I challenge you to a duel!

Friendly fire and the paradoxes of nationalism, Estonia invaded by Stalinist Ukrainians. Polish perturbations, Hungarian hutzpah

Today’s newsletter is about Ukraine and some of its friends.

Burghers against the Bürgergeld

On June 17, Bundestag deputy Bijan Djir-Sarai from Germany’s liberal SPD and the CDU’s Minister of the Interior of Brandenburg Michael Stübgen proposed removing the Bürgergeld - civil subsidies - for Ukrainians and giving them ordinary refugee subsidies. This would mean a reduction in benefits from 563 euros to 460. The SPD deputy justified it as follows to Bild:

There is a shortage of workers everywhere. For example, in the fields of public catering, construction, and caregiving. We should no longer use taxpayers' money to fund unemployment, but should instead provide people with jobs.

Stübgen argued that the current system is ‘fundamentally mistaken’ and ‘discourages Ukrainians from finding work.’ Joachim Herrmann, another Bavarian deputy, agreed. There are currently 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees, but only 20% of them have a job.

In any case, the German government officially denies the possibility of changing the existing benefit regime. In late March German opposition politician from the CDU FLorian Hann urged the government to halt benefit payments to military-aged Ukrainian men and aid the Ukrainian government in forcibly repatriating them.

Estonia under attack

Some of Germany’s Teutonic (in fact, suspiciously Finno-Ugric) brethren by the Baltic sea seem to have similar sentiments. Given the niche of extreme militarism and Ukrainophilia trumpeted by the country, to see a fairly significant party voice such beliefs is notable.

On June 17, leader of Estonia’s rightwing Conservative People’s Party Martin Helme declared his desire to see Ukrainians deported. His party won 17.8% of the vote in the 2019 parliamentary elections. In 2019-21, he was the country’s minister of finances.

Another famous Helme quote came from 2013, when he commented recent riots in Sweden: ‘Our immigration policy should have one simple rule: if (they're) black, show the door.’ This apparently rhymes in Estonian and is quite the sensation. Martin Helme is not to be confused with his more corpulent father, Mart Helme, a man of identical views who ruled the same party (and was the country’s Interior Minister) until being forced to resign in 2020 after stating that Biden stole the election. Reminiscent of Ukraine’s Dubinsky being arrested for state treason for his role in the Hunter Biden saga, which I wrote about here.

Helme’s argumentation was particularly impressive. Here is what he said in his interview to the Estonian posttimees:

They may call themselves Ukrainians, and most of them come from Eastern Ukraine, a war zone, but they speak Russian, and a very large part of them repeats Putin's narratives. The fact is that in two years, Kaja Kallas' government has conducted more Russification than Karl Vaino, Joseph Stalin, or Emperor Alexander III ever managed.

He went on to urge the creation of a ‘quota’ on Slavic immigration to deal with the problem.

We don't care what Brussels says. We keep outsiders out and our own inside.

Helme was particularly worried about the fact that Slavs demonstrate a higher birthrate than Estonians. A race of a turtle and a tortoise. He worried that this Slavic demographic superiority would ‘throw Estonia into the Ukrainian corruption quagmire’.

Luckily, Mr Helme is optimistic:

If we do these simple things, there will be money left for national defense and we can even comfortably reduce taxes.