Bridge Building

The events of the past 3-4 days in Estonia have been difficult to watch from afar. Being in Canada I'm forced to rely upon news reports, blogs and forums to get my up to the minute news of what is going on in Tallinn. I even resorted so far as to check the Tallinn weather webcam once and awhile to see if there were crowds gathering in Vabaduse Valjak. :) Relying on this type of news makes the entire situation seem worse than it really is since you get multiple views of the same event and they stack up and multiply. Speaking with a number of people that are in Tallinn (or got out of town for a rest) the situation seems to be under control and level heads will prevail.

What I've learnt from this is to stay away from online forums and blogs when it comes to politics. There is simply too much ignorance, hate, confusion and sheer stupidity that it will drive you mad participating in these things.

Hopefully we can put most of this past us now and start working together to build bridges. Estonian community leaders need to meet with ethnic Russia community leaders and find out what can be done so that the events of last week do not repeat themselves in the future.