Finnish News Recap, week 22: Rammstein #metoo edition

NATO DEBATE POSTMORTEMS: Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s newspaper of note, published an article speculating on whether Finland would now be in the NATO if Kyiv had fallen in Feb 2022. It is admittedly a myopic way to look at things, since the takeover of the whole (or most) of Ukraine by Russia would have meant larger things for Ukraine and the whole Europe than merely Finland’s NATO membership being on the line, but that is how it goes here.

What’s notable about this article was that it, for once, contained some (muted) criticisms of by far the least criticized political figure in Finland – Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s President (currently touring South America). It is to be expected that Sauli, a wildly popular president – popular for never saying anything controversial and looking and sounding very presidential – would not get much in the way of criticism in any case. Even beyond that, though, there is a general feeling that criticizing this President is just not done.

Niinistö originates from the National Coalition party (as a President he cannot belong to any parties and has thus resigned from membership), and National Coalition has always been, out of the major political parties in Finland, the one most supportive of NATO membership. Many of his staunchest supporter had expected that he would bring Finland to NATO as soon as he was the President.

While the President cannot do it by himself, he still bears considerable influence. As such, it has always been a bit of a problem for that party that this didn’t happen, especially as many National Coalition activists had spent years before it basically portraying the preceding president Tarja Halonen, a strong left-winger, as a Russian puppet for *her* opposition to NATO and the perceived failure in advancing membership during her time, and had also chewed out the current Social Democratic PM Marin for the same thing.

As such, HS’s article also offered many a bit of headway for also acknowledging the president-shaped hole in the Finnish NATO debate postmortems, though it is also not surprising that the one thing that Sauli would get criticized for was the failure to assume the current societal pro-NATO consensus position back when the said consensus was 180 degrees the other way around.

Also in NATO news, US SecState Blinken visited Finland, not doing or saying anything particularly notable.

RAMMSTEIN GETS #METOOED: Wait, isn’t Rammstein a German band? What are they doing here? Well, Finland is famously a metal country, and Rammstein is hugely popular in Finland; they just gigged in Helsinki last week and drew a huge audience, including, among others, the right-wing populist leader Riikka Purra (seen here chatting amiably with black Green MP Fatim Diarra – proof that Finnish politics aren’t quite as acrimonious as they could be), with ex-President Tarja Halonen and her husband two rows back behind them.

As such, it’s been huge news here, with nigh-daily updates in newspapers, when, immediately after this gig, news came out that the band stands accused of getting women drunk and drugged for backstage sex. In addition to the band, accusations focus on a woman names Alena Makeeva who, according to claims, has scouted young women in advance in the shows, placing them on the “row zero” to ease the band’s access to them after the show.

Rock star groupies are not a new thing, of course, but drugging them is a whole another ball game. Till Lindemann, Rammstein’s forceful singer, has been accused of rape: “At least two women are reported to have had sex against their will with Lindemann, according to NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung based on conversations with dozens of people involved. “Rammstein regularly recruited young women, so Lindemann could have sex with them,” says NDR.”

There is more Finnish context beyond the band’s recent gig, as several Finnish newspapers have published stories about Finnish fans being invited backstage. However, at least insofar as I’ve noticed, the Finnish women in these stories do not accuse Lindemann of rape, just talk about an atmosphere of general creepiness surrounding the whole affair.

In general, as far as the original #metoo affected Finland, it mostly affected music circles; a very vocal expression was the #punkstoo movement, where several people active in the Finnish punk scenes talked about harassment and violence within those circles. There’s also some political cases going on; a National Coalition politician in Helsinki has also faced a rape accusation, and a Social Democratic party operator of grooming several young women.

IN OTHER NEWS, a somewhat dodgy company is planning a big hydrogen investment in Finland, the governmental talks plod on with a minor tiff about abortion and some walkouts, well-known composer Kaija Saariaho died, and a citizen’s initiative to ban conversion therapy will proceed to the Parliament.

Image sourc: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rammstein_performing_%22B%C3%BCck_dich%22_Live_in_London_24_February_2012.JPG