EDITORIAL: Last time as hostess for the annual Palace reception

print this

President of the Republic Tarja Halonen hosted last Tuesday's Independence Day Gala Reception in the Presidential Palace for the 12th and final time, as Finland celebrated the 94th anniversary of becoming a sovereign nation.
      Interviewed shortly before the big occasion, Halonen repeatedly denied any sense of wistfulness about the matter: she simply did not have the time for such thoughts, she said.
      Then again, a good many of the couple of thousand guests who lined up to shake the head of state's hand may well have been feeling a twinge of melancholy.
      For some, the likelihood is that no invitation will be forthcoming next year, when the event is under new management.
     
The list of guests invited by the President - as opposed to those who are there through their position as MPs, ministers of state, members of the judiciary, clergy, and military, the diplomatic corps accredited in Helsinki, and so forth - is likely to undergo some changes.
      During her two terms as President, Halonen has shaped the annual reception in her own image, insofar as this has been humanly possible.
      There is a lot of organic food on the buffet tables, and the coffee served is naturally a Fair Trade blend.
     
Halonen's thumbprint is also to be seen in the guest-list itself.
      There are fewer invitees these days whose presence is based solely on their lofty social standing.
      Naturally the big names in the arts, science, and sport have been called, but in Halonen's dozen years the invitations have also gone out to many from the world of entertainment and popular culture.
      As well as those who find favour among the young, the list has also included appreciably more by way of younger guests than in past times. The average age has visibly gone down.
      A completely separate but important category are the representatives of NGOs and various minorities, who were present in particularly large numbers this year.
     
Halonen's choice of guests may also have had the effect that an ever-larger number of Finns can now have a sense that they are "represented at the party" through the presence of some activist from an organisation to which they happen to belong.
      In this respect, a greater proportion of what goes to make up Finland can be said to be celebrating independence than before.
      The annual event is no longer quite the private bash of a pampered elite.
     
Even the party themes have been the genuine Halonen article: equality and cooperation were in the spotlight in 2011.
      Halonen's values are also in evidence in the fact that she has not shied away from using the same dress - slightly modified for the occasion - to two receptions: recycling in practice.
      Those who have attended many times over the years and decades do say that during Halonen's time at the helm the atmosphere has become more relaxed and less embarrassingly starchy and pompous.
      In her choices, Halonen has demonstrated that there are many and various ways for the President to exercise values-based leadership.
     
The Independence Day Reception on December 6th once again pulled in a TV audience of more than two million viewers at home.
      From one year to the next, the gathering is among the most-watched and most-carefully-watched television programmes in the calendar.
      Talking points abound, both on the night and into the next day.
      More than two million people cannot be wrong, and hence there is no cause to consider shortening the television coverage of the event.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.12.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finland celebrates Independence Day (7.12.2011)

Links:
  President of the Republic of Finland: Independence Day Reception, 2011

Helsingin Sanomat