In Estonian politics, culture and education are emphasized with words, but not with deeds, MP Sven Mikser said. According to him, this is reminiscent of anecdotes from the Soviet era, where a man goes to the doctor for a check-up, saying that he hears one thing, but sees something else.
“[Meil] it’s somewhat of a very simplistic understanding that wealth creation takes place primarily in the private sector and that wealth consumption, wealth stripping, so to speak, takes place in the public sector. For example, this awareness – we are faced with a teachers’ strike – that in reality the greatest added value in our economy is still created by valorising the human heritage, created in those sectors in which people are given education, qualification, skills to actually be successful in the job market. In words it is as if we support and believe in all this, but in practice we don’t tend to carry it forward with too much enthusiasm,” Mikser, a Social Democrat, told the ETV program “Hommik Anuga” on Sunday.
“The same applies, for example, to literature. We wrote in the preamble of the Constitution that one of the things for which the Estonian state is absolutely necessary is the preservation of the Estonian language. But those who preserve this language by writing poetry and fiction in that language, those people unfortunately often fail to earn a living from this activity. Somewhere here there is a very big gap between what we say and what we do. Once upon a time there was a Soviet “Anecdote from the time when a man asked for the number of an ophthalmologist because he complained that he always hears one thing but sees something else, I think that in a way is still true today,” Mikser said.
Sven Mikser Author/source: ERR
The new application depends on the decision of the SDE
Mikser said that he has not yet decided whether he will run again in the European Parliament elections, and that the position of the Social Democratic Party also plays an important role in this.
“This is a decision I haven’t made yet and it depends largely on the political party. I have a worldview that won’t disappear, regardless of whether I work for a salary in politics or outside of politics, and I’m definitely ready to defend this vision of the world and to make a modest contribution to promoting it. So I don’t rule out running. But the decision still remains with the party”, said Mikser.
He acknowledged that he has already been able to do a lot in Estonian politics, and therefore for him there is not much that he would like to try: “I have done things that have been of great and profound intellectual interest to me. a lot on foreign and security policy, I chaired both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Affairs Commission and the National Defense Commission in Parliament. do some very interesting things, I was in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly for many years , being the vice-president of that assembly, so I have done quite a lot and let’s say there are not many challenges in Estonian politics that I would absolutely like to try and I haven’t been able to do it yet.”
However, Mikser did not want to rule out a return to Estonian politics and separately mentioned his desire to protect liberal democracy.
“But as said, never say never (never say never”). You can always find new challenges, and the second thing is, of course, to see how liberal democracy is under great pressure and how populism is encroaching from all directions, because of the direction it is going. Estonian society and where European liberal democracy and the Western world in general are going – this afterwards, of course, breaks my heart and if it is in my power to make any contribution to making things go well, I will certainly do so”, said the politician.
Sven Mikser
According to Mikser, he looks with great concern and attention at what is happening not only in Estonian politics, but in the politics of democratic countries as a whole: “This polarization, this hollowing out of the center and the shift of political parties and voters towards the extremes – I think that the year that has opened is certainly a very, very decisive year for Western democracy, not so much perhaps not even in the sense of the European Parliament elections, which are also important, but in the sense of the next elections. The (presidential) elections ) of the United States, where in fact nothing less and nothing more than the largest, most influential and most militarily important in the world have created the future of a more powerful democratic state.”
There will be more people who will leave the Center Party
Commenting on the situation in the Center Party, of which he himself was a member in the past, Mikser acknowledged that, in addition to the prominent members of the Center Party who left the party at the beginning of the year, others are likely to leave as well . .
“I would be very surprised if all the people who belong to the Center Party today stay in the Center Party for the rest of their lives – they will certainly leave more,” Mikser believes.
Sven Mikser Author/source: Lauri Varik/ERR
However, he did not want to predict what the future of the center party will be, stating that in the last twenty years his heart has been aching above all for social democracy in Estonia: “May my party be successful and have a say in Estonian politics. And to moment it can be said that this party can have a say in politics.”
According to Mikser, the possible disappearance of the Center Party from the Estonian political scene would certainly represent one of the biggest shocks that have occurred in Estonian politics in recent decades.
Furthermore, the program discussed Mikser’s literary activity, who won the latest novel competition with his work “Vareda”.
2024-01-14 09:07:00
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