|
       
|
|
This is Finland by Thanos Kalamidas 2008-09-24 10:06:48 |
Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author |
  
 |
The last few hours I’m sitting in front my computer looking at a white document page and thinking what should I write. The last few hours, friends from abroad have called me asking if I know anything about the events in Kauhajoki as most of them remember walking around the streets of the small Finnish town. You see I know Kauhajoki. I have stayed in Kauhajoki, I know people in Kauhajoki, I have friends in Kauhajoki and I know people from Kauhajoki.
Kauhajoki is a small typical Finnish town, with a post office, a big church, two pubs and a pizzeria, the usual grill-kiosk, a bank and a main street where boys drive up and down with music blasting out of the open windows in the summer and girls watch them from the side benches, a very usual Finnish town. Actually for me who comes from a very alive country, Kauhajoki seems like a really dull place, boredom could die there! But then again within a few hours, Kauhajoki became the centre of the international news. It took a 22 year-old man, a gun, at least eleven dead and a number of wounded to do so. Not the historic heritage, not the beautiful landscape, not the people; a bloody gun in the hands of a 22 year-old boy.
This moment I feel sad, stupid, numb and angry at the same time and I have no way to put these feelings on a piece of white paper and most of all I cannot suppress them in the limit of words demanding for a publication. I’m sad for the eleven kids that died today for no reason, because they just happened to be there at the wrong moment. I’m sad because these kids died while trying to build a future, because these kids will never fall in love, because these kids will never live! I feel stupid because the last four years from this magazine, the Ovi magazine I have often wrote that something has changed in this country and I feel stupid because every time I said so I got the reaction …you are complaining and in the end I shut my mouth.
I feel numb because a boy, a boy of 22 years who committed these unbelievable crimes, never had the chance to understand what the hell he was doing. I’m numb because this boy is the victim and the guilty party at the same time. I’m angry because the Finnish state just like the Finnish society didn’t do anything when a similar event hit Finland a year ago, covering everything up in the name of the good looking society! I’m angry because I was not surprised and I’m going to watch the state and the people of Finland going for another gigantic cover up just like the cat covers her shit using the usual excuses, bad childhood, depress youth ignoring the facts until the next time!
A year ago when another boy in the city of Tuusula, very close to Helsinki, did exactly the same thing the first question raised was how the hell a young boy found himself in position of owning a gun and it was totally legal. Then the numbers, the facts came that shocked all of us, in a country with a population just above 5 million there are 1.6 million firearms in private hands. A country where the minimum age to buy a gun is 15 years-old. Perhaps you didn’t understand so I repeat it, in Finland a 15 year-old school kid is allowed to enter a shop and buy a gun! Of course all owners of a gun are required to have a licence so in Finland there is a new ethic: it is legal then it is right! On Monday after posting a series of videos on the internet the certain boy was called by the police and asked certain questions but then let free. But then again it is legal!
One year ago from this very same Ovi magazine we asked a series of questions, how a school boy could base his acts that led to the death of other school kids in theories that natural led in the influence of people who knew how to manipulate and arm his hand. This is the second but the most important question to me, who the hell armed this boy's hand and they did it again, and who knows if they are not doing it again this very moment I’m writing these words.
I have lived in this country for the last ten years and I visited the country three years before immigrating here, I have spent summers and holidays here, I have made friends and family in Finland and one thing I noticed from the beginning in this country is the feeling that there is a huge cover up conspiracy. When there is something negative, doesn’t matter if it is financial, governmental, social. it might be in the local news but nothing, absolutely nothing in the foreign languages news. If you don’t speak Finnish and remember that we are talking about one of the most difficult languages in the world, it is like living in paradise. If anything goes wrong with your life that are two explanations and only, it is either your fault or you didn’t understand that this is Finland!
This is Finland! The story of my life for the last ten years. There are things, small things, everyday life things and there are big issues, occasionally issues that have to do with international legal practise and reality that just don’t work here and when you ask why, the answer you get is …this is Finland. This is one thing in this country, Finland was isolated for years but no more, nowadays Finland is a full and active member of the international community but still they feel that they are isolated. And the state doesn’t help. These people grow up without real national identity so they create it.
What’s the most important thing in Finland? Formula 1 driver! What’s the most important event the last thirty years? Winning the Eurovision contest. Who is the most famous historic persona? Somebody, who due to the balance of time, escaped war crimes court and is responsible for the worst and bloodiest civil war in European history. A country where her people consider winning a lottery to be born Finns! A country that is proud for an educational system comparing it with the Nigeria that leads ‘educated’ workers to the factories of Nokia or the unemployment office, a country that leads in transparency and civil servants live in corruption but the window looks clean! The outsiders must not see it! The outsiders see all of us smiling and happy as long they stay outsiders.
The last ten years the number of immigrants rose from 20,000 to 400,000! These people can see behind the window but if you say that is all fake the answer is …this is Finland, you don’t understand, you complain all the time! And all the effort of creating a national identity has led to nationalism. It is not to be proud to be a Finn, it is to be pride to born a Finn! And nationalism representing in t-shirts and jackets with huge proud nationalistic logos, a nationalism that soon turns a natural xenophobia to racism. Racism against anybody who is not Finn and things have changed dramatically the last few years.
Nowadays the lotto to born a Finn is won from kids that their parents originated in Somalia, in Iran, in Turkey, in Russia and China. And the Finnish state was just watching all this time making new legislations against racism and discrimination. But they did all these legislations the same way they do legislations for the farmers expecting the people to obey. The people, the same state taught that Nazis are the good guys because they helped us to beat the Russians. A state that hosts in the national museums swastikas and is proud of it.
A nation that cannot understand that you don’t force things like that, you explain again and again, you educate people not only how to calculate but how to think, you educate people especially young people the truth. You teach young people that you made mistakes but you learned from them, you didn’t teach them that they live in the perfect country in paradise and then let them walk the streets of unemployment, insecure and fear. You don’t have generals screaming on the top of their voices that landmines are necessary, that cluster bombs are a necessity and serving your country means to hate Russia. You educate people in tolerance and understanding because this is NOT Finland but it is the world!
Because I’m afraid that I will be misunderstood, I don’t think that immigration is behind all that but I think that this immigration tsunami that found suddenly Finland the last five years is one of the strong elements that brought this national identity into crisis. It is one thing to believe that you are wonderful when you only see your image in the mirror and totally different when you see other faces you can actually compare. And again when I talk about lack of tolerance I don’t mean the tolerance towards other cultures but the tolerance towards a global society with totally different demands from an isolated and often lonely society like Finland was till the beginning of '80s.
Tolerance in a world we are not proud for being the country with least corruption in the world and upset when we fall from the first place to the third, but being sad because we are in a world with corruption at all, this is tolerance, there is no pride to be the least corrupt country in an unverified and doubtful survey but been sorry that the rest of the world has problem and that is something unfortunately not taught to the Finnish kids and that’s another example of hysterically building a national identity on sand!
A 22 year-old boy killed at least 11 of his school mates and an unclear at the moment others, I suppose while this is published we will find out the final numbers. The next few days famous Finn psychologists and analysts will tell us about the winter and dark depression in Finland and about the boy’s bad and lonely childhood; while the police will investigate reporters who embarrassed the country making a report for mistakes in the new nuclear plant and asking more money for security reasons in case Bin Laden hits Santa Claus village and the prime minister Matti Vanhanen will promise again to rethink the weapons laws while another 15 year-old will legally buy a gun. This is Finland!
I’m sorry for the dead, I’m sorry for the wounded, I’m sorry for the boy and I’m sorry for the Tuusula victims but I am more sorry because I’ve lost faith in this country. I’m sorry because the responsibility of arming this boy's hand is collective and it seems that nobody is willing to do anything because …this is Finland! I’m sorry because from where I’m standing it looks like a curse to born a Finn!
Kauhajoki high-school-shooting Society Finland |
|
Print - Comment - Send to a Friend - More from this Author |
|
|
|