President Alar Karis and Sirje Karis at the youth song party. Photo Raigo Pajula/Office of the President of the Republic
Lovely song and dance parties! Dear Estonia!
Love is under everything*. Even if we can’t take this special feeling, spirit and soul of the song and dance party with us into everyday life, we can still get the love that glows underneath it all. We can agree. And we must.
Consensus does not have to be on everything, but it must be on the main thing. There must be unanimity in wanting to keep our country. There must be unanimity in wanting to keep our language and culture.
There must be unanimity in the desire to protect and respect all the people with whom we live here in little Estonia. Because this is our only Estonia and we are here together. The basis of all this is love for another person and for one’s country. Against the land where Jakob Hurda’s truth applies: we don’t live by bread alone.
In addition to bread, we need something else that gives meaning to going to work and school, to arguments in everyday life, to concerns about the survival of our nation. Something intangible. Something bigger. The sacred, which is higher than the mundane like father magic. And only we can consider this land holy, keep it holy, sing it holy.
I would like to thank everyone who made this year’s youth party possible, from the general managers, organizers and conductors-dance leaders to the parent who ironed his child’s folk clothes last night, the cook who cooked the song party soup and the bus driver who takes the song and dance party members home safely today.
This is the miracle of Estonia reborn every day in the unanimous desire of all of us, where love is under everything.
Long live our holy land forever! Long live Estonia!
* Hando Runnel, “Underneath”