Að endurrita söguna

Þegar ég sat á skólabekk vandist ég því að sagan væri "ein og rétt".  Alla vegna þýddi ekki að koma með neina "varíanta" af henni þegar prófað var, þar gilti að koma með rétt svör, samkvæmt "bókinni".

Það var ekki fyrr en síðar að ég fór að velta því fyrir mér hvernig saga verður til.  Hvernig hún er rituð, af hverjum og fór að sjá að menn eru aldeilis ekki á sama máli þegar saga er skrifuð.

Þeir sem fylgjast með fréttum hafa eflaust lesið um væringar þær sem hafa verið á milli Eistlands og Rússlands, en þær væringar snúast ekki hvað síst um sögu og mismunandi sjónarhorn á hana.

Ég vil því nota tækifærið og vekja athygli á góðu viðtali sem birtist á vef Spiegel, við forseta Eistlands, Toomas Hendrik Ilves (með minni takmörkuðu Eistnesku kunnáttu, myndi ég snara þessu yfir á það ilhýra, sem Tómas Hinrik Gaupa, en verð þó að taka það fram að ég er almennt ekki hlynntur þeirri áráttu Íslendinga að Íslenska mannanöfn, og er ekki að mæla með þessari "snörun" við Ríkisútvarpið) .

En Toomas er fæddur í Svíþjóð (foreldrar hans voru Eistneskir flóttamenn) og uppalinn í Bandaríkjunum.  Fyrir áhugamenn um hálstau, má geta þess að hann er einn af þeim stjórnmálamönnum sem sjaldan sést án þess að hafa slaufu um hálsinn.

En hér er viðtalið við hann í Spiegel og hér á eftir nokkur "korn" úr því.  Toomas talar tæpitungulaust og gefur hrein og bein svör við spurningunum. 

"Ilves: Sometimes we need someone to hate, a concept of an enemy. A year ago it was Latvia, nine months ago they deported hundreds of Georgians from Moscow and searched for schoolchildren with Georgian names, and now it's our turn. Why? The fear is that true democracies will show the Russians that the philosophy of a "guided" democracy is wrong. If Western democracy, with freedom of the press and the rule of law, functions in Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia, then the argument that it cannot function in Russia, merely because they supposedly have a different culture, simply doesn't hold water.

SPIEGEL: The dispute was triggered by a simple bronze memorial ...

Ilves: I thought it wasn't a good idea to move the statue. The matter was not important enough for Estonia to gamble away political capital. The real issue was public safety, because the monument developed into a place where anti-Estonian demonstrations were held, where Estonian flags were torn out of people's hands and where some people held up slogans calling for the reestablishment of the Soviet Union. This angered Estonians. The Russians, for their part, insisted that this was a holy place and that any change would be blasphemy."

"Ilves: Moscow lacks the will to really come to terms with the past. The Russians were prepared to open their archives 10 years ago, but not today. If you wish to build your new self-image solely on the basis of nationalism and glorifying the Soviet Union, then the crimes committed by Soviet troops are not something you want to see integrated into that picture.

SPIEGEL: Is that the reason no one in Russia talks about the occupation of the Baltic states in 1940?

Ilves: Moscow has returned to the old way of looking at things, according to which the Baltic states joined the Soviet Union voluntarily, that is, were not occupied. But this ignores the fact that in 1989 (former Soviet President Mikhail) Gorbachev admitted to the existence of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

SPIEGEL: Putin sees this completely differently. He accuses you of rewriting history and speaks of an "ideology of extremism" comparable to that of the Third Reich.

Ilves: Yes, in fact we do want to rewrite history. We want to rewrite Soviet history books. We want to fill in the gaps. Soviet history books contain just a single line about the Gulags, stating only that the camps were abolished. This means that the deportation of 30,000 Estonians to the Soviet Union on a single day in 1941 is being deliberately suppressed."

"Ilves: One can disagree about the interpretation of history, but it's very difficult to argue about crimes against humanity, mass graves and thousands of people who were shot. It is a fact that the Soviet Union committed massive crimes against humanity in the Baltic states and did not behave like a liberator. I think it's offensive to accuse us of being fascists when we talk about Soviet crimes against humanity.

SPIEGEL: Germans are perplexed by the view of many people in the Baltic states that the Nazi occupation was not much worse than that of the Soviets.

Ilves: If you tell me that the Nazis were worse, then I would say to you that you are comparing the culinary habits of cannibals. I will not say who was worse. When it comes to the number of people murdered, I believe that the communists killed more people. Some say the Nazis were worse because the ideology behind their murders was worse. But for Estonians, our people were not murdered by communists or Nazis, but by Germans and Russians. The question of which ideology the murderers had is irrelevant to us."

"SPIEGEL: But there is an ongoing dispute over why Russian is not an official language in Estonia.

Ilves: Why should it be?

SPIEGEL: Because at least a quarter of the population are Russians.

Ilves: They're welcome to speak Russian. But in light of the experiences we had during the occupation -- when Russian was the official language and there were no doctors or civil servants who spoke Estonian -- not a single Estonian would vote for a government that plans to change this. In this context, I'd like to mention a speech recently given by (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel. She said that everyone in Germany should learn and speak German, not only so that they can understand their teachers, but also so they can have an economic future in Germany. That's what the German chancellor said.

SPIEGEL: But many Russians in Estonia feel like second-class citizens because, without a passport, they don't even have the right to vote in parliamentary elections.

Ilves: They have more rights than non-citizens in most other countries. First of all, because they can vote in local elections. And secondly, because -- if they truly want to vote -- it's very easy to become an Estonian citizen. We have much more liberal citizenship laws than Germany, Finland, Sweden and Denmark -- not to mention Switzerland and Austria."

"SPIEGEL: Are you under the impression that the new EU countries with their unique historical experiences are not taken seriously in Western Europe?

Ilves: Yes. One cannot simply extinguish people's memories in these countries. A common trait among the new EU countries is their pro-American stance, which results from their fear of Russia. It generates great resentment when people who don't know Russia try to tell people who have experienced Russia at first hand what Russia and the Russians are like."

Athugasemdir

[Arnfinnur (IP-tala skráð) 3.7.2007 kl. 22:49]

Ræs Tommi - Ferrari unnu tvöfalt um helgina.