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President of the Republic at the Reception of the Meeting of the Forum of Central and Eastern European Newspaper Publisher Associations Tallinn Town Hall September 18, 1993
18.09.1993

Mr. FIEJ President,
dear ladies and gentelmen,


The Republic of Estonia has the pleasure of welcoming you in the historical Town Hall of Tallinn. Therewith I have fulfilled my protocol misson. With your concent I would continue now with essential issues. Wickham Steed, the one-time editor of the "Times" wrote the following sentence exactly one year before the II World War broke out, "The problem of the press is the key issue of democracy." As the President, I follow the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia which took effect on July 3, 1992 and in the second chapter of which all these basic human rights are covered which have to guarantee the development of democracy in Estonia.

Thus by definition we are allies.

At the same time I understand that addressing you I speak to industrialists whose production can also be measured in tons and not according to the taste of golden fruits of democracy. While being a young man, I was facinated by the curious fact that in the interests of democracy Sweden subventioned newspapers with low circulation. Among them there was the Swedish communist newspaper whose aim was, paradoxical as it may seem, to destroy with armed struggle the same power which subventioned it.

The apparently simple but actually complicated relationship between the newspaper industry, free speech and democracy are one way or the other the key issue of your meeting.

I hope that it will be a dialogue, a two-way highway. You will find out that Estonia is able to learn quickly. And obviously you will find out that both you yourself and Europe in general have much to learn in Estonia. You have come here to discover Estonia for yourself and for Europe. Allow me to say that with the exception to natural sciences, every discovery is actually a repetition of the totally forgotten verities. In this hall, for example, the citizens of Tallinn staged the comedies by Terentius in the 16th century and at the same time in the neighbouring hall they elected
their supreme power with democratic methods. In Estonia dialogue between the state power and the people has began through the written media considerably earlier than in many other European countries. In the 19th century the founding of newspapers in Estonia became a kind of popular sport. I mention these details only because in the present world we are endangered by the extreme frust in the statistically average solutions. Still, every natural culture is exceptional and unique as the Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci.

At the same time I am facinated by the tendencies common in the postcommunist societies despite the different identies in Estonia, Hungary, Russia or Germany. For example, imagine that in the totalitarian society man was extraordinary free. It was an extraordinary freedom in the sense that the totalitarian society freed man from thinking. Thinkers were shot or sent to prison camp or golden cages to invent the H-bomb. Do not underestimate the temptation to get free from the responsibility of thinking! This temptation is a weed which the gardener has to fight against every day - not only in our country - in postcommunist Estonia, but also in the homeland of Wickham Steed - in Great Britain, and in France and the United States. In a certain frightening way all societies without any exception are in the latent postcommunist condition. What could be the result? This is the question to which I would like to hear the answer from you. What is the relationship between the newspaper industry and the free press? Who is the owner of the press? Who is the Karajan of the press? Who makes selection and compiles the programme of the media concert?
Ladies and gentelmen, fortunately the democracy is a fatal necessity. Unfortunately, it has its own price and the press consumer has to pay for it out of his own pocket. He will do it in case he finds that the press is his ally in his rights and motivates him in his obligations. The lower the price of information, the more open it is for the people and the wider is the choice for the people, the choice between different newspapers and different decisions. The balance between rights and responsibilities, the act of a souvereign decision is democracy. The printed matter which is trusted into your hands, ladies and gentelmen, is the most powerful tool of democracy since the day when the press in general and each publication separately follows the same Biblical balance of rights and responsibilities.

 

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