At the end of September, 2008, my wife and I traveled to Tallinn where I was scheduled to give three lectures during the Trialogos Festival. We returned home after a nine-day visit with a deep affection and respect for the people and country of Estonia.
At the end of January, I was given a birthday gift by my daughter, which consisted of the documentary, The Singing Revolution, and two other DVD's containing testimonies and historical documents. The Singing Revolution was profoundly moving. Absolutely startlingly beautiful was the performance of Ilus maa in the Singing Stadium, with Hirvo Surva conducting. The music itself was haunting, but even more powerful were the lyrics. Forgive me if I quote a stanza that must already be burned into the memory of virtually all Estonians:
"The Earth should be filled with songs and children.
"And it should be fought against everything strange and hostile. Hostile and deceitful and fought whenever possible.
"Whenever possible and necessary as life is but temporal. And the future, the land and the past will be left with our children."
Possibly, the small land of Estonia possesses a mission toward the rest of the world. Soviet Communism, like so many 20th Century ideologies, was not just a tyranny directed towards the extinguishing of freedoms. It was also one directed against life itself 's against the interior life of the spirit, against the family, and against the children to whom we offer the future. It was this tyranny which made the world desire to kill its own unborn children. And it is a tyranny that has now spread everywhere.
I believe that the Estonian people, in order to fully recapture their interior freedom from this culture and tyranny of death, should begin a chant which will blossom and grow until it not only leads to full protection for their own unborn children, but hopefully fills the whole world:
Maa tuleb taita lastega ja laulude ja lastega "The Earth should be filled with songs and children."
It could be chanted at every song festival and every public event. It should be chanted and sung with the same courage and persistence which made The Singing Revolution possible.
Only then will Estonia be truly and fully free from the tyranny of Soviet rule. Possibly the rest of the world will then see, listen, and understand.
James Larson
Long Prairie, Minnesota, U.S.A
