To understand the present you must understand the past
@ 4:21 pm I don’t know if that is so original of a thought, but the past few weeks’ news as well as the Finnish politicians’ reactions to the conflict in Georgia have on the one hand surprised me as it seems the politicians aren’t quite as Finlandized as they were in the 1970′s.
Maybe its due to the fact that the foreign minister Stubb is a triathlonist. Back in the 1970′s the ministry was pickled, as a recent book bluntly reveals “the things everybody knew but nobody talked about”. So how about the foreign minister passing out while negotiating with his French colleague… (Interesting change in the morals of the time – being drunk was accepted but a divorce was a huge scandal. These days its the total opposite.) And as we’re not living in Kekkoslovakia the president doesn’t “take care of foreign affairs” as directly as before.
The Russian operation in Georgia also didn’t show much along the northern border. Back in 1968 the situation was totally different as a great article in the HS Int’l Ed details. But still we can see some reflections of the “old days”. Apparently Halonen still has a direct line from Moscow and the politicians still keep their rhetoric… “politically correct”.
And why is this – well if you look at the numbers. Finland has huge trade with Russia – we remember what happened when the trade stopped after the collapse of the USSR. St.Petersburg is a huge market area with more people than the whole of Finland. Russian tourists bring in a significant income – a quarter of all money brought in by tourists. And of course then there is a few other deals like the Baltic gas pipe the Finns are involved in like the former prime minister Lipponen. So the rhetoric can’t be too strong. Then again the old codgers like Paavo Väyrynen have done some amazing hardline rhetorics especially regarding the wood tariffs and the truck queue problems, so its not all suck-up either.
The new reality also is that Finland is a part of the EU, and we cannot do as much solo flying as in the 1970′s… the EU formation flying seems to be a bit of a challenge in itself, but the destiny is not in Tamminiemi.
What comes to the conflict in Georgia in itself I’m not only sorry about the destruction and death but more worried of the escalation of things and the destabilization this causes – not only in the Caucasus region but even here up north. I am not looking forward to another cold war, let alone a hot one.
