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President of the Republic on New Year's Eve 1999
01.01.2000

Dear fellow countrymen!

Today, we are all one big family. Today, in my mind, I shake hands with all of you, look everybody into the eye, and ask: how are you? Today's New Year is so different from all that have been and all those still to come. It is mysterious, at least in our imagination. Round numbers have a powerful influence on our mind and on our behaviour, especially when the New Year is also connected to the beginning of a new century, a new millennium. A friend of mine even asked me for an interview concerning the third millennium. I asked him: What could a tiller or a fisherman from Rävala or Saaremaa have said about the second millennium in the year 999? On the New Year, there will be no change in the constellation of stars, in the movement of the Sun or the Earth. For an ancient Estonian, the flow of time was constant and indivisible, like the peaceful flow of a river. We toast the new millennium, fill the sky with fireworks and celebrate today, because we are part of the Christian culture. The year 2000 is a year of advent, the year of transition, taking us to the third millennium after the birth of Christ. And as we are impatient, we celebrate the beginning of the new century and the new millennium already now. Together, as a big family, we are drawn to that invisible line, behind which, it seems to us, the future begins - new, mysterious, and certainly better. The sense of future, the discovery of future is perhaps the principal characteristic of man, which makes the distinction between him and the rest of nature. But let us discuss this some other time, in some other place.

So, we are standing on the line behind which there is the future. I could also put it another way: behind the line, there is void. Whatever may be, may be, as an old song tells us. But a human being, a family, a nation never steps into void. The void is always filled with hopes, intentions, determined plans. How clearly are we able to see the future? I would like to bring you some examples from the Estonian newspapers in of 1899. Karl August Hermann announces that he is beginning the publication of ''The book of general science'', as he calls it, or the encyclopaedia, and adds: ''I ask everyone, who takes the benefit and progress of the Estonian people to his heart, to support this great enterprise.'' He did this despite the pressure of Russification and could have no idea that he was paving the way for the Estonian independence, to be born eighteen years later, before the declaration of the manifest. In the year's last issue, the Tartu ''Postimees'' states that the 19th century had overcome ''the huge distances on earth'', as the human labour and natural products ''have become objects of sale and purchase all over the world, and the markets of separate nations and states have become the world market''; and even the tiger leap was not unknown to ''Postimees''. ''Postimees'' wrote: ''Paper and electricity carry the human thought and word from one end of the world to the other, connect the words and minds of peoples, illuminate mankind spiritually and physically.'' The Tartu newspaper ''Uus Aeg'' (New Times) made me think of something that Ain Kaalep, in the Soviet times, bitterly called our historical idiocy. Namely, this century-old newspaper announced on December 31 that the 100th anniversary of Friedrich Robert Faehlmann had been celebrated with an evening of literature, of considerable attendance, both in Tallinn and in Pärnu. Against the background of the superficiality of today's consumer society, this respect for history, this self-respect really went to my heart. We had so much history -- already at that time - was my first thought, which then took me to the definition given by my old friend Hando Runnel: on the twentieth century, Estonia gained her independence; and in the nineteenth century, Estonia gained the consciousness of herself as nation. This is beautifully said, but self-consciousness can only be gained when it has once been relinquished, when history has been relinquished. In Estonia, there has never been such time. The Estonian independence has been the idea of the Estonian history throughout times, but let us discuss this another time. To be done with looking into the past, let me share with you the last, very sarcastic quotation from the ''Postimees'' of the turn of the century: ''Some people have been spreading the opinion as if the Estonian nation lacked the strength for real continuity, as if its existence as a nation were to come to end soon, because the international life lacked a real foundation. False prophets try to win people's trust with fancy words and proverbs, so they could afterwards, bit by bit, reveal their true nature.''

At the first glance it seems that amazingly many opinions and intentions written a hundred years ago are still valid. This would be a superficial glance. Closing the chronicle of the twentieth century, let us admit that we have fulfilled the greatest aspiration, or vision, of all the previous generations: we have founded our independent state. Self-determination is a unique act, denoting the birth of a state. A state, like a human being, is only born once, but unlike a human being, it has to last forever for its citizens.

The Republic of Estonia is not something that we have just because also other nations, smaller and bigger, have their own states. The Estonian state is the means for the Estonian citizens to attain their goals, the measure for protecting the citizens of Estonia and their interests, for preserving our language, our national culture, our traditions.

The world changes, and we change with it, in any case. Just like a growing plant, also a state needs care; it is political plant that we have to water and feed. But the state is not a pot-flower, grown for purely aesthetic pleasures. By caring for and developing our state, we promote and protect our own interests. Just as every human being has to act for his whole life - not only act, of course, everyone also has to learn throughout his life, in order to be able to act also ten or twenty-five or fifty years later - also the Estonian state will never be fully complete, because it is in the interests of us all to attain our goals also in the changing world. In today's Europe, it is impossible to promote the well-being of citizens if the state has become insulated. We have to be braver, to work harder than our fellow-Europeans; every day, we have to compare ourselves to those who are better than us, because this and this only is the way to the quality of life that we are longing for. It is the comfort of the weak to compare themselves with even weaker ones.

What does the quality of life mean? The quality of life does not just mean objects of high quality. The quality of life means a high-quality environment for our life and actions. And not just in the sense of pure nature. When we speak of the quality of life, environment first and foremost means home. Despite all globalisation, the quality of our home depends on what we wish it to be like, and on where our home is. Every Estonian family needs a home that they could design to their liking, create to their own face, to use (almost) a phrase from he Bible; a home suitable for the Estonian conditions and the resources of the Estonian family, the different resources of different Estonian families.

Our homes and our families are our strength. Our home and our family support us in hardships, from which we are never completely sheltered. For the sake of Estonia's future, we have to help the young Estonians to stand on their own feet, to create their own homes. The Estonian state and the Estonian government wish to render their strong support to young Estonian families next year. And although I speak of it here, at the turn of the year, this is not just one-year-enterprise, which we have begun never to finish.

I expect much from the Young Estonian Family project. First, it will turn our glances to the future that is attainable to everyone who has the necessary initiative and self-confidence. It also teaches the government to plan the future and be more flexible towards the social needs of the society. This is Estonia's chance to become a bellwether among the countries that share our fate. And let us admit: we have not yet tasted the economic fruits of independence. We can be proud of the restoration of Estonia's cultural space, of the new house of the Estonian Music Academy, of the Biomeedikum of Tartu University, of the Cultural College in Viljandi, and of our scientist's breakthrough in the world science; but certainty in secure future must still reach every Estonian family, every Estonian home. Only then can we bind our history to our future in the European Union, and restore the bonds of time.

In the past, when I still shot films about fishermen and hunters, I always had to admire their ability to perceive time in its entirety. They moved freely between the past and the future. For them, the present was not exactly secondary, but always temporary - like the hole in the ice for the seal, who surfaces there to breathe. Unfortunately, our civilisation has lost this bond between times, and tends to measure time with a yardstick, bit by bit, from one point to another, just like I am doing here in front of you now.

This is neither good nor bad, but inevitable. A man lives within his culture, and history lives in man. This necessary division of time into past and present is quite convenient, but first and foremost, it is dangerous. What danger do I sense here? In fact, I see it in this very loosening of the bonds of time. In our everyday life, we constantly feel the temptation to extend the present into a never-ending eternity, and thus to shrug off the responsibility both for our past and our future. Just consider how vague our ideas even about the European Union are. And how we enjoy the present in the indolent consumer society, and especially the darker sides of this present. So let us remember at least today: the deeper we manage to look into the past, the farther can we see into the future.

I hope you were not expecting surveys, figures or statistics from me. In last weeks, such data has been abundant. Today, I just wanted to look you into the eye and encourage you. To say what seldom gets said: we have done well, and we will do even better tomorrow - on the condition that there will be less words and more action.

And now it is time to wish you more power to your elbow, and a Happy New Year, a Happy New Year, wherever you all may be. Happy New Year, dear fellow countrymen! Happy New Year, my dear little Republic of Estonia!

 

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