There is an idea, or rather an ideology, summed up by the term open nationalism. A proponent of open nationalism might say, "Anyone who feels at home here, speaks the language and wants to be Estonian can be Estonian." They might justify this view by saying, "Creating an open and confident Estonian cultural space is easier if we don't define Estonianness too narrowly or treat it as something to be ashamed of."

Should this kind of attitude be accepted? There are many ways to debate that, but in this essay I'll focus on just one argument. It is an argument against open nationalism.

To avoid getting stuck in the specifics of the Estonian context and to bring out the core of the idea more clearly let's turn the open nationalist's claim around. Let's imagine ourselves as Estonians in some faraway place. Say, for instance, a country deep in the Sahara Desert called Tuaregia. No such country exists, but the Tuareg are a real people numbering in the millions who throughout history have had their own political entities — sultanates and confederations.

Let's suppose that, over time, a sovereign Tuaregia has emerged with defined borders and has become a place with some appealing aspects — enough to make an Estonian want to move there.

The question is whether this Estonian would have any reason to expect that Tuaregia follows a principle of open Tuaregness, which says: "Anyone who feels at home here, speaks the language and wants to be Tuareg can be Tuareg — even if they look different or speak with an accent." And that this principle would be justified with the argument: "Creating an open and confident Tuareg cultural space is easier if Tuaregness is not defined too narrowly or treated with shame."

In my view, the Estonian would have no grounds whatsoever to expect such a thing from Tuaregia. What they can hope for are basic human rights. After all, no one is forced to move to Tuaregia — they go there in search of something desirable. Even if they weren't going in search of something pleasant but were fleeing deportation as a refugee, it would still be unclear why the Tuareg should adjust their sense of national identity for the sake of Estonians.

One of the main reasons I can't imagine wanting, as an Estonian, to partake in open Tuaregness — to "become Tuareg" in the same sense that people speak of "becoming Estonian" — can be explained using the concept of tacit knowledge.

The idea of tacit knowledge was popularized in the 1950s by philosopher of science Michael Polanyi. His central thesis is: "We know more than we can tell." In the philosophy of science, this thesis includes many specific ideas, but those aren't important here. We can speak of tacit knowledge in other contexts, including at the level of the individual — not just scientists — and even at the level of entire peoples.

For both individuals and peoples, I would add a few adjectives to Polanyi's thesis: not just "We know more than we can tell," but "We know infinitely more than we can tell."

Let's start with the individual. Having lived in the world for 65 years — as it happens, I have — I believe I possess infinitely more knowledge than I could ever put into words. Some of this knowledge is trivial and minor: whether to eat porridge with a fork or a spoon or how to ride a bicycle. (A brief aside: knowledge related to bicycle riding is a favorite example of tacit knowledge in philosophy.)

At the other extreme are highly abstract fragments of theoretical knowledge from physics or philosophy. Between those lie knowledge of weather, literature, film, various life situations. Every person — even a 20-year-old — possesses an enormous amount of such knowledge, most of which they can never articulate. Often this knowledge lies dormant but becomes active when the right context arises.

Tacit knowledge relating to nationality and homeland, in the case of Estonians, is spread across roughly a million individuals. As a whole, it's obviously far vaster than the sum of what one person can accumulate in a lifetime.

The first elements of tacit historical knowledge are transmitted through snippets of thought, fact and judgment dropped by parents around the dinner table or embedded in children's books. These form hazy impressions of ancient times, crusading knights, the Russian Empire, the Republic of Estonia, deportations to Siberia, dissidents.

Tacit knowledge can be carried in an ironic facial expression that appears on a teacher's face in class as they deliver certain prescribed lines. It can be found in the way people react when older women in pink slips appear on a crowded beach.

Whether we call it historical memory, collective consciousness or tacit knowledge, this thing I'm referring to, in my opinion, plays, and should play, a role in a well-functioning political life.

To give one example: the greatest ongoing concern in Estonian life has to do with Russia. I dare say that every Estonian — and the Estonian people as a whole — possess a vast amount of knowledge and wisdom about Russia. This has often been stated recently in the context of the war in Ukraine: that events have shown Estonians possess more wisdom and intuition about Russia than older and more powerful societies in Western Europe. And I don't believe this wisdom and intuition can be boiled down into a finite list of propositions — something you could turn into a "Russia handbook" for a Tuareg to learn over a few years and then be ready to fully participate in Estonian life.

Returning now to the Tuareg: what would their equivalent tacit historical knowledge look like — something that plays the same role in Tuareg life that knowledge about Russia plays in Estonia? Do they too have a people or country that so deeply determines their political discussions and realities as Russia does for Estonia? And that's not the only question that arises when you think in these terms.

If the Estonian who wants to settle in Tuaregia were young, they might live among the Tuareg for fifty years — and perhaps, in that case, absorb some portion of tacit knowledge. But everything that seeps into a person's consciousness during childhood and schooling would still be out of reach.

Of course, one could read many books and get some sense of things. From those, you'd learn that the Tuareg have deep respect for women — but also have a caste system and have historically kept slaves; that their form of Islam is moderate — but in their pursuit of independence, they've formed alliances with some of the worst extremists; that they were oppressed by the French — only to be oppressed even more harshly by other African states afterward.

But how all of that fits together and how Tuaregia today should interpret that history would be very difficult to say. Even for the Tuareg themselves, let alone for an Estonian.

In my opinion, a person who comes from the limestone alvars, from Vargamäe, from the Song Festival and NATO's Article 5 is hardly likely to say anything useful in the political sphere to a nomadic desert people. Their landscapes, customs, wisdoms and encounters with other peoples have been so utterly different.

An Estonian knows as much about the desert and camels as a Tuareg knows about the thatched chimney oven and Shrove Tuesday sleigh rides. Yet the open nationalist seems to believe that a country's political life should not depend much on history. That memory, collective consciousness, tacit historical knowledge either don't matter in society or play only a secondary role.

Talking about history and tacit knowledge may sound like ethnic conservatism, but it's not quite the same. Nowadays, ethnic conservative attitudes (not only in Estonia but elsewhere too) tend to be tied for unclear reasons to so-called Christian values.

I am a nationalist, but traditional family values, Lutheranism, Catholicism and similar ideas — sooner or later brought up by conservatives — don't suit me. Emphasizing the importance of tacit knowledge doesn't impose excessive religious or moral obligations, but it does lead to one clear conclusion: I cannot be an open nationalist.

An Estonian cannot become a Tuareg and a Tuareg cannot become an Estonian. And even though I used a distant and exotic people as my backdrop, I actually think an Estonian cannot become a Latvian either and a Latvian cannot become an Estonian. But a Tuareg or a Latvian can become an Estonian nationalist and an Estonian and a Latvian can become Tuareg nationalists.

Being Estonian and being an Estonian nationalist are not the same thing. I happen to be both — an Estonian and an Estonian nationalist and a Tuareg nationalist too — but also a Latvian nationalist and a nationalist for most other nations as well. So for me, these distinctions accidentally blur together and that makes things easier.

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