I do not count every difference a tremendous enrichment. Rather, I treat tolerance as a combination of love for fellow men and rational realisation that different does not automatically mean dangerous. High indeed rose my eyebrows upon hearing that our government substantiated denial of asylum to an Afghani interpreter, long cooperating with Estonian soldiers in the dangerous Helmand, by the risk of some 60 of his colleagues coming over as well.
How terrible, really. 60 Afghanis arrive, some may have a family – could be over a hundred foreigners. What all may happen!? The Dari tongue becoming second national language?
Security checked and safely NATO-hired men – would they open a Taliban base in the woods of South Estonia? The land would turn to desert and hordes of local ladies, frustrated and middle-aged, would discard the comforts of New Age, embrace Islam and don burqas?
Where’s the soundness of mind, dictating that 60 or two school classes of strangers would not rattle a country of 1.3 million? Where’s the feeling of responsibility of realising that, should these 60 be in danger because of us, their salvation weighs on our conscience? Where’s the generosity that says: even if Taliban does not stand, at the moment, at your doorstep, machine gun in hand, we understand your fears and, after serving shoulder to shoulder, showing hospitality to you and maybe others of that same destiny, might me small change as compared to the overall costs of the war?
In every nation, there are always those who desire to emigrate. In bad times, there are more. But even in the worst case scenario, I’d never believe that all 60 interpreters working with Estonians would be eager to come here. Estonia having a nasty climate and fragile social system. The most attractive quality of ours, for an Afghan, is probably the peace. This is a treasure we can share with good people, losing nothing. The more so if we have to do with vital and educated people who, in a homeland with sky high unemployment and war, were able to find a way of being useful.
During the entire asylum drama, Omar has proved to be more intelligent that some of the local «obstacles». A dumb person would not be able to make his trouble so clear to a nation thousands of kilometres away. His abilities strongly underlined on the eve of May 1st.
Various ministries, knowing for a couple of days that the Afghan, by now a media hero, was denied, decided to keep mum. Hoping, as if, that the story would not surface at all due to the holidays.
As the info, via Omar, reached our nation, «state explanation» took a couple of hours to arrive.
There were over 70,000 of us Estonians, fleeing to Sweden and Germany because of World War II. Accompanied by masses of Latvians and Lithuanians, for instance. Keep that number in mind.