Astangu, 23 January 2026
Dear students, parents, alumni, teachers and staff of the Astangu Vocational Rehabilitation Centre – many congratulations to you all! A special word of thanks goes to Director Kert Valdaru for his tireless leadership.
At first, I wanted to project on the screen, as the background to my opening remarks, a few lines of poetry by Betti Alver (unofficial translation):
“One may want everything,
fear
and hope.
What is to come –
no one
awaits.”
But then I noticed these lines in condolence notices in Postimees. Beautiful. Striking. Yet my thought was different. A severe appendicitis, a car accident, a stroke, a child with special needs, a parent with diabetes or dementia – we are not prepared for these things, nor should we live in constant fear. Is it not the task of society to create a sense of security so that we would not turn grey from worry in advance? What comes, comes. We do not know. The beauty of life. The pain. The wonder.
That is why I was instead reminded of Viivi Luik’s explanation, in The Golden Crown, of a passage from Seven Springs of Peace. Artur Alliksaar, with a charming smile, said to a waitress who had mixed up the orders: “What arrives and what I wish for are terribly different.” Instead of black coffee, pork roast appeared.
Compared to the time when people with disabilities, dissidents and others who were different were hidden away, out of sight, like excess items, we have undoubtedly made progress. Television programmes increasingly have subtitles; we hear audio description; more and more people understand that those who cannot hear do not “communicate among themselves” but speak with their hands – that is sign language! The opportunity for a sign-language choir to participate in the Song Festival was met with understanding. The unity concert was beautiful and popular, broadcast by ERR. The Paralympics and para-athletes are held in high esteem. Plain language is important for everyone, not only for those whose strength is not understanding complex texts. The children’s book “I May Be Disabled”, published in cooperation between the Enn Soosaar Foundation and the Gender Equality Commissioner Christian Veske, struck a chord immediately, and people are already asking when a reprint will come.
Today I thought with admiration of you who made your way here in wheelchairs through slippery, brown slush on icy ground.
Still, work remains to be done on general social attitudes. On the one hand, there has been constant stress, scaremongering and incitement for years: “We are certainly not going to spend money because of them,” we hear when we ask that people in wheelchairs be considered as well, or those pushing prams with a severely disabled child, or those who need a walking frame. “At our school, children attend who know how to communicate properly, play properly and hold a pencil long before school” – a familiar story again, isn’t it? Schools must compete for places in exam score rankings. So much for the idea of a comprehensive school!
If there are still places and attention in schools for children with disabilities, what comes next? Are there jobs?
My work as Chancellor of Justice has led me to think more often than before in Christian terms. Respect for life – one must live the life that has been given. As well as possible. By sincerely loving one’s neighbour as they are.
Humility may also be appropriate. No one is immortal, eternally young or healthy. And things tend to balance out.
Estonian society, as diverse as it is – would it not be wiser to seek common ground generously rather than to exclude, belittle or consider oneself superior? One’s mother tongue is always a value, not a problem – even when it is not Estonian.
It is difficult in our time to maintain a kind and wise path. I am convinced that the winners will be precisely those who manage to do so.