I have always followed the protests taking place in Estonia, but by now they have turned into such a controlled farce that they don’t even make me angry anymore.
Today will go down in history as a day when it is possible, on a massive scale, to fool people and farmers in Estonia — and in such a grand way that by standing up for their rights, they are turned into participants in the Reform Party and E200 election campaign, which the protesters themselves finance, while also making fools of themselves in the eyes of the public. A masterful performance by politicians and the deep state! The entire mainstream media has been mobilized, and young Terras poses on, under, and between tractors like a model for some famous fashion brand.
For comparison, there have been multiple protests by displaced tenants that the public doesn’t even know took place, or when Telegram organized a car convoy, the mainstream media stayed silent like boars in a rye field. The news spread only through alternative and social media — and even there with restrictions.
This is why the farmers’ protest raised questions for me: there are two possibilities — either the organizers are political fools who didn’t realize how the deep state hijacked the protest by placing Terras at the forefront; or the entire project was organized by the deep state from the start to release tension.
And surprise, surprise — the organizer of the protest is Reform Party member Urmas Kruuse — meaning the protest was effectively dead at birth and fully under deep state control. I can only feel sorry for the farmers who naively went along with this farce and spent their own money, fuel, and machinery on it.
At this point, I would like to explain to the people of Estonia the purpose of protests and what kind of mental state a protester must have for a protest to actually achieve results.
We all remember the 2007 Bronze Night riots, when Tallinn was torn apart and a person even lost their life. Today, the state does everything to ensure such events never happen again, constantly talking about a possible Russian uprising and a “fifth column” — this is fear speaking.
Here, Estonians could learn something from Russians. When will we reach a point as a nation where the state thinks twice and says: damn, we can’t make this move, or the people will rise up? Today, the reality is that Estonian protests are already being hijacked from the outset for political gain, and clearly, before elections, there will be even more exploitation of useful idiots.
We have seen EKRE’s action to stop cars at a certain time, regardless of where they were. The plan was good, but the result was zero. It was almost comical to see photos and videos of leading EKRE politicians standing on the side of the road or in quiet streets, while traffic continued normally on main roads — they stopped in places where it had no impact whatsoever. Just another political farce.
The Telegram convoy was again hijacked by law enforcement, and the column was broken up using traffic lights. There was also a strange incident where a police officer stopped a car in the convoy and ordered the driver to remove a large Estonian flag because it did not comply with traffic regulations. The protester complied and removed the flag. The organizer even criticized this in a video, saying we had agreed to behave properly. Later, people gathered in a parking lot as planned and were happy that so many people had shown up at all.
After such an event, I fell into a serious depression because I realized that people do not understand at all what a protest is or how one must be mentally prepared as a protester.
The purpose of a protest is to force the state to listen to the people and to implement the will of the people. As a result of a protest, the state must suffer material damage on such a scale that it does not want to face another protest, and the protest must continue until it achieves its goal.
During a protest, no law or regulation should matter to the protester — only the objective matters.
Today’s tractor drivers should act as a united force and, without hesitation, even push cars into a pile in the Riigikogu parking lot, dump Terras into a slurry tank, and later spray the entire government building with manure. But to reach that point, protesters must be ready to act that way — and not just one, but all together. The state must understand that a protest can lead to the overthrow of the government or even civil war if the will of the people is ignored.
As long as we talk about peaceful and law-abiding protest, it has no meaning whatsoever — moreover, today’s event proved that politicians are already exploiting poor, obedient citizens for their own interests, turning them into campaign tools before parliamentary elections. For heaven’s sake! If I were a farmer, I would sink into the ground from shame.
In conclusion — nothing will change until citizens dare to take responsibility for their state, their people, and their principles, and are ready, if necessary, to even die for them.
Mario Maripuu,
Founding member of Rõdali parish, westerner
