Estonia
A monumental fall out
22 June 2009
Presseurop
Postimees Two years after a bronze statue of a Soviet soldier was moved amid vehement protests by the country’s ethnic Russian minority, Estonia is now inaugurating its Statue of Independence commemorating its breakaway from Germany in 1919. “With a bit of hope, this new monument will give us grounds to forget our dissensions,” writes the daily Postimees, despite the fact that this latest sculpture doesn't seem to represent all outlooks in Estonia. “Our day-to-day problems have probably led us to regard our independence as a matter of course. But seeing as we live in a world in which a democratic outlook is not characteristic of every State, we have no right to forget that freedom is fragile. It will take a common will to safeguard that freedom.”
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