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EESTI ELU reedel, 9. oktoobril 2020 — Friday, October 9, 2020
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The bid to sell Peetri kirik Alja Pirosok
MLI launches DisinfoWatch project led by Marcus Kolga OTTAWA, ON (September 24, 2020) – The MacdonaldLaurier Institute is pleased to launch a new foreign disinfor mation monitoring and debunk ing platform, DisinfoWatch. org, with a specific focus on COVID-19. The site will track and analyze foreign disinfor mation narratives, examining how they align and are ampli fied by domestic platforms, groups and actors. Throughout the COVID pan demic, our information environ ment has become more polluted than ever; information is often misleading, false and often in tended to confuse and polarize us. Through a toxic mix of con spiracies, hoaxes, blatant fabri cations and propaganda, malign domestic and foreign actors are using our free and open infor mation environment against us. “DisinfoWatch aims to moni tor, analyze, and expose the COVID “infodemic” and other forms of mis/disinformation,” explains project lead and MLI Senior Fellow, Marcus Kolga. “The project seeks to encourage greater social resilience against harmful information manipula tion through education and awareness.” “It is the first such Canadian platform to directly address and counter these threats and con cerns by building awareness of them.” Through a network of do mestic and global partner orga nizations and experts, Disinfo Watch shares disinformation threat intelligence, trends and analysis, in order to provide context and understanding about who is engaging in the proliferation of disinformation and why they’re doing it. By developing greater understand
ing of disinformation, Canada and its allies will be better pre pared to defend against it. The scope of monitoring in cludes, but is not limited to mis/ disinformation appearing on: • foreign state-sponsored plat forms; • platforms aligned with malign foreign regimes; • conspiracy theory platforms that promote narratives that align with malign foreign regimes; • astroturf organizations and proxy groups operating in Canada aligned with malign foreign regimes; • accounts on social media platforms that share narratives aligned with malign foreign regimes, conspiracy theory plat forms and groups that both actively and passively pollute the information environment with mis/disinformation, regard less of intent; • third-language media in Canada and elsewhere that pro mote narratives that align with malign foreign regimes; and • instances of mis/disinforma tion posted and debunked by recognized fact checking orga nizations. Digital literacy tools that have been developed by Journalists for Human Rights to build awareness of smart media consumption habits, and digital media hygiene, will soon be featured on the platform to further promote Canadian re silience against mis and disin formation. Development of the Disinfo Watch platform is funded by the United States Department of State’s Global Engagement Center and the US Embassy in Ottawa with support from Journalists for Human Rights.
The government…
of European cities and to ac knowledge the cities’ efforts in improving the environment and the quality of life. The Euro pean Commission will give the title to the city that has im proved the city environment, and is planning to change it as a whole through different activities.
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winner of the 2022 title on 8 October. The purpose of the Green Capital initiative, which origi nates from Tallinn, is to im prove the living environments
See ‘Truth and Justice’ on the web As part of its 2020 program, the Art Gallery of Hamilton Film Festival is screening the Estonian classic ‘Truth and Justice’ on the web. It can be seen at any time from Friday, October 16 to Sunday, October 25.
On Sept. 6, pastor Salumäe spoke to his congregation from the pulpit of Toronto’s Peetri kirik of the need to liquidate and sell the church building. An emergency assembly meeting, despite rising COVID-19 rates and mounting public health con cerns, was scheduled for a prompt decision on Sept. 27. An article titled “To be, or not to be. That is the question” appeared in Estonian and English in Eesti Elu/Estonian Life and Estonian World Review. In the Local Events section in Estonian Life and in the Estonians in Canada and Estonian Churches sections of the Estonian World Review, it announced a rescheduled annual assembly meeting (cancelled April 19 due to the pandemic) and the need to vote. It was accompanied by a photo of the church from pastor Salumets, with temporary construction markers occupying in one shot roughly one third of the space. This bid should not be happening for six important reasons. 1. Peetri kirik is not just a building, it’s architecture. That Estonians may not be as aware of the connection of architec ture to spirit, as they are of the connection of music to spirit, does not mean that connection to spirit is any less vital. Neither a photograph nor a façade affords an experience of Peetri kirik as architecture. On the occasion of a seminal exhibit, the Estonian curator is quoted in our national Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail as saying about Peetri kirik: “‘I think it’s one of the best churches I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to Italy,’ Mr. Kauge says without hesitation. ‘It’s just so cozy, and the light is perfect … I don’t know, I felt so good inside this church.’” “… Mr. Bach produced many churches ... his master piece, however, is St. Peter’s Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church at 817 Mount Pleasant Rd.” 2. The special quality of Peetri kirik as architecture has not gone completely unnoticed. A major exhibit, celebrated first by the Canadian public in Toronto at VEMU and then at the Estonian Museum of Architecture in Tallinn, has heralded a new era of recogni tion for Estonian architecture. The exhibit curated by Jarmo Kauge secured a place for Estonian architecture in the mainstream that it so richly deserves, at the same time as it disclosed the history of Estonian people to more than one public that had hitherto been unaware of its existence. This may not yet be appreciated but in 2017 it initiated the voicing and discussion of its special character and ideals. An evolution of this discus sion on the basis of this material
development depends on the models of old do not and will continued existence and enjoy not work in the era of pande ment of the building as archi mics. Given the unprecedented tecture, and thus the mainte uncertainty, this is hardly the nance of a vital connection to time to sell off scarce commu its history and legacy. nity property that exists for the To those who claim we are common good. Such is the in inevitable decline, we can physical, spiritual and expressly advise they look to the example designed space of St. Peter’s and activities of the Alberta Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Estonian Heritage Society to Church. see extraordinary possibilities 5. It is imprudent, to be of preservation and collabora generous, to ask the congrega tion in diversity across many, tion to ignore the advice of all many generations! our Public Health officials to 3. Now, or further on, there is a attend an important meeting and tried-and-true solution to the church service at this time. It is problem of preserving architec clear COVID-19 has necessi tural heritage sustainably. It is tated much rethinking; the fate called adaptive re-use. The very of Peetri kirik should be no qualities of midtown Peetri exception. kirik that have been noted as 6. It is important who does the especially suited to its function rethinking of the future of as a church – a cosiness, the Peetri kirik. Is it fair that only perfect light, an overall feel- the directors of an organization good vibe – also lend them do the thinking and the rethink selves well to a community ing? How important is it not to centre. Examples of adaptive disenfranchise members of a re-use include Cecil Com community, for example those munity Centre in downtown “older family members” who Toronto, a former synagogue. may not know their way around For decades, multipurpose rent a computer? Harvard prof. als and meetings there have Michael Sandel’s argument for included the activities of a a politics of the common good society for the advancement and vs. The Tyranny of Merit, as his preservation of Tai Chi, which recent book is titled, offers is also about spirit. In society at some insight into these per large, performing artists and sistent questions. others displaced from large We live in an age of winners venues during COVID have and losers, where the odds are started looking for long-term stacked in favour of the already options. The need for “safe” fortunate. Sandel highlights the possibly midsize venues to hubris a meritocracy generates relieve the stresses of isolation among the winners and the has never been as great for all. harsh judgement it imposes on The active Estonian commu those left behind. He offers an nity includes guides and scouts, alternative way of thinking seniors, and other groups cur rently in need of a replacement about success – “more attentive for the home they, and other to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an active communities, had at Eesti Maja, or the place they may ethic of humility, and more hospitable to a politics of the need in our new circumstances. We have many innovative common good”. In the words of and creative thinkers. What is an online reviewer, “The more preventing them from coming we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, together, with support from the broader community which has the harder it is to learn gratitude valued and developed expertise and humility. And without these in adaptive re-use, to address sentiments, it is hard to care for the potential of this option for the common good.” https://www.tvo.org/video/ Peetri kirik? 4. Perhaps the main argument m i c h a e l - s a n d e l - w h y - m e r for consolidation at Tartu it-is-destroying-democracy College was its solid self- On the 50th anniversary of financing capability as a student Eesti Maja, chairman of the residence, but this has been board Osvald Piil is reported to hugely impacted by COVID-19, have emphasized it had been with no end in sight anywhere the Estonian community’s or anytime soon. Students are House of Parliament. The mem not travelling to Canada and bers of Peetri kirik’s congrega universities have gone online. tion justly need to be engaged, The terms of Tartu’s financing heard, and respected for their preclude rental to anyone but contributions to working through students in the school year. The its meaning for them as persons Age of COVID, as coined, is and its place as they see it in a upon us. Brilliant business larger enduring perspective.
