Finnish News Recap, March (1st half): Scissors and Strikes Edition

PURRA’S SCISSORS: In a move that sparked controversy, Riikka Purra, along with other Finns Party politicians, posed with scissors. This seemingly innocuous act, often associated with austerity in Finnish discourse, was seen by some as a mockery of the impending cuts and the suffering they would cause.

Many of the cuts will affect the health care system. Finland’s newly established “well-being regions” (regions used for the organization of health care) have, one after another, announced a considerable amount of healthcare station closures, with some of the smaller hospitals also being on the firing line. In many regions, extensive networks covering vast amounts of rural areas are being pared down to locations only being open in central cities, with the rest of the region being served by centers in the more prominent (i.e., 20,000 or so people) regional towns, central city suburbs, and, eh, “innovative solutions” for the rest of the municipalities.

The one thing not targeted for cuts in pensions – the Finns Party might not be as dependent on seniors for votes as the “old big” parties, but they also know that much of their middle-aged voter base will soon enough be on a pension. The one party daring to suggest such a thing is the Greens, whose latest proposal to pare the pensions down in some undefined way was shot down in flames. Whatever the case, it remains that the pension system, despite its insolvency, was not reformed in the 1990s (as in Sweden), which is one of the reasons why Swedish and Finnish budgets and debt situations differ.

UNION STRUGGLES CONTINUE: There is now a clear tendency in the air that various operators in Finnish society want the labor union clash to end. The Center Party, thus far relatively silent and useless in the opposition, has been bolstered by the comparatively successful showing in the presidential election and has now insistently demanded that the warring parties come to a compromise. Not being in the government or as connected from the hip to the unions as the left parties are, this is indeed something they can do more quickly than many other parties. The other opposition parties put up a vote of confidence in Employment Minister Arto Satonen, who survived easily.

The government offered the unions to “come to the negotiating table.” The unions, apparently warned in advance that this would have only included an opportunity to sign the proposed anti-union reforms as written, refused – and soon countered by issuing more walkouts. They’ve switched gears, moving from personal transit strikes, which have been directly visible in people’s lives, to industrial strikes, which have a more significant effect on the economy, already feeling the pangs of an oncoming recession (I have recently heard personally many stories about canceled projects and oncoming pre-firing negotiations).

Which, of course, is the intent; a strike is hardly worth much if it is felt nowhere. The economy has, after all, rarely been moved by Instagram influencers or vegan baristas deciding to go on a strike as a sector. There have been effects that the industrial strikes, including export industries and the transport sector, might affect the fuel supplies, but the unions have stated that this will not be the case. Recently, some signs have been evident that unions and the government might, after all, be willing to negotiate, but we’ll see.

LUTHERAN CHURCH AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE: The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland is by far the leading denomination in Finland and the closest there is to a “state church” (even if it no longer officially is one – most Finns still refer to it as “The Church”), has long been wracked by division between its liberal and conservative wings. This goes back decades – the original significant liberal cause was women in the priesthood (achieved in 1988); after that, the liberals have pushed for same-sex relationship acceptance, with the cause of the current moment being priests being able to bless same-sex relationships.

As far as I can see, the ELCF tacitly allows them to be blessed. At least the priests offering such blessings have not been punished, though this is still different from formalization. Now, ELFC, or its synod of bishops - has come up with a model that would allow “two views of marriage” to exist in parallel – i.e., that it’s between a man and a woman, and the one that it can also be between two men or two women, to coexist side by side, without much in the way of explanation on how this would, in practice, work in practice. The conservatives don’t like it since it’s an affirmation of same-sex marriage in principle; the liberals don’t like it since it still offers leeway for conservatives to operate. A typical ELCF compromise, in other words.

The most visible expression of conservative distaste is the country’s most famous conservative Christian, Päivi Räsänen, announcing she is considering quitting the ELCF. However, it is unclear what denomination she would join. There are many other Protestant alternatives, including “free churches” (non-denominational in American terms), Baptists, Adventists, and so on, as well as conservative Lutheran splinter denominations. There have recently been stories about newfound interest in Christianity among young men, so it is interesting to see how this trend might be affected.

IN OTHER NEWS, a rare female potential school shooter was arrested after publishing a manifesto with a bit of environmentalism and a lot of high school philosophy nihilism, Left Alliance leader Li Andersson is quitting party leadership in advance to run for European Parliament, and the new Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo) head is a Finns Party member.

Image: Fiskars scissors, classic Finnish design. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fiskars-scissors.jpg