Estonia social briefing: Estonian society: local, European, global - China-CEE Institute

ISSN: 2560-1601

                                                                                       Vol. 26, No. 3 (EE)

                                                                                                  Febr 2020

                                           Estonia social briefing:
                          Estonian society: local, European, global
                                           E-MAP Foundation MTÜ

                                                                1052 Budapest Petőfi Sándor utca 11.

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Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft.
                                                                office@china-cee.eu
Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin
Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping                           china-cee.eu

2017/01

Estonian society: local, European, global

       When a small European society, unwillingly, finds itself in the midst of a global crisis, it
is a difficult task to single a range of society-associated developments out, which would be not
connected to the pandemic everybody is talking about. At the same time, as well as on politics
or economics, a decent briefing on societal issues should always look beyond any possible
crisis, even though the current difficulty can be of a ground-breaking scale. The Government-
issued state of emergency1 is on and will be for quite some time, the number of COVID-19
infected is pushing the figure of three hundred2, and the local schools/universities are fully
realising the advantages of a digital state ‘residing’ almost entirely online. What is intriguing,
however, is that the whole society was ‘pushed’ into “an information bubble inhabited by
politicians and political journalists who are busy mutually regulating the crisis, while most
people solve their problems in an entirely different information space”3. Therefore, ordinary
people create their own channels for communication, where they search for and find solutions,
discussing different issues, which are not necessarily all the time related to the global disaster
the world is facing right now.

       On the local level, as it was predicted in the forecasting briefing at the beginning of the
year, a particularly scrupulous attention is getting paid to the status of the Estonian language.
In all respects, it is one of the official languages of the EU and the Republic of Estonia’s only
state language. Therefore, a number of previously discussed academic and political calls on
enhancing the role of the Estonian language in the country’s multiethnic society were received,
in general, with understanding and appreciation by many. On the ground, however, this debate
can adopt a form that has both serious and amusing features. For example, Urmas Viilma,
Archbishop of Tallinn and Primate of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church, openly
expressed his dissatisfaction with the KFC’s linguistic policy in Estonia – in his opinion, the
overwhelming ‘presence’ of the English language at the restaurant he had visited on a day (in
fact, it was the country’s Independence Day) should not be considered a norm:

1
  ‘Estonian government declares emergency situation against coronavirus’ in ERR, 13 March 2020. Available from
[https://news.err.ee/1063224/estonian-government-declares-emergency-situation-against-coronavirus].
2
  ‘Koroonajuhtumid Eestis’ in Delfi.ee. Available from [https://forte.delfi.ee/news/varia/uuenev-kaart-ja-graafik-
vaata-kui-paljud-on-koroonaviirusse-nakatatud-eestis-ja-mujal?id=88770709].
3
  Ilmar Raag as cited in ‘Ilmar Raag: The legend of coronavirus crisis communication’, ERR, 19 March 2020.
Available from [https://news.err.ee/1066066/ilmar-raag-the-legend-of-coronavirus-crisis-communication].

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Ultimately, I was bothered that KFC, a global fast food chain, may have plenty of respect
        for its chicken, but the chain's owners do not respect our Estonian language and the Estonian
        people. […] Despite the fact that KFC’s crispy and spicy chicken wings taste great to many of
        us, and the two KFC restaurants already operating in Estonia are extremely popular, we must
        not tolerate a creeping disrespect for Estonian culture, our heritage and the Estonian language
        under the guise of said spicy, tasty chicken wings. Only the English texts on the walls of the
        KFC restaurant constitute this disrespect.4

      Unsurprisingly, the organisation, which has its restaurants in about 140 countries, took a
swift action, responding to this complaint of a high-profile personality. Apollo Group, a large
entertainment business that is directly associated with the idea to bring KFC restaurants to
Estonia, promised to take actions, not only in Estonia but also in the other two of the Baltics.
The company’s representative noted that Apollo Group took “criticism very seriously and
underst[ood] that promotional texts should really be in Estonian, plus in Latvian in Latvia, and
in Lithuanian in Lithuania”, planning to be “negotiating immediately with the franchise owner
to enable us to make any changes to the restaurant’s design”5. In principle, the Archbishop vs.
KFC ‘encounter’ is over by now, but its socially amusing dimension should not be distracting
different businesses and policy-makers from a serious issue of respecting the state language in
a given country. The Estonia-related specifics of the issue makes the context every more explicit
– having survived multiple occupations and deportations, Estonian language speakers earned
the right for the Estonian language to be respected in the Republic of Estonia.

      The pan-European stage, before the virus had started flexing its invisible ‘muscles’ of
horror, the continent was getting prepared for the next Eurovision contest (this year, it was
supposed to be hosted by the Netherlands, in Rotterdam). Estonia, having been aiming to repeat
the country’s 2001 Eurovision success for about two decades already, listed 180 entries for the
nation-wide contest – Eesti Laul (Estonian Song); for the final gala, it was a short-listed 12
performers for the audience and an international group of professional judges to choose the
winner from. This year, it was Uku Suviste, a 37-yearl old singer and song writer from Võru, a
small south-eastern town, who won the competition with his romantic ‘What Love Is’6. By the
middle of March, however, it became obvious that the 2020 Eurovision was to be cancelled out,

4
   Urmas Viilma in ‘KFC reconsiders English-language marketing text after Archbishop criticism’, ERR, 23
February 2020. Available from [https://news.err.ee/1056127/kfc-reconsiders-english-language-marketing-text-
after-archbishop-criticism].
5
  Jaanus Vihand in ‘KFC reconsiders English-language marketing text after Archbishop criticism’.
6
  ‘Gallery and Video: Uku Suviste Estonia's 2020 Eurovision entry’ in Postimees, 1 March 2020. Available from
[https://news.err.ee/1058498/gallery-and-video-uku-suviste-estonia-s-2020-eurovision-entry].

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and Rotterdam will be the place to host the event next year, if the situation will get better. The
Estonian performer’s comments on the cancellation were very reasonable:

                I believe I will definitely participate when the place already exists. […] Am I unhappy?
         Of course, I am a little bit, and of course I am sorry, but I need to look at the seriousness of the
         situation.7

       Globally, a major American newspaper has just praised Estonia for being better prepared
to face the COVID-19 than many other European countries8. Most probably, it is the case. Will
Estonia remain the country we have known for years, after the crisis is over? As we speak, the
society is experiencing a high number of restrictions, getting used to an abundancy of bans and
new types of financial hardships. In a month, the situation will only be worse off in many
respects. Certainly, the vast majority of the country’s population rightfully treat these measures
as a ‘doctor’s prescription’. However, when the COVID-19 is to be taken off the every-day’s
agenda and the people’s ultimate dependency on the state will no longer be considered a
necessity (in a liberal democracy, the state depends on the people’s will, not the other way
around), will it be easy for the state to give up most of its restrictive functions, which it has and
will have adopted during the difficult times and which will be prohibitive for carrying on as a
classic democracy. Declaring the state of emergency, the country’s Prime Minister underlined
the following:

                The aim of the state in laying down such restrictions is to contain the virus and safeguard
         public health. It will render daily life more uncomfortable, but we simply have no other option
         for addressing this global problem.9

       Objectively, it would be very desirable, if the Government will remember the actual
reason for imposing a particular restriction at the very particular time. It could be argued that
“the first phase of the crisis in Estonia was met with indecisiveness”, but “when the government
finally decided to declare an emergency situation, it was strategic communication as the new

7
  Uku Suviste in ‘Uku Suviste gets 2021 Eurovision free pass after this year's show cancelled’, ERR, 18 March
2020. Available from [https://news.err.ee/1065768/uku-suviste-gets-2021-eurovision-free-pass-after-this-year-s-
show-cancelled].
8
  Jack Ewing, ‘Some Countries Are Better Armored for Epidemics Than Others’ in The New York Times, 19 March
2020.      Available      from     [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/business/europe-economies-coronavirus-
winners.html].
9
  Jüri Ratas in ‘Jüri Ratas' statement: It is time to work together as a society’, ERR, 15 March 2020. Available from
[https://news.err.ee/1064206/juri-ratas-statement-it-is-time-to-work-together-as-a-society].

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situation immediately affected a lot of people”10. Characteristically for strategic communication
as a process, it required plenty of responsiveness from the society to be encouraged by the
authority. If it is not going to be maintained, then the process will have to be named differently,
inevitably forecasting for a great deal of restrictive measures to remain in place when the
COVID-19 will have become history.

10
     Raag.

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