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The President of the Republic New Year Address to the People of Estonia December 31, 200431.12.2004
Dear People of Estonia,
Fellow Countrymen!
Fire like a friendly companion gives warmth and a feeling of security. Fire brings people together and helps to concentrate thoughts. Our people have a tradition to sit around the fire.
But now the Christmas peace has been replaced by our grief over thousands of people who have suffered from a natural catastrophe in South-Eastern Asia. In such situation we very clearly apprehend how closely we are connected with nature and each other. We feel a need to protect and being protected.
Estonia has offered its assistance to the victims of the disaster and will certainly do it also in future. Caring and attentiveness shown by fellow people will help those who have suffered. We all can offer them support being with them in our thoughts now when we are seeing off the outgoing year.
It is understandable that we would like to draw a line under what we have done during the year. We seek once again to express our love and respect towards those we care about. It is important that before the New Year arrives we have a chance to talk about all essential things we had not yet talked.
I would also like to talk about some important issues. I would like that we all together think of them and go further than being simply aware of. A kernel of wisdom says that the journey from a man's head to his heart is the longest.
At the end of the year we usually go back in time in our thoughts, but we also look forward. We make a kind of balance sheet where first of all we show all lasting values in our lives, values related to our home, people close to us and also our personal achievements. We would like to put on the assets side that all of our family members were healthy, our children were good and we ourselves were well.
As a nation we became richer by 14 thousand newly born children in the year ending. In Estonia we have not had for a long time so many children born in a year. I believe that those children were very much expected, and I hope they would be loved and happy in future. It is also important that we can be content with our work and advancements in the life of our home community.
Satisfying life means also that we have possibilities to rest, go in for sports and enjoy culture. Keeping your mind fresh as well as providing a good education to your children is a sound investment in your future. The state has to support its citizens in this.
It is also natural that the stronger would help the weaker. Such kindly actions are not any more rare in our society. But at the same time a normally functioning and caring state cannot expect that charity alone would help those in difficulty. A citizen would hope first of all to get help from his or her state.
This is a state our people have created themselves, and it cannot have any other goals and interests than those of its own people. Therefore, a wish that those at power would turn their face towards people, towards those from whom they have gotten their mandate, is justified. Surely, mistrust and indifference towards power would disappear then.
We have lived through big changes in Estonian development. With the help of all of us a stable state based on European values is being born. The European Union and NATO, the accession to which happened to be one of the most significant events in the passing year, reinforce our security. The participants of our song and dance festival and Olympic athletes have given us many moments, which stay in our heart and mind.
But against the background of those remarkable achievements, we should not overlook more complicated topics. Let us do this so that we can better understand and appreciate today's new opportunities and bigger responsibilities. Herewith I would like to refer to our solders who lost their lives while our country was fulfilling its duty as an ally, but also to some other painful issues from our history.
I hope that we manage to treat our history without any complexes and extreme emotions, avoiding simplified black-and-white schemes.
The history of our nation has been complicated and full of contradictions. The interests of big powers have put us into situations where we had to choose between bad and worse choices. It has been inevitable that our people had very different fate and life experience. As a result of this people hold very different views of the past and today's life. But the magnification of those differences would not let the old wounds to heal.
I would like to refer to one particular topic of the passing year. This is a topic, which has to do with the sense of justice and humanity and therefore should not leave anybody unconcerned.
More than a dozen years ago the property reform set the compensation of injustice once done as one of its special goals. It seemed to be impossible that through that a new injustice would be caused. But it happened so. Now we have to solve the problems, which have accumulated in the course of the reform. Certainly, the state as well as local governments will show their good will and undertake to resolve those problems in near future.
I would like to appeal to everybody's conscience to be more considerate and fair. It makes it possible for us to find peace of mind and to achieve balance in our society!
An old word of wisdom calls to do to others, as you would like done to yourself. This is the very bases of human dignity and it gives rise to many essential things, such as happier people, stronger families, good health, and better work ability, fruitful and longer life, which all means vitality of the people.
Many of conflicts and crises in our own home yard and in the world far away from us would have been nonexistent if there had been more understanding, humane warmth and sense of responsibility. In New Year we should try to understand the others better, instead of condemning and amplifying maliciousness. It cannot be so insurmountably difficult to show human greatness, willingness to conciliate and make agreements.
Drawing comparison from nature, we can say that devastating autumnal storms are ever so often interfering in our life, can be described as an unceasing autumnal storm. And though here, where we live, the turbulent raging sea is our inevitable companion, nevertheless a home founded on the peaceful coast creates a feeling of security.
Dear People,
When we sit in front of burning fire we feel radiating warmth and light. Being Nordic people we need and appreciate it. Let us take this feeling with us to the New Year and let us preserve it together with our loved ones.
I would like to thank all of you for your good deeds, thoughts and wishes that you have done or thought during the passing year. Without those there would have been much less compassion in our lives. Some of your good wishes are written down on many Christmas cards that have been sent to Kadriorg. I consider the greetings sent to me as wishes of happiness to all of our fellow countrymen and would like to say on behalf of everybody: thank you!
But now let us sit close to those who are dear for us, look into each other's eyes and wish a Happy New Year!
A Happy New Year to all of you, dear fellow countrymen!
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