Freedom Convoy in Finland, and its fallout

Canada’s Freedom Convoy protests against COVID restrictions and mandates have aroused attention around the world. Inspired by the Canadian events, Finland has now had a weekend of convoy protests in Helsinki, as well. I do not live in Helsinki, so I cannot confirm what it has been like “on the ground” personally, but based on what I have read online, the protests seem to have ended as a farce.

The Freedom Convoy Finland had three themes: end of all Covid restrictions, lowering the fuel prices by halving the fuel taxes (currently the highest in Europe) and the resignation of government. Now, I have spent much of the last half year arguing against the use of the Covid passport, and believe it is a good thing that the government has announced an end to restrictions generally. The Covid restrictions in Finland were, for the duration of January, more onerous than in the rest of Europe, even though in the general scheme of things Finland has been one of the less restrictive countries.

Since the government has already set a schedule for ending the Covid restrictions before the protest, though, the fuel price demand has attained more visibility than it would have otherwise. It is not a surprising theme. I do not own a car, but I still understand that the prices hurt people, particularly in the rural areas. On the other hand, halving the fuel tax would cause a budget shortfall of 1,5 billion euros, and the movement does not seem to have concrete suggestions on how to make up for that. Of course, social movements are not always exactly famous of their concrete budgetary planning, and that is not their responsibility anyway.

There has been a long-running element in the Finnish protest scene of trying to start movements based on foreign ones, both on the left and the right – in the latter case, there has been the “Finnish Maidan,” “Finnish Yellow Vests” and such. This effort has shared many of the same elements as the previous similar attempts, such as constant infighting, attempts to pull of movement coups, drunkenness, and in particular a sheer commitment to livestreaming absolutely everything.

This time, all these aspects seem to have reached a next level, with the protestors even conducting all their planning on completely open Telegram chats which were of course at once filled with trolls, and everything leaked live on Twitter and other social media, including attempts to struggle for the control of the leadership of the movement, such as it was. The convoys from various cities likewise communicated on completely open channels, which were, for a time, livestreamed on YouTube, allowing everyone to listen to these channels and even participate – which were, predictably, eventually overwhelmed by trolls shouting memes.

Considering this, it was an achievement to have at least 700-1000 people showing up and sort of a continuing protest going on. Protestors drove from all around Finland on Friday (mostly in ordinary cars and vans, apparently with a few trucks in there somewhere as well) and the general atmosphere of the protests themselves seems to be a combination of festive – people even set up a sauna - and hostile, with others attacking journalists and the police coming up to clear the blocked roads. Which is to say, it seems evident a fair number of protestors spent their time drinking, with the amount of drunkenness increasing towards evening. Of course, all par for a course for a typical Finnish weekend. Both on Friday and Saturday, the police eventually cleared up the road using force, along with scuffles and arrests.

The protest seems to have petered out on Sunday. If there’s any indication of the protest achieving anything beyond memes, it has basically caused some amount of furor and splintering in the general COVID-skeptic scene, which has recently seen a modicum of success in the recent regional election – where new nationalist/COVID-sceptic party Valta Kuuluu Kansalle, despite being established only some months ago and having essentially close to zero media attention, actually won some seats.

For this protest, though, the party’s leader claimed that the convoy was a false flag by the Great Reset forces and called his participating followers’ morons in truly Biblical vitriol. While he has since issued a more conciliatory video, it still is to be seen whether this situation will be resolved in some way. The general post-protest feeling, both among the protest organizers and among the general scene, seems to be one of failure, which could strengthen his position.

Meanwhile, in addition to livestream rubbernecking, basically various parts of Finnish Twitter going into a debate on whether it’s actually right to mock a protest this odd or whether it’s a case of self-defeating left-wing elitism – and also engaging in the “equal but opposite hypocrisies” battle over whether the right is hypocritical for having condemned Extinction Rebellion Finland for a street blockade earlier last year but not saying anything about the Freedom Convoy doing the same, or whether the left is hypocritical for attacking Freedom Convoy but not Extinction Rebellion.

It is true that many right-wing politicians who heaped much opprobrium against Extinction Rebellion have been more discreet in attacking the convoy, though this might simply indicate that, in the end, they consider Extinction Rebellion far more an actual organized force than this effort. However, it is also interesting how much more attention this protest got than a more organized one against COVID restrictions a few weeks before it, drawing thousands – in the sense that one might say all publicity is good publicity, there was an element of success.