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EESTI ELU reedel, 20. novembril 2020 â Friday, November 20, 2020
Nr. 46
Estonian Music Weekâs December 4th LiveStream: Celebrating mutual Nordic Heritage with Lithuanian-Finnish Folk duo Honeypaw English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly âEESTI ELUâ Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar TampĂ”ld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T:â416-733-4550 âą F: 416-733-0944 âąâ E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
Can Estonian nationalists advance the Kremlinâs agenda? Yes they can. Through incre dible gullibility. Their source for disinformation? The White House itself. Undoubtedly Vladimir Putin is congratulating himself for the mutual admiration he has so successfully nurtured with Mr. Trump, whose election fraud playbook seems to be written by Moscow. Putin hasnât needed to spend any effort on preparing a script that players â many of them unwitting â in the USA and elsewhere could use to dis credit an authentic democratic process and deepen the divisions already harming US society. Interior minister Mart Helme (now resigned), former head of EKRE passed on Mr. Trumpâs baseless claims the electoral fraud had occurred, thus surely leaving Mr. Trump in power. He emphasized that Biden and his son Hunter were corrupt and that Mr. Trump will win âas a result of an immense struggle, maybe even bloodshed, but Âjustice will prevailâ. Helme re ferred to a dream in which he envisioned Mr. Trump walking through a field of âguts and Âentrailsâ. The gory and dramatic choice of words couldnât be better chosen if done by a longin-the-tooth Soviet propagan dist. Helmeâs son, Economics minister Martin, has stated that âthere is no question that these elections were falsifiedâ. âThere is no point in talking about a democracy or rule of law in a situation where elections can be faked so plainly, boldly and on a massive scale.â Itâs ironic that the Helmes, who are known to hold a staunchly anti-Moscow stance, would promote notions, albeit probably unintentionally, which would advance a longÂstanding Russian narrative â that the vaunted US democratic tradition is a sham. The aim of the Kremlinâs propaganda program has always been to widen the divide be tween Americans and their Âgovernment, regardless of which party is in control. Discrediting the US election system helps to promote that idea. Putinâs sup porters have consistently insisted that Russiaâs tightly controlled political dynamics have great advantages over American de mocracy. It makes sense then for Putin
allies in Russia to claim that Trumpâs accusations of election fraud are the best validation that democracy is a recipe for disas ter. Countering this are opposi tion leader Aleksei Navalnyâs supporters, who see the tem porary confusion and unpredict ability as proof of the invinci bility of a truly free system. Propastop, the Estonian De fense Leagueâs unit of experts on Russian propaganda, has Âindicated that the Helmesâ accu sations have gained a wide au dience throughout the total spectrum of Russian media. The Helmes are cited as credible sources to confirm what the Kremlinâs narrative has always implied â that US democracy is a facade, only protecting the Âinterests of some political elite. Mart Helmeâs references to Mr. Trumpâs coined âdeep stateâ is suitably aligned with this. Commentator Mihhail De murin, a former Russian foreign ministry official on the Baltic desk, has approached the issue from a different angle. He sees the Helmesâ supposed initiative in eliminating the right of non-citizens to participate in municipal elections as a wider infringement of voting rights for Russians in general. He ac cuses the ex-interior Âminister of benefiting from a Trump victo ry: âI hope Steve Bannon sup ports and helps him. And if Trump wins, the more likely that Helme will be back in the saddle again.â The damage that comments on Russian media can inflict on Estoniaâs international reputa tion is minimal. But what about the possible erosion of its standing in Western media and in world capitals? They were members of the government, not press pundits, who con demned the US democratic process. Estonia was the only  NATO and EU member whose government representatives at tacked the election results and the incoming president elect. Some 270 references about Estonia were counted in just French, German, British and US media alone within one week of the Helmesâ comments. They received coverage not in obscure, peripheral media, but  in the mainstream press such as The Times, Foreign Policy, AP, AFO, Frankfurter Allgemeine
Vincent Teetsov Estonian Music Week is con tinuing to present music of many varieties for audiences through its Live-Stream Concert Series. On Friday December 4th at 7:00 PM, on the Estonian Music Week Facebook page (www.face book.com/EstonianMusic Week/) or the VEMU YouÂTube channel (www.youtube.com/ user/VEMUESC) the series will take a slightly different angle, through an exciting Âcollaboration with the Finnish Studies Program at the University of Toronto. The event also acknowledges Fin nish Independence Day on December 6th. The live-stream will encom pass lectures, talks, and com ments from the Universityâs Professor of Finnish Studies, Anu Muhonen, and Chief Archivist of the Estonian Studies Centre/VEMU, Piret Noorhani. Noorhani is also Festival Director for Estonian Music Week. Following this, there will be a musical performance from the duo Honeypaw, whose sound is steeped in traditional Lithuanian and Finnish musical and literary motifs. Honeypawâs members are Jurgita Ćœvinklyte·, from Lithuania, and Matti Palonen,
who is of Finnish heritage. Ćœvinklyte· and Palonen met in March 2019, but it was the start of the first lockdown in 2020 when âback-burner stuff be came front-burner stuffâ as Palonen explains. There is an undeniably im mense amount of research that is put into Honeypawâs music, and the bandâs grant support from the Lithuanian govern ment has allowed them to re search these traditions. Integral to Honeypawâs music are Lithuanian sutartine· songs. For those unfamiliar with the sutar tine·, Ćœvinklyte· describes them
in terms of multiple rhythms and melodies of the same length overlapping. In fact, in some sutartine·, one melody may be countered with the same melody âflipped upside down.â This concept of hetero phony, which Palonen studied in Finland, is almost like weav ing. When the band plays with the Finnish jouhikko (lyre), they may be tuned in such a way that two different keys are played simultaneously, even contrasting major and minor. âItâs about making harmony out of polarizing thingsâ says
Zeitung, The Washington Post, etc., 90 percent of this press focused not only on the  Helmesâ initial statements but their repeat comments at fol low-up press conferences and interviews slamming the US and Biden. At the time of this issue going into print, not a single  one of the dozens of court Âfilings by Mr. Trumpâs lawyers challenging election results at many locations have been found to have the slightest merit due to lack of any evidence of âwidespread voter fraudâ. In fact, some of his lawyers have resigned from the cases, ÂalÂÂÂlegedly due to ethical con siderations. Trump-appointed specialists at the Department of Homeland Security assigned to monitor and expose any signs of election illegality have come to the same conclusion, as have all judiciary making a judg ment. Are the Helmesâ accusations a reflection of the biases of Estonians in general? Opinion researcher Norstar has conclu ded that only the supporters of EKRE, the Helmesâ political party, favour Mr. Trump. Fiftytwo percent of them prefer Trump as the US president. Biden received 18 percent ap proval. The loyalists of most
other parties prefer Biden to Trump, ranging from 90 percent supportive to 6 percent non-supportive. The Centre Party and Russians were 38 for Biden with 28 percent backing Trump. Sixty-two percent of re spondents not affiliated with any party preferred Biden and 13 percent backed Trump. One thousand individuals were ques tioned. Mr. Trumpâs rating interna tionally? A fall survey by Pew Research Centre indicated low support overall. Respondents from 13 nations â nine Euro pean states, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Canada â indi cated the lowest ratings for any US president since the 2003 Âinvasion of Iraq. Trumpâs level of confidence for âdoing the right thing regarding world Âaffairsâ was an overall average of 16 percent. Only 20 percent of Canadians gave him a Âfavourable yes. Observers have suggested that Trumpâs low esteem inter nationally is his perceived lack of steadiness, predictability and trust. Could therefore Estoniaâs relations with the US suffer given that it was cabinet-level  officials who so vehemently and repeatedly expressed their proTrump, anti-Biden sentiments? Conventional wisdom sugÂ
gests that a feeling of mutual trust between Tallinn and Esto nia will be weakened. But Âveteran diplomats say this dam age need not be permanent, if itâs not again and again Ârepeated. Perhaps the fragility or strength of the elusive âEsto nian imageâ internationally is a more relevant measurement. For thirty years, Estonia has en joyed an IT savvy, scoring-hitech-goals-in-the-big-leagues, first-toÂ-shrug-off-its-Sovietlegacy reputation. Travel writers still remind us of the whimsical but gutsy people who âsang their way to freedomâ. Not a bad way to be described. It at tracts friends, which is always a benefit for a small nation. The Helme duo has managed to shift this perception. (Letâs re mind ourselves that itâs not the first time that Mart Helme and others in EKRE have gained bad foreign press.) How far has the image been shifted? Donât know yet. But even more worrisome is realizing that the toxic virus of disinformation spread by Mr. Trumpâs White House can so effortlessly infect some members of Estoniaâs political leadership. Should they be quarantined as pandemic victims are?
Jurgita Ćœvinklyte· and Matti Palonen of Honeypaw. Photo used with permission from Honeypaw
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LAAS LEIVAT
