[Alex]
Tom Bissell has a fun piece in the New Republic (suscription – which is cheap! – may be required) on the Estonian revolution. There’s the usual references to the hi-tech, online lifestyle in Tallin, the super-gorgeous women ("or whom the phrase "out of my league" had been invented,") and the rest of it.
But Bissell also notes that Estonia’s homogeneity and a widespread political consensus has been crucial to its success. The same might be said of Ireland, who’s own economic miracle was in large part based upon a remarkable degree of political unity in Dublin (in Scotland, by contrast, the Scottish "consensus" conspires to hold the country back. More of that later however…)
Welath and success will bring challenges to estonia just as it has to Ireland. But Bissell is happily confident:
Beyond the velvet ropes of its exclusive nightclubs, Estonia might not be the most exuberant place on earth, and its winters may be the atmospheric equivalent of a Bergman film, but it is blessed in many more important areas. Estonia’s greatest blessing might well turn out to be the degree to which its hard-won liberty has heightened the awareness of what its people can now freely achieve in this world. In the decidedly unmessianic Estonian air is something I have not sensed in my own country in a long time. It feels, in a word, sane.
The Dish 