Closer than we thought
PERSPECTIVE
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By Antero Mukka
The devastating earthquake in South-East Asia struck closer to home than we ever imagined. The more days that have passed, the clearer it becomes that this is a Finnish tragedy as well as a global one.
When we watched the terror attacks on September 11th three years ago, it was still with the eyes of outsiders. The events were deeply shocking, but they kept their distance. The crisis counselling offered at Helsinki-Vantaa International to those returning from New York seemed almost like it was taking things too far.
Now it is different. We have been surprised and shaken at how profoundly involved we are in this crisis. Vacationing mothers-in-law, friends, cousins, and colleagues have brought to the news reports altogether different shades, content, and significance.
For thousands of Finns, life after Boxing Day 2004 will never ever be the same again.
The fate of the Scandinavian tourists is not the whole picture of this tragedy by any manner of means. But when a family in Espoo, or Lahti, or Jyväskylä is missing its loved ones in Thailand, the global sorrow perforce makes way for the personal one.
Anxiety, fear, and grief for our own is a right that cannot be encroached upon. It must also be allowed to grow into an experience that can bring the nation together.
For the officials and for the media, the crisis brings a stiff challenge. The need for help and for information takes no account of where the event is occurring - whether the blow falls on an icy road in Konginkangas or on the beach at Khao Lak.
It is painfully easy to have 20/20 vision with hindsight. And when it is a matter of human danger and distress, then help or news always seem to come too late.
Even so, the handling at this end of the Asian catastrophe gives the Ministry of Foreign Affairs serious cause for reflection. The spontaneous criticism from those returning from Thailand has been savage - no mere sarcastic remarks, but heartfelt comments welling up out of their recent experiences.
It is hard to shrug off the image of a stiff, Czarist-era administrative machinery: empathy, an urge to serve, and a grasp of the moment and the situation do not seem to sit easily with this concept.
The Foreign Minister was obliged to admit publicly that the crisis hotlines failed those who needed them when they needed them most. The shortage of telephone connections is an explanation that one would never have believed anyone in Finland could give voice to. Was this, then, the promised land of telecommunications?
From the beaches of Asia began a torment that will continue to rack us for weeks, perhaps months.
The only consolation is that the hand of human evil does not lie behind all this. This was not the work of Beslan gunmen, or of Osama bin Laden, nor is there even room for the conspiracy theories that still circulate around the loss of the Estonia ten years ago.
This was just nature, red in tooth and claw, and beside it humans are, in the final analysis, rather small creatures.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.12.2004
The author is head of the Helsingin Sanomat Home News desk.
ANTERO MUKKA / Helsingin Sanomat
antero.mukka@hs.fi
