The Impuissance of Being Matti, or "What would Oscar have said?"
COMMENTARY
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By Jaakko Lyytinen
Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) tells the story of Algernon and Jack (a.k.a. Ernest), two fashionable young bachelors whose double lives and false identities become increasingly convoluted and impossible to sustain, and whose sense of reality blurs altogether as their pursuit of the lovely Cecily and Gwendolen lurches onwards.
As well as the characters in the piece, the audience itself gets well and truly deceived - at least the theatre-goer who thinks he knows what is going on, and doesn’t know that he only thinks he knows.
Finland’s recent election financing furore has followed a dramaturgical arc that would not be out of place in a Wildean comedy.
The Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen assures us of the sincerity of his actions night after night, until the following morning brings yet another embarrassing tidbit of new information on the links between the election financiers and the politicians.
Perhaps Oscar Wilde would be able to explain to us what exactly is going on.
Wilde was of course not merely a playwright of note, but also a merciless one-liner specialist from the top drawer, who left behind him a rich treasury of sarcastic truths and epigrams.
Mr. Wilde, Sir, how do you respond to the behaviour of the Members of Parliament in respect of these incomplete disclosures of campaign funding?
"I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability."
Do you think that Centre Party MP Timo Kalli recognised at the time what would be the consequences of his opening up like that?
“Questions are never indiscreet. Answers sometimes are.”
Well, what do you imagine Kalli might think now?
"On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure"
Were you surprised at the sheer scale of the support paid to candidates?
"Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess."
According to a survey commissioned by the Finnish Broadcasting Company, three out of four Finns are of the view that politicans’ opinions can be bought and sold with campaign money.
What is your personal take on the matter, Mr. Wilde?
“When I was young, I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.”
Yes, at least according to the poll, it is particularly the older members of the population who have taken a more negative view of the fuss than the young.
"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything."
So is it an indicator that the Finns are a cynical lot when more than half of the population claim that the whole campaign financing business has not shaken their confidence in politics?
"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."
Do you think, then, that we should just abstain from voting for these people as a matter of principle?
"I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world."
It has been claimed, Mr. Wilde, that the media is blowing up the election financing scandal out of all proportion and that the journalists have branded those upstanding businessmen who have donated funds as immoral shady crooks.
What is your view on the matter?
"Morality is simply the attitude that we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike."
What do you mean by that? Do you mean to say the journalists are just envious? But aren’t these colourful business types attempting to buy themselves acceptance by society?
"No man is rich enough to buy back his past."
Well, what is it then that these shopping-mall magnates want out of it?
“The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.”
That’s cynical of you, Mr. Wilde, very cynical. I mean us journalists have been reproaching ourselves nine ways from Sunday for the fact we left our job undone after the last election. What do you say to that?
"There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us."
So what, in your considered opinion, should the politicans do now?
"A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life."
Thank you.
Well, we can live in hope. But now back to the studio. This is Jaakko Lyytinen reporting from Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Paris.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.6.2008
JAAKKO LYYTINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jaakko.lyytinen@hs.fi
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| 3.6.2008 - THIS WEEK |
 The Impuissance of Being Matti, or "What would Oscar have said?" |
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