian, Chechen-Ossetian,
>Armenian-Azeri conflicts. Not that they do not suffer from the wars but
>they're not THE enemy. They got caught in the middle of thousand years
>old conflicts which were "frozen" under totalitarian regime.

Are you saying that Russians have no problems worth mentioning in
Central Asia or Caucasus compared to their huge suffering under 
'fascist' Estonian and Latvian governments?

Do you think it's only natural that alleged human rights violations in 
the Baltics get so much attention?

>Nice example of the unbiased Finnish press.

Nobody has claimed Finnish press is more unbiased than press in Russia.
You, on the other hand, boldly stated that "Russian media are generally
more unbiased than western media" in one of your postings. This claim
was based only on your observations and your feelings.

Newspaper articles or TV reports rarely capture the whole story, but
Jarmo Ryyti provided some sources for his claims unlike you.

>Yes, but it is not the ethnic confilcts -- it's the struggle for
>power between ex-communist rulers (like Nabiyev who resigned recenltly after
>the opposition finally caught him) and multicolored opposition forces
>varying from Islam fundamentalists to pro-democratic movements.

A country with Islamic fundamentalist leaders does not worry Russians
a bit. You must be joking.

>Wow. How do ya think are Russians a minorty in Kazakhstan? I wonder
>where this guy gets his information. Need i to remind that the 
>Kazakhstan is the most supportive of Russian politics among the CIS
>members? Nazarbayev won elections with the strong support of Russian
>population of Kazakhstan (note that they were allowed to cast ballots).

Kazakhstan is heavily dependent on Russia in many ways. It's hardly 
surprising they don't try to aggravate Russians too much.

>For a lot of US residents English is merely a mean to communicate with
>other ethnic groups; in ex-Soviet countries de-facto it is Russian.
>How do you think how can be interpreted intentions of a government
>which shuts down teaching of the language of inter-ethnical communication?
>Yep, in a (European) country it was named "ethnical cleansing".

It seems you really can't see the difference between Russian and English
in these cases. Yes, Russian is a beautiful language and useful means
of communication. Yet I understand the people in Hungary or Czecho-Slovakia
who don't want to speak Russian even though they could. Years of forced
friendship and forced learning have left their mark (this isn't the fault
of the Russians though).

There is a clear difference between American and Russian 'cultural 
imperialism'.

>If you didn't know, a foreighn language (usually English or German) is
>a mandatory course in *all* Russian schools (with a notably exeption of
>schools for mentally impaired). Now let's see if anybody ever complained
>about German (or Britan) nationalism in Russia.

Quality of teaching has a lot to improve but still it's a good thing that
Russians start learning other languages. The Russians in Estonia might
also find that learning Estonian is actually useful and not so hard
as it seems. By saying this I don't mean that Estonian citizenship law
is totally fair.

>Again i don't feel guilty that my native language is wide-spread. 

You shouldn't either, but you can't expect members of other nationalities
accept your means of communication as eagerly as you are offering it to
them.

>--vadim

Janne Kivela"