Skip to main content

The power of symbols

I meant to comment earlier on the decision in Estonia to equate the symbolism of the Soviets with that of the Nazis and ban both.

The reaction from Russia- the usual offensive bluster- just reminds us that they still do not understand the scale of evil that these symbols represent.

All the Estonians I know- and I know many- had family members who were taken. Many never returned. Those that did were often broken in health and spirit. These were innocent victims of an inhuman ideology.

Of course the Estonians take it personally.

Russia still does not acknowledge that the occupation of the Baltic was a crime. It is not like the Balts intend to change borders or demand financial restitution. All they ask is an acknowledgment.

The silence from Putin's Russia is deafening- and it speaks in libraries of what the Kremlin still believes.
Labels:

Comments

James said…
In fairness to the Russians Cicero, I can see how that within Russia the 'equivalence' of swastika and hammer and sickle is immensely provocative even if largely true.
10:44 pm
Anonymous said…
Cicero,


Did you see the Economist piece on the new Highlander Poles. Was especially amusing to read that with thousands of scots having migrated to Poland in the 16th century where the names became polonised, eg Ramsay, Ramzy that if they stick around long enough the names may switch back. Would have thought with your interests you would have picked up on this excellent writing.


Lepidus,
11:39 am
Anonymous said…
I have no sympathy for Russians. The Russian Federation has willingly idendtified herself as the successor state to the USSR, at least when it comes to goodies like the UN Security Council seat or the nuclear arsenal. It's about time they admitted the wrongs done to the Baltic States.
12:14 pm
Anonymous said…
There may be another scary symbol coming up...look at Russia's new fascist movement, Nashi (www.nashi.su). They are scary and they are essentially turning into the "Putin Youth" -- and Estonia is their enemy number one. This could turn worse than the hammer and sickle...
9:45 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post Truth and Justice

The past decade has seen the rise of so-called "post truth" politics.  Instead of mere misrepresentation of facts to serve an argument, political figures began to put forward arguments which denied easily provable facts, and then blustered and browbeat those who pointed out the lie.  The political class was able to get away with "post truth" positions because the infrastructure that reported their activity has been suborned directly into the process. In short, the media abandoned long-cherished traditions of objectivity and began a slow slide into undeclared bias and partisanship.  The "fourth estate" was always a key piece of how democratic societies worked, since the press, and later the broadcast media could shape opinion by the way they reported on the political process. As a result there has never been a golden age of objective media, but nevertheless individual reporters acquired better or worse reputations for the quality of their reporting and ...
1 comment
Read more

The Will of the People

Many of the most criminal political minds of the past generations have claimed to be an expression of the "will of the people"... The will of the people, that is, as interpreted by themselves. Most authoritarian rulers: Napoleon III, Mussolini, Hitler, have called referendums in order to claim some spurious popular support for the actions they had already determined upon. The problem with the June 2016 European Union was that the question was actually insufficiently clear. To leave the EU was actually a vast set of choices, not one specific choice. Danial Hannan, once of faces of Vote Leave was quite clear that leaving the EU did NOT mean leaving the Single Market:    “There is a free trade zone stretching all the way from Iceland to the Russian border. We will still be part of it after we Vote Leave.” He declared: “Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening our place in the single market.” The problem was that this relatively moderate position was almost immediately ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Liberal Democrats v Conservatives: the battle in the blogosphere

It is probably fair to say that the advent of Nick Clegg, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by our Conservative opponents. Indeed, it would hardly be wrong to say that the past few weeks has seen some "pretty robust" debate between Conservative and Liberal Democrat bloggers. Even the Queen Mum of blogging, the generally genial Iain Dale seems to have been featuring as many stories as he can to try to show Liberal Democrats in as poor a light as possible. Neither, to be fair, has the traffic been all one way: I have "fisked' Mr. Cameron's rather half-baked proposals on health, and attacked several of the Conservative positions that have emerged from the fog of their policy making process. Most Liberal Democrats have attacked the Conservatives probably with more vigour even than the distrusted, discredited Labour government. So what lies behind this sharper debate, this emerging war in the blogosphere? Partly- in my ...
20 comments
Read more