Thread by @luukasilves

🌅🇪🇪Tomorrow at sunrise (7:33am), I will gather w/ 1000s of Estonians to celebrate the 107th anniversary of our Independence as 🔵⚫️⚪️flag is raised over Toompea.
@JDVance asked if Europe still shares America's love of freedom. Here's the story of the world's freest country 🧵

Today, Estonia tops the charts for freedom of all kind (economic freedom, religious freedom, free speech, Internet freedom, press freedom).

How we got there is a dramatic and turbulent story - that parallels the rise and fall of the original Star Wars trilogy with shocking precision. (2/x)

Act I: A New Hope
In the waning days of World War I, Estonians declared independence from the fast collapsing Russian-Soviet Empire.

Estonia's Declaration of Independence proclaimed a republic based on rule of law, freedom and individual rights president.ee/en/republic-of…

Per tradition, on the morning of 24.02, a student will read out the full Declaration of Independence. (3/x)

Between 1918-1920, newly independent Estonia fought a two-front war of independence against the Soviet Red Army and German forces (pushing our enemies far beyond our borders). (4/x)

After the War, Estonia's Constitution established the country as a liberal democracy. Liberated from Russian empire, the country thrived. By 1938, the Estonian economy was only marginally behind the industrial powerhouses of Europe. (5/x)

Estonia protected and empowered its Russian, German, Swedish and Jewish minorities. Notably, Estonia was perhaps the best place in Europe to be Jewish. The Jewish community had autonomous status and ran competing schools with instruction in Hebrew and Yiddish (6/x) kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Tallinn/Histor…

Act II: The Empires Strike Back
This all came to an abrupt end with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which carved up Eastern Europe between Moscow and Berlin. The simultaneous Soviet and NAZI invasion of Poland in 1939 marked the onset of World War II (7/x)

In 1940, Estonians made the mistake of letting the Red Army in without a shot (thinking, perhaps, this would save lives). The result was a reign of Red and Brown terror. Most of our Jewish population was lost to the Holocaust. And Communists murdered and deported to Siberia 10s of thousands of Estonians of all ethnicities. (8/x)

In 1944, as the German Army retreated, 10s of Estonian picked up arms. That summer, they fought brutal battles to stop the Red Army. While they ultimately lost, they bought time for nearly 100 000 Estonians to flee West (among them my grandparents) (9/x)vm.ee/en/news/fatefu…

Over the course of World War II, Estonia lost 25% of its population, including 81,000 dead. Twice as many escaped as refugees or suffered forced resettlement and ethnic cleansing. Some did return from Siberian exile, including the future wife and mother of our PMs @siimkallas_ and @kajakallas (10/x)

Estonia lost its multiethnic character: the German minority was brought “home” by Hitler in 1938, the Jewish population fled or was murdered by NAZIs, the Swedes resettled to Sweden after the war. And the Russians - Estonia’s largest pre-war minority - were not allowed to return their homes, forced to resettle elsewhere in the USSR (11/x)

What followed were nearly 5 decades of oppression and stagnation under Soviet occupation. The Soviet Union pursued a policy of ethnic replacement, aiming to make Estonians a minority in their country. By 1991, ethnic Estonians were down to 61% of the population. (12/x)

Flying the Estonian 🔵⚫️⚪️flag was a criminal offense. Our first flag - sewn in 1884 by Estonia's Betsy Ross, Paula Hermann - survived hidden in the chimney of a farmhouse (13/x)

Estonian exiles abroad kept the flame, teaching their children Estonian language and culture and protesting Soviet power at every opportunity.

America and many European countries never recognized the legality of the Soviet occupation. The Estonian government in exile, based in Stockholm, continued to maintain its embassies in Washington, London and elsewhere. (My great uncle, Hans Rebane, served as foreign minister in exile) (14/x)

Act III: Return of Freedom
In 1988, courageous student activists started flying the flag again. It soon became a ubiquitous act of civil disobedience to Soviet power. (15/x)

Over the 3 years, a massive wave of protests and expression against Soviet power took hold in Estonia (+ Latvia, Lithuania). Drawing on a long tradition of song festivals, demonstrations of "nationalist" songs sung in defiance to Soviet power drew 100s of thousands - giving the freedom movement its epithet of the "Singing Revolution" (16/x)

At 11:03pm on the evening of August 20th, 1991, as a putsch raged in Moscow, Estonia declared the restoration of its independence. (17/x)

With a column of tanks bearing down on the capital from Moscow to put down the revolt, Estonians were again getting ready to fight for their freedom. Thankfully, the putsch failed and the tanks returned to their barracks the next day.

For Estonia, the revolution was bloodless. Tragically, Soviet troops had murdered 21 in Riga and Vilnius earlier that year. (18/x)

A day later, 🇮🇸 Iceland was the first country to recognize Estonia as again independent. Today, the square in front of our Foreign Ministry @MFAestonia bears the name "Iceland Square" (19/x)

In the following months, Estonians restored and updated our pre-war Constitution. One of our student protest leaders, @martlaar, was elected Prime Minister in 1992.

His bold market reforms rid the Estonian economy of its Soviet legacy and set us up for 10x economic growth over the next 3 decades.

(I was proud to work for him 2 decades later, when he was defence minister) (20/x)

His government abolished tariffs and established a simple flat tax. This turbocharged an entrepreneurial revolution.

Today, Estonia ranks #1 in the world for entrepreneurs, startups, unicorns and startup investment per capita in the world.

We're in the top 10 of every rating of business freedom and remain #1 in the world for tax competitiveness. (21/x)

In 1994, the last Russian troops left Estonia. A decade later, we joined NATO (and the EU) (22/x)

Estonians embraced the Internet and computing revolution. We were the first country to bring computers to every classroom (despite being quite poor at the time). This "tiger leap" launched us on the path of becoming @e_estonia. (23/x)

In the next years, Estonians launched the world's first internet bank, most widely used services for file-sharing (Kazaa) and internet calls (Skype), biggest civic platform (@LetsDoItWorld) and many other revolutionary digital platforms. (24/x)

Estonia's government was also the first in the world to go fully digital. Today, 100% of public services are digital - we even (securely) vote online!

(We jockey w Singapore and Denmark for who is #1) (25/x)

Back to freedom: There is no censorship in Estonia. We swap #1 slots back and forth with Iceland for Internet Freedom (according to @freedomhouse). And we are #6 in the world for press freedom. (26/x)

@CatoInstitute / @Cato and @Heritage give us top marks respectively for "human freedom" and "economic freedom." Back in 2006, Cato also recognized @martlaar with their Milton Friedman prize (27/x)cato.org/friedman-prize…

While others worry about tech undermining freedom, we use tech to keep tabs on our government. Every Estonian can look up how the government uses their personal data (28/x)ria.ee/en/state-infor…

Almost uniquely (alongside Norway) we practice proactive transparency - nearly all government documents are indexed and shared in public databases. Civil servant salaries are also public. There is little need for "freedom of information" (FOIA) requests - the info is already searchable and online. (29/x)europam.eu/?module=countr…

Communism was bad for religion - Estonia is today known as the "least religious country in the world." But we are also a bastion of religious freedom. This includes public funding for religious schools and generous support to churches' cultural activities and to maintain historic buildings. (30/x)

I frequently join Sunday worship in a 140-year old Baptist church a 3 minute walk from my home or take the slightly longer 10 minute walk to a Lutheran-Anglican service in a 14th century church (31/x)

Religion aside, Estonians have kept touch with their roots. Most Estonians have countryside homes - oftentimes their ancestral farm, most Estonians are at most a few generations removed from being farmers.

Like many families, our lands were confiscated by the Communists but returned in the 1990s. (32/x)

At the center of all countryside homes (and many city homes) is the Sauna - a source of warmth in the cold winter. estonia is known as the "Land of 100 000 saunas" (33/x)

Finally, most importantly: Estonians know that freedom isn't free. We take our defense seriously. Estonia is among the top per capita defense spenders in Europe, with plans to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP. (34/x)

And not everything is captured with money. We have compulsory military service (for men), a large reserve army and active national guard (Kaitseliit). A third of our military age (18-60) men have completed military service and can be put under arms quickly. Some of them will march in tomorrow's parade (35/x)

We rehearse, too. This year's annual "Hedhehog" military exercise will see 13000 Estonian and Allied soldiers participating (more than 1% of the entire population) (37/x)

Estonia stands with Ukraine. Tomorrow morning, I'll write about the many ways Estonia(ns) are helping Ukraine and how we stand for freedom not just at home, but in just about every corner of the world. (38/x)

Three years ago, Russia besmirched the good reputation of February 24th when it launched its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in the early hours of our Independence Day (39/x)

Nevertheless, tomorrow we celebrate. 24.02 is our day of 🇪🇪Freedom - and a chastening 💔 reminder that evil remains in the world. (40/40) @IlvesToomas @AlarKaris @KristenMichalPM @vseviov