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Title: Report on anarchism in Estonia
Author: Sauree
Date: June 14, 2006
Language: en
Topics: Estonia, anarchist movement, reportback
Source: Retrieved on 6th March 2021 from http://www.anarkismo.net/article/3225

Sauree

Report on anarchism in Estonia

What’s up in Estonia? Some months ago we opened a website called

PunaMust (in English: Red’n’Black). The aim of the webpage was to unite

anarchists and create an anarchist movement in Estonia. It’s all in the

beginning stages, but we are slowly making some progress. There are

about 20 people around Estonia (mostly in Tartu and Tallinn) who are

actively participating in the movement right now and there are about 100

people who are taking part in the discussions on our web-forum. About a

week ago we had to move our webpage to another server because the forum

and data traffic had got too big (we had some documentary movies and mp3

lectures about anarchism and the “anti-globalization” movement there)

and we had to find a bigger server. We lost all our Forum data and now

we are slowly recovering from that (users of the old forum have to

About some actions:

On 8^(th) April we took part in the demonstration against police

violence in Tallinn. There were about 150 people — mostly young punks.

On 1^(st) May we handed out anti-consumerist leaflets in front of big

shopping malls in Tallinn and Tartu.

On 4^(th) May we were guests on the TV3 talk-show “Kahvel” (one of the

most popular TV talk-shows in Estonia), where we talked about anarchism

and our organization.

On 15^(th) May we had a joint action with the “Green” bicycle club

Prussakov to protest against the abuse of the public space by the

private security company Fack which is using one of the most important

squares in Tallinn as a parking lot. We occupied the parking lot —

legally — we bought parking tickets and “parked” our bikes and

flowerpots in the parking spaces for one day. It got quite a lot of

positive media attention. Afterwards we left without paying for the

parking tickets but as far as I know no charges were made.

This Monday (29^(th) May) we organized in Tartu a free movie night about

the “anti-globalization movement”. We had a chance to use one of the big

auditoriums at the University of Tartu.

Also there was an “Anarchist philosophy” class at the University of

Tartu during the spring semester (by guest lecturer Dr Paul McLaughlin)

and some people from our movement participated in that. I personally

made an oral report about post-structuralist anarchism for that course.

In the beginning of July there will be a bike caravan against the G8,

crossing Estonia and we are trying to organize campsites for them and

organize an Infoday about the G8 and the “anti-globalization movement”

in Tartu at that time.

Most Estonians don’t want to hear anything about “socialism”, but this

is changing slowly. We also want to do our best to change that. There

has been no real anarchist or (anti-authoritarian) socialist tradition

in Estonia so we have to start from scratch. It’s a lot of work, due to

the negative stereotypes about “socialism” and anything “leftist”. But

we are still positive and believe that we can change things — we know it

all takes time and a lot of energy, but I believe that we will have a

real and functioning anarchist network in about 2–3 years or so in

Estonia.

In our movement in PunaMust, the “collectivist” or “socialist” wing is

in the majority. We still recognize the importance of individual freedom

and are not willing to sacrifice it in the name of “the collective” or

of “socialism”. Real socialism must respect individual freedom.

well...

greetings from Estonia

Sauree