Finland acting like a colonial power

By Antti Tuuri
     
      In the summer much was written and spoken about whether or not Finland is at war in Afghanistan. The official stand seemed to be that Finland is not at war - it is securing peace.
      Nevertheless, Finnish soldiers are carrying weapons and wearing military gear in Afghanistan. They are shot at, and they return fire. It certainly sounds like war. It comes to mind, how we spoke about the Winter War for decades, even though the Soviet Union did not consider it a war at all. In their history writing the war was referred to as a conflict in the Leningrad region. Perhaps official Soviet history writing said that the conflict in the Leningrad region secured peace.
     
Also interesting is the present phase of Finnish industry, which representatives of industry refer to as internationalisation. The forest industry is closing factories in Finland, acquiring big land holdings in South America, and planting eucalyptus trees, ignoring the objections of the local people.
      Finnish companies are building factories in developing countries, where wages are a fraction of what are paid in Finland.
      This kind of thing used to be referred to as colonial policy. Then, as now, it involved the acquisition of vast holdings of land, keeping in power politicians who are willing to cooperate by financing their activities, promoting favourable legislation, and making reference to the legislation if any objections are made.
     
In Finland laws were passed to limit the right of forest companies to buy excessively large holdings of laand, because it was clearly seen that they would distort ownership relations, and give the companies power in matters in which they should not have power.
      There are no such laws in the developing countries, and nobody in our forest companies seem to understand history well enough that they could imagine why laws restricting forest ownership were drawn up in Finland long ago.
      At the time when colonies were divided up, Finland was a part of Russia, and even after that we never owned colonies in distant continents. We never extracted our well-being from there while raping nature and crushing human rights, even killing people, which is what was done by many other European countries, whose colonialism people in Finland have grown accustomed to frowning upon.
      Now even the Finnish state, as a major owner of companies operating in developing countries, is organising election funding for politicians, and even using the forces of a developing country against the country’s own citizens in order to safeguard its property.
     
We could start to talk about issues with their real names: Finland is at war alongside NATO forces in Afghanistan, and in developing countries, Finland is involved in industrial activities in which the natural resources of a colony are exploited, nature damaged, supportive leaders are kept in power, and the people are kept under control with the help of machine guns.
      Finland is a colonial power at war.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.9.2009
     
The writer is an author and a columnist.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Forest money is flowing away from Finland (21.8.2009)
  Friends of the Earth accuses Stora Enso of buying political influence in Brazil (22.8.2008)
  Stora Enso to close more mills in Finland (19.8.2009)
  Stora Enso plans massive new pulp mill investment - in Uruguay (19.5.2009)
  Stora Enso to investigate land use dispute over tree plantations in China (28.4.2009)