Why Learn Estonian

Why learn Estonian? It is the question I am asked the most here in Estonia.

The answer I think is pretty straight forward.

Estonia is going to face the predominate issues of the this century before the rest of the world.

Like much of the developed world Estonia’s population of 1.3 million is aging and aging fast.

They are also suffering with another issue brain drain as many of its best and brightest minds.

Are fleeing, marrying foreigners or spending countless hours glued to their computer screens

This is why Estonia has spent so much on Tartu University

Estonia also is in Europe but dangerously close to Russia which is unlikely to pull its act together.

Estonia has an immigrant question. The country has 25% Russian down a bit from the peak in the 1991

Though they are there a loud minority with a sense of entitlement and demanding linguistic and cultural rights?

What is to come of the Russian speaking Estonians? Will a solution be found ?

Estonians also seem to be reluctant capitalists. Twice while I was here shopkeepers and restaurant owners talked me out of a purchase. Telling me for example the same good could be purchased elsewhere cheaper. This is cute coming from a America the land of the hard-sell and from my experiences in the Arab world where the hustle never ends. Estonians need to grasp this entrepreneurial spirit.

Estonia has already made some of the hard choices that other Western democracies will have to face. It has privatized its pension system. It still has hard choices to make about immigration and perhaps trade. Estonia also has sought to digitize everything. It has e-government and e-lections. You can register a business here online in a couple of hours and you can even pay for parking downtown with a text-message. Wi-Fi is ubiquitous here and in downtown Tartu completely free. I hope this is the world’s future as well.

Estonia has other assets to. It’s environmental system is in great shape more a legacy of Soviet mismanagement more than anything else. Here in Europe you can still find moose, deers, bears and wolves, river otters and other animals that are scarce or rare elsewhere.

Estonians I do feel realize that a lot of these solutions will come from outside the government. The Estonians have a distaste for big government as a legacy of the Soviet system. The Finnish word for government is the way word in Estonian for mold. That is why Civil Society here is so strong. I think exemplified by the Songfest or perhaps the way Estonians wrote 20 comments on my friend Laura’s news stories merely hours after she posts them. Or the way the independence movement was dominated by three parties not one.

Currently Estonia is putting its faith in joining the Euro zone. I’m sure this wont magically solve all of Estonia problems though I do look forward to following Estonia and monitoring the choices it makes a task made all the easier by learning some Estee Kale.

Parimat!

Joseph Hammond 7-31-09