Coffee with Erkko

What was Minister Aatos Erkko like as a 10-year-old? And what are his views on the great Nightwish sacking controversy? Or on being rich? Nothing for it but to ask the man himself.

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By Anu Silfverberg
     
      Minister* Aatos Erkko, the principal owner of the SanomaWSOY Group, Helsingin Sanomat's parent company, receives guests at his private office in Erottajankatu.
      The Minister is wearing a red checked shirt and a tie with little fish designs on it. At the end of the room is a scale-model of a four-masted sailing vessel in a glass case. Coffee and cups are set out on the table.
      Erkko pushes across the milk.
      Can we start?
      Yes, certainly, but first Erkko sets his one condition for the interview: "You should use the sinä-form* with me!"
      Oh. Right you are, then.
     
     
Aatos Erkko, can one trust the printed word?
      You can't trust anything.
     
If you had to choose one of these, which would you pick: liberty, equality, or fraternity?
      Personally, I think that's a pretty unreasonable question.
      Hmph. We in Finland are so spoilt that [the concept of] liberty has become more remote, although it is extraordinarily central... But I still wouldn't like to run down equality.
     
And what is equality?
      Not building fences between people.
     
What do you think of the campaigns of the Presidential candidates?
      From the viewpoint of democracy, it is essential that there is campaigning. But the way I see it is that the behaviour of the candidates reflects more on forthcoming Parliamentary elections.
      The Finns imagine that the President is important... the approach here is to think of the President in terms of someone who can bypass the entire system. This sort of thinking dates back to something like the time of Gustav III of Sweden [1746-92], but the careful reader will note that the powers of the President have changed during the Independence era, and they are a good deal more lightweight today than they were.
     
Have you ever been asked to run for President?
      [Forcefully] No!
     
Sauli Niinistö advertises himself as "a President of the workers". Is Niinistö a worker?
      No. I have a rather different vision of what constitutes a worker.
      Then again, I have never seen this distinction between white-collar and blue-collar labour. In the old days, when there were street cleaners - you don't have them anymore - I always used to think that a good street-cleaner is a professional I can look up to.
      I'm no great admirer of Prince Charles, but the other day when he was interviewed on CBS, he commented how worried he was at the way technology has overrun people. I have exactly the same view; technology should be simply a tool [and not the master]. I try to be a humanist to the last.
     
It is said you have very cordial links to the Swedish Royal Court. Could you tell us when Princess Victoria might be getting married?
      In the first place, my contacts there are not THAT close. I am not privy to any insider information. I could imagine it will happen fairly soon, although that is not based on anything but a hunch.
     
Describe the Swedes in three words.
      Three words... that's another completely unreasonable one. "Wealthy". Maybe "self-centred". "In crisis", right now.
     
People are forever slagging off America. Give us a few words of praise for the U.S. of A.
      You can find just about anything under the sun in a big place like that. There are university cities that have the most incredible libraries and brilliant brains, and then again there are the opposites that are beneath all criticism. We in Finland do not grasp what a vast mill the place is, what with people flowing in all the time from different cultures, with different educational backgrounds.
      I have often said that I have so many good and old friends in America that it seems a shame when so many stupid things get done there.
     
The Nyt weekly supplement turns ten years this week. What were you like as a ten-year-old?
      Impossible. But if we are honest, it was wartime then, and everybody had to behave to some extent. I have only a very few memories of being ten years old. I used to read newspapers a lot and I followed what was going on in the world, nearly as much as I did in later life.
     
Were the youth of that time better than now?
      Better? No. The times and the habits have changed. Youth today is regarded as more hip. But you saw the same results then as you do now.
     
What do you think of the fact that young people put up stickers and posters around town, for example on electricity distribution boxes?
      It doesn't really bother me. If their sense of beauty requires such things, then what am I to say - except I tend to have a slightly different view of  the matter.
     
What about the fact that it seems that so many young people have an urge to become a celebrity?
      Well, that's the media's fault of course.
      The media surrender themselves to cheap tricks all the time, and the celeb world is all about that. On the other hand, there are a whole host of people who could be celebrities, but refuse the invitation.
     
Do you follow Idols on TV?
      Nope. I'm not an awfully good TV viewer, when the supply of programmes is so dull. I watch documentaries and some of the foreign channels to some extent. I suppose I might be a mite overcritical in the way I follow the media.
     
What was the last film you went to see?
      I don't remember. It's been a while. There was a time when I used to fly a lot, and then I'd see a lot of films on planes, but I never wore the headphones, I just watched without the sound. If it's a good enough film, it can be enjoyable even in silence.
     
How do you manage your relations with friends?
      Badly. I've always been badly off for friends.
     
Why is that?
      I'm something of a hermit by nature. And certainly too critical - always looking for faults. They are the first thing I look for in the paper, too.
     
How many did you find this morning?
      Not telling, heh-heh.
     
When was the last time you got angry, and why?
      It's such a long time ago, I don't remember.
     
What was the last thing you apologised for?
      I guess it was probably my own behaviour, which is what I should be most critical about, and which requires me to apologise.
     
Why do Finns drink so much?
      I don't know. I've personally used this word "Calvinist" more than a few times, and I suppose it would be quite unreasonable to claim that Calvinists are drunks. And you have to remember that Finns these days drink less, and more intelligently, than they did a century ago. They used to say in those days that on pay-day the ditches were filled with passed-out people.
      I'm sure that Finnish drinking is connected with a sense of insecurity and uncertainty. And maybe the climate - but there again, why should people feel a urge to drink at Midsummer? For myself, I've never been a very enthusiastic drinker.
     
Well, then you have something in common with Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
      Oh? Why's that?
     
He's a teetotaller, an absolutist.
      No, no, I loathe absolutism! I'm no Calvinist. If a person cannot control some weakness of theirs by any other means than absolute abstinence, things are in a bad way. But, as far as I'm concerned everyone and anyone can do as they like, they can drink water if they want.
     
What is your relationship to God?
      Nothing that you could put down on paper.
     
Should Church and State be kept separate?
      Absolutely!
      Faith is a personal matter for the individual, and the state has no business getting involved in that. This is something that the Young Finns Party stood for in their time [at the begining of the 20th century] when the party was founded. And the Social Democrats, too, pushed the separation issue at their Party Congress in Forssa in 1903 - but look where they've got themselves now. They have neglected and betrayed this commitment.
     
What was the last book you read?
      The election book about President Tarja Halonen.
     
What did you think of it?
      Very interesting. For instance the book reveals the personal problems she has had to face, for example when she has been looked down on as a woman.
     
Have you been following the Nightwish sacked-vocalist saga?
      A certain amount, yes, since I know some people from Kitee.
     
So, whose side are you on then, Tarja Turunen's side or the musicians in the band?
      I'm with the musicians. They clearly had a reason to act as they did, even if they perhaps carried it out rather clumsily. I'd have to admit that I have not really delved very deep into this one. Still, they are a very gifted and big-name band.
     
Do you have any of their albums?
      As a matter of fact, YES, I do. Back in April of this year I met Tuomas Holopainen's father in Kitee. He happens to be the Chairman of the Northern Karelia branch of the Federation of Finnish Enterprises.
     
If you were to start studying now, what subject would you choose?
      Wow, a luxury-class question. Maybe... archaeology. It's one of the finest research areas you can find, and it commands very little respect in Finland.
     
Just today, the taxation figures for 2004 were released. When was the first time you understood that you were rich?
      Hmmm. I haven't the foggiest idea. It's never been dinned into me like that, and it was never something that was given much weight at home, either. Money is, sad to say, something of an essential, but immoderation in that department is more of a question for the taxman than for yours truly.
      I am not a person to whom money has come in one big bang, as it were, and that I then deal it out with great gusto. My so-called wealth is based on the rise in value of stock and the like, and not on a pile of cash on the table that keeps growing higher.
     
What's the best thing money can buy?
      Security of course, up to a point.
      And I suppose these days I get a certain satisfaction out of selling my shares and having the money go to my foundation, which exists to use it for the good of Finnish life and culture. In that way it passes to better hands.
     
If you were getting only a state pension, could you manage on it?
      I'd have to.
     
You are a former journalist. What do you want to ask me?
      Should there be separate columns for young people in the newspapers?
     
Not if you ask me, no. Nyt, for instance, is read by people of all ages.
      There is a school in Orimattila, an upper secondary school, that carries my name, and I go up there sometimes. I was once chatting to four high-school kids there and I asked them if they read the Nyt supplement. One girl told me that every Friday when it came out, her grandmother grabbed it first, went over to her rocking-chair, and sat there giggling at it.
      People are worried about young people reading or not reading the papers, but I think it is important that folk don't immediately start booming like a fog-horn if a youngster doesn't read. Recently I have heard examples of how a kid who has graduated from high school has not been a very avid reader, but that after he left home he has started to read the paper much more actively, after he was given a subscription.
      The key thing is that there is a newspaper in the home, and not that it is foisted on people.
     
You are now retired. What is the high-point of your day?
      Hmph. The days these days are pretty dull, if you want my honest answer.
      What does a retired person do? I try to stay active and follow things as much as I can. I've got a number of different ailments, and I've tried to reduce them by looking after myself. These days now that I'm in a sense on the sidelines, as it were, I'm very sensitive to the fact that I should be able to discuss things with young people. I need to be kept inspired. I'm afraid to say it, but older people are really rather boring.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print in the Nyt weekly supplement, 4.11.2005
     
     
*Translator's note: The term "minister" may cause confusion to foreign readers. In this context it does not mean that Aatos Erkko is a present or former member of the government or even a Lutheran pastor, but refers to an honorary title that is conferred by the President of the Republic. The early reference to the "sinä-form" reflects the existence in Finnish (unlike modern English) of a so-called T-V distinction in the use of personal pronouns. The familiar, informal form that Erkko calls for is the 2nd person singular "sinä", while the 2nd person plural "te" is reserved increasingly for very formal contexts or younger people addressing their "elders and betters". As the article itself brings out, the interview coincides with the 10th anniversary of the first issue of Nyt, the newspaper's weekly supplement. It might also be noted for foreign readers that Aatos Erkko is not renowned for granting interviews; for a man of such obvious prominence and significance in Finnish life, he could in no sense be described as a celebrity.

More on this subject:
 WHO? Aatos Erkko

ANU SILFVERBERG / Helsingin Sanomat
nyt@hs.fi