During the present Ukrainian war, the Finnish society has been predictably firmly pro-Ukrainian and anti-Russian. Both the state and the civil society have found multiple ways to aid the Ukrainian war effort, and likewise expressions of anti-Russian agitation are, if not formally approved, at least given more leeway than previously. 90% of Finns continue to support giving lethal aid to Ukraine, even while the numbers are falling in numerous other European countries.
For some weeks, there’s been a debate over whether we’ve gone overboard, though. During this time, multiple public figures, including Sofi Oksanen, one of the most important current writers in the country, half-Estonian, known not only for gothy looks but also as a longtime active critic of Russia, announced that instead of spending money on traditional New Year’s fireworks, they’d shell out money on shells – in particular, Ukrainian shells with messages on them.
There’s a service, signmyrocket.com, that promises that they’ll write your personalized message on a shell that Ukrainians will fire on Russian troops. (Some have speculated they’re just using one shell that gets wiped clean and a new message written on it every time the service is used.)
Oksanen’s message was “Jaxuhalit”, a maddeningly stupid phrase that is hard to translate succinctly (literal translation would be like “I am giving you a hug for strength”, expect it’s obviously used sarcastically and also written in Finnish equivalent of “I can haz cheezburger?” style argot.) Martti J. Kari, a retired colonel best known from this lecture, sent a “Merry Christmas!” message, exclaiming this was on behalf of his grandfather, wounded in Winter War. MP Mikko Kärnä had already bought a signed rocket in October to dunk on a fellow politician from his party.
Anyway, all of this led to a column (link goes to a fairly readable Google-Translated version) in a major tabloid by music-columnist-turned-contrarian-liberal Oskari Onninen about how this sort of a thing shows that many Finns have entered into a strange state of mind where they treat the war as a game, engage in dehumanization etc. After the requisite accusations of serving Putin, it has led to a surprising amount of nuanced debate on whether this is really the case.
After some back and forth, Jussi Halla-aho, the most important nationalist politician in Finland, made his intervention. A little context about Halla-aho might be in order. He started his political career as a popular anti-immigration blogger, using his blog followers to form a faction that joined The Finns Party, back then only a minor inchoate populist party, in the early 00s and took it over, turning it into a right-wing nationalist party with immigration as its main issue. I’ve written more about this process here.
Now, Finnish nationalism has of course never been pro-Russian, but there has still been a certain amount of division on Finnish populist right on the question of Russian relations. After all, the Cold War era idea that neutrality serves Finland the best and Russia could offer trade opportunities if we ignore all the human rights guff and such continues to have adherents particularly in the older generations having grown up in that era, and pro-Russian narrative from the far-right movements in other European countries have also had some minor effect.
Halla-aho, however, does not share this view – indeed, beyond being anti-Russia, he can be counted as a genuine Ukrainophile, one of the few Western European politicians to speak Ukrainian. (His day job is a researcher of Church Slavonic, so it’s natural for him to know Slavic languages). He continues to be the chief intellectual force of the party, and whatever he says will surely have an impact on Finnish nationalist thinking. These days his main method of communication is Facebook.
Halla-aho’s Facebook post on this issue is worth quoting here in full, translated by me by running it through DeepL and doing some light editing:
The pious complaints by Helsingin Sanomat1 about the demonization of the Russians are as out of touch with reality as the recent outrage about suggestions that Ukrainians may have also committed war crimes, such as by executing surrendered soldiers.
The war was started and is sustained by Russia. The war will only end when enough Russian soldiers have been killed that it becomes politically or militarily impossible for the Russian regime to continue the war. Thus, killing Russian soldiers is a good thing, and the Ukrainians should be helped in killing them.
And that is, in fact, what we are doing. Why, exactly, does Helsingin Sanomat think that Finland is supplying Ukraine with lethal material?
We are thus unanimous in our view that the killing of Russians in this situation created by Russia is justified and necessary, regardless of whether the Russians being killed are on the front line of their own free will or as conscripts.
However, there exists a strong in-built inhibition in humans against killing other human beings. In normal times, this inhibition allows society to exist as we know it. In times of war, it is a hindrance. This inhibition is suppressed by stripping the enemy to be killed of his humanity, i.e., by demonizing him or describing him as a rat, cockroach or some other disgusting animal.
Corporal Rokka2 sums this up when asked what it feels like to shoot a human being: 'I don't know. I've only shot the enemy."
If killing Russian soldiers in this situation is right and necessary, then anything that contributes to their killing is also right and necessary. Demonization and the carnivalization of killing are right and necessary. If we consider Russian soldiers as dignified human beings and are NEVERTHELESS kill them, this will, I believe, have far more damaging consequences, both for the mental health of the Ukrainian soldiers and the Westerners who help them, and for the reconstruction of the normal society after the war.
Everything bad that is happening in this war is the result of Russia starting the war. If the war continues, the bad things will inevitably continue. The bad things will stop when the war stops, and since Russia cannot be convinced with words, the only way to stop the war is to kill Russians.
I bought one of the signed artillery shells from https://signmyrocket.com/. I urge all those who hate war and want peace to do the same.
Halla-aho’s statement carries extra significance since he is the chair of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, the highest official post his party carries now. In some other countries opposition parties might be shut out of parliamentary committee chairmanships as a matter of course, but in Finland they will be allotted posts according to their parliamentary strength, and since The Finns are the largest opposition party, they are entitled to this heavy committee and can nominate whomever they wish.
Of course, "we are too soft and nice and beating our enemies means we need to become hard and cruel (like the enemy!)" has been a part of the nationalist repertoire even before this war, though usually connected to narratives like "Us Finns (or Westerners in general) are too trusting and naive, we get exploited by lying fake asylum seekers and criminals and terrorists and foreign-aid-dependent dictators", precisely by politicians like Halla-aho.
There's a historical connection too. In the 1930s, the Finnish far-right explicitly repeated over and over again that Finns need to learn to hate Russians, writing books with titles like "The Only Way To Speak About A Russki Is While Grinding Your Teeth" and so-on. Such tendencies were effectively then pushed deep after losing two wars, but the idea of deliberately hardening your own supposedly soft constituency seems to be culturally inbuilt in various nations, so it perhaps only waited for an opportunity to get out again.
So in a way it's only too natural a narrative for him, especially now that he might find unexpected sympathy for harsh rhetoric even among liberals who would usually condemn him, "I do not usually share things by Halla-aho but this..." not being an unusual occurrence in Finnish liberal social media sphere. Strike while the iron is hot, and all that. Make this sort of rhetoric more acceptable on this topic, and there might be political benefits also later on.
Nevertheless, Halla-aho’s statement has been condemned by many other politicians, and even the party’s new leader refused to offer full support for his comments. Researchers have also engaged in debate over what all this means. One researcher, Jussi Jalonen, finds this evidence of war psychosis, noting that this sort of a blustering rhetoric will then lead to war fatigue as more moderate voices drop off.
Finland’s leading foreign policy voice Mika Aaltola has dismissed this view, though not offering any substantial criticism - just recounting the events of the war in his patrician tone, the same task that has made him so famous among Finns who find safety in stern experts among the global crises.
Of course, the most obvious point of criticism is that even if one thinks that war requires dehumanization of the enemy, Finland is not actually at war with Russia. There are no bombs falling here or soldiers desperately fighting in the freezing forests of Eastern Finland. Indeed, what annoys myself about the whole signmyrocket affair is that it almost allows chair-warring celebrities to pretend they’re fighting in the war, expect without actually having to get a frostbite while guard a snowy dark patch of a forest somewhere or risk getting a bullet in your throat.
Another obvious point is that even if Finland was at war, dehumanization of the enemy is still not actively beneficial, and might contribute, for example, to war crimes or attacks on civilian population in an occupying situation, not only deeply immoral and contravening international laws, but also hampering the war effort.
The Finnish Defence Forces, for instance, have dismissed the idea that dehumanization of the enemy would be required for shooting them, and that it would instead lead to bad order and discipline among one’s own troops.
Still, others claim that the whole thing is just being direct about what war entails, i.e., shooting and killing, and that the most important thing is supporting Ukraine whatever way there is, and if getting money to Ukraine involves this sort of a gimmick then so be it.
However one sees it, this war is probably not doing good things for the Finnish psyche, but hey, that’s in the eyes of the beholder. After all, there are factions in the Finnish extremely online right who have basically spent the whole war celebrating how the titanic clash with the ancient enemy is making the society more based. And if making Europe more “based” has ever been Russia's intention, as the narrative sometimes goes, well – mission accomplished!
Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash
Finland’s newspaper of record, which was one of the instances to comment negatively on the rocket-signers. Has been a frequent target for Halla-aho for his entire career.