An utter disgrace, after protests about the Estonian government's plans to remove a Red Army war memorial in Tallinn, they went ahead and moved it to a secret location last night.
One of the comments on the BBC News website was from Maria from Tartu.
The Eestonians wouldn`t have anything against the statue, if it wouldn´t have been altered into a place where to wave red flags and chant "the landlords have returned"! but that is the exact thing that russians did there!
Your attempts to turn this into a nationalist issue are noted. Estonians also participate in the political events that centre upon the statue. Estonians were part of the Red Army, you are destroying their history too, but then you know this, you know this is a class issue. Your attempts to divide the working class with nationalistic nonsense will ultimately fail.
tell me why should we tolerate that kind of behaviour in the Republic of Estonia?
Because I thought Estonia claimed to be a democratic nation. Demonstrating is a democratic right. But then you're not a democratic nation, if you were democratic you wouldn't go and jail people for three years who show a hammer and sickle.
Tell me why we should tolerate landlords in the Republic of Estonia?
Tanel from Tallinn writes:
Ironically none of these problems would exist if EU would manage to ban both the nazi and soviet symbols and flags.
Right, force the stupid nationalists' anti-democratic laws on everybody else, no thanks. It's bad enough Germany and Austria and probably a few others have banned Nazi symbols, and holocaust denial. Completely unnecessary.
The European Union is right to ignore the call of the fascists to curtail our freedoms.
Calling for a ban of a swastika makes you sound just like a Nazi, who guess what, also banned symbols. Childish nationalistic nonsense.
If somebody wants to wave any symbol around let 'em do it. I have the freedom to ridicule that person if I deem it necessary. Problem solved without any anti-democratic laws.
This event shows the amount of power the nationalists in Estonia have. Dmitri, Tallinn writes:
It was the symbol of sorrow, symbol of memory of ones who died in the 2-nd world war. People came to this statue to pay the tribute to the victims of the war.
Then the nationalists came and started defacing the statue, the workers of Estonia clean it up, the nationalists deface it again, the workers setup a patrol to guard the statue, they're then attacked by the nationalists, today the nationalists have won this battle, and the Estonian regime have shown their true colours.
The nationalists spun it into Estonia vs. Russia. When the statue is about remembering those who died fighting the against Nazis and against nationalism, the Estonians who fought and died together with soldiers from dozens of other nations under the banner of the Red Army.
The Estonian nationalists turned it into an attack on the Estonian worker; I guess they just couldn't bare looking at the statue, it reminding them of the defeat of their Nazi friends at the hands of the working class of Europe.
This whole episode is thoroughly disappointing, and it shows the direction much of Eastern Europe is taking - descent into nationalistic barbarism, at the expense of the Eastern European working class.