Sep 22, 2008

2-week-interval input

It's been 2 weeks. I haven't really got anything to say. I've been working 6 days a week, sleeping 1 day a week, and I'm now writing my thesis in any spare time in between these other priorities. I've not noticed any new comical quirks about the Finns, and having been buried in American foreign politics here at the library all evening I'm not very much inclined to write about that either.

However, here are my two rather uninteresting news items from the past couple of weeks.

M and I are planning to go to Bosnia for the new year, which effectively means that we'll plan it, be on the verge of buying tickets and then something will come up to scupper the plans. We'll then probably end up in a crappy bar in Helsinki drinking crappy beer while listening to crappy music and paying far too much money for the pleasure.

Cultural event of the week in Helsinki at the moment is "Love and Anarchy" a film festival which throws up some quite interesting movies and a good change from the usual Hollywood flags-and-tears and happy ending stuff that is normally shoved down our throats. I think the last time I went to the cinema was last year during this same festival, and yesterday I went to watch an Israel movie called "Lemon Tree", starring a bunch of actors with Hebrew names, none of which I can remember right now. It's quite impressive that someone has managed to make a full leangth feature movie about a plot of lemon trees, but there you go. They managed it. And if you can find it somewhere, it's worth watching.

Thank you, and see you next time.

Sep 8, 2008

Evil : An Analysis

If there's one word I've grown tired of hearing recently, it's the word "evil". Every story about US relations with countries which don't agree with its point of view on how the world should run will feature the word "evil" at some point. It seems to have recently replaced "terrorism" as the main word to be bandied around. I don't think it's the frequency of its use as such that gets to me, but rather the feeling I have of it being a word that's more suited to playgrounds in schools and sci-fi movies which is used cheaply to get into voters' minds to instil fear and therefore support for the "evil" designs of the Bush administration on the world in general. A sort of easy linguistic propaganda, if you will. The "Axis of Evil" speech, for instance, put the word into the public conscience and suddenly, Iran, Iraq and North Korea were metamorphosed from troublesome states into cackling bad guys from horror movies.

Bush's declaration of war on terrorism after September 11th included a passage pledging that America's "responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." A bold statement indeed. Whereas this may seem a noble quest to those who really wish to believe it, what does it actually mean ? The declaration of war against evil came after three days of floundering desperately for a target for American civil rage. No one knew who really did it, and a response was needed. In order to launch a response, an enemy was needed. This new enemy was evil. The problem with evil is that it is such a vague concept, but this problem seems to be part of the solution for the Bush administration. If he was to declare war against Osama bin Laden, he would have had to come up with an entirely new war to invade Iraq. If he wanted to declare war against Islamic fundamentalism, that would put him in a difficult situation relative to Cuba, for example. Evil is a fabulous catch-all concept which can be applied to just about anything.

Bush's stand on evil is that it is "real, and it must be opposed". His views on Osama bin Laden are few and decisive - "The only thing I know certain about him is that he's evil. And I don't know what to believe about him, except that he wants to hurt Americans." Very clear. This would suggest that the definition of evil is wanting to hurt Americans. Unless such a line is some kind of political marketing gimmick. Besides, doesn't the death penalty, which Bush heartily endorsed as governor of Texas, hurt Americans ? Moreover, "I think there is one universal law, and that's terrorism is evil, and all of us must work to reject evil. Murder is evil, and we must reject murder." A more general assessment - killing people is evil. Once again, the millions killed in Iraq and Afghanistan were only "collateral damage" and therefore the acts in themselves were not evil. But wait - there's an explanation ! "None of us would ever wish the evil that has been done to our country, yet we have learned that out of evil can come great good." Aha. There's the explanation then.

"We don't share the point of view that evil is religious. We don't appreciate the fact that somebody has tried to hijack a religion in order to justify terror activities." It's great isn't it ? This is the same man who, not long after, claimed that "'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did." Terror is of course, much like evil, defined by the speaker. The majority of Iraqis may have been living in terror for several years but, well, it would appear that that's rather irrelevant. "The evil one who hides [Osama himself] thinks in ways that we can't possibly think in America -- so destructive, such a low regard for human life". I could go on and on.

But onto other things. The Republican running for senator in Illinois in 2004, Alan Keyes considered that terrorism and abortion were the "same evil". So we're now fighting a war against abortion as well ?

One thing that I've found vaguely amusing is that both of the Presidential candidates have been asked for their definitions of evil. Obama gave a general response including Darfur, American city streets, abusive parents, the fact that the act of confronting evil sometimes entails evil in itself, which could have been an oblique reference to the Iraq fiasco, once again. McCain gave a bold, Bushesque answer - Radical Islam, terrorists in Iraq, al-Qaeda, bin Laden (who McCain will apparently "follow to the gates of hell" in order to bring him to justice). Whereas Bush would probably agree with McCain's analysis, Obama's is probably closer to what Bush would himself want to say - a vague, indefinable concept which leaves the moral door open for attack just about anyone or anything.

But please Mr. Bush, for my sanity, can we just drop the word "evil" and actually point out what we're aiming at here ? It would make life a lot easier for the both of us. Thanks.

Life IS Hard

On Friday, something interesting happened in Helsinki ! Around Töölönlahti, one of many lakes dotted around the city (which is not much of a city at all outside the centre, more of a collection of suburbs dotted around with forests, parks and lakes, which would be very pleasant if the architecture wasn't so reminiscent of the Soviet era) a massive crowd gathered for the all-Finland firework display contest. In it, five teams competed to launch massive amounts of money into the air in a show of noise and light that was impressive to even the most cynical viewer. London's firework display to announce the arrival of 2008, for instance, cost £1,3million. That half hour of light and noise in one city (and it can be safely assumed that the major cities of most of the world's countries have at least 2 large-scale displays a year - for new year and for the national day) cost the same as a year of anti-retroviral drugs for over 6000 people. Multiply this by the amount of countries in the world and the amount of cities in those countries which would have fireworks displays and you start to get an idea of how much money is fired into the air which could be put to slightly better use - third world debt relief, AIDS and malaria treatment and so on. It's unfair to pin the blame squarely on fireworks though, and the profligacy of authorities the world over can be pointed at. But I digress.

As in most cases of something happening in this city, the majority of the city swooped on the park, vodka and beer bottles in hands. Those looking upwards could see fireworks, and those looking in any other direction could see kids getting drunk not actually looking at the fireworks. I remember being drunk in my final years of school during fireworks displays and even though I was slightly underage by a year or two like these wasters, I didn't turn my eyes away from the pyrotechnics. This is when, aged 25, I lament the youth of today and how they don't appreciate anything. Actually this may have something to do with (and prepare yourself for another psychoanalysis of the Finnish population here) the state of things I came to realise quite early here.

Alcohol abuse by kids around here is explained away by M as a reflection that it's "difficult growing up in Finland". I've never grown up here so I can't really comment from an objective point of view. It does seem like quite a bold statement though. On first view, the Finns are a tough, resilient bunch - they live in a country whose climate is fairly harsh, to say the least, have come through 40 years of forced friendship with the Soviet Union and a large economic depression in the 1990s. They are, on the whole, people who like to live at one with nature. The majority can sort themselves out very well in terms of survival skills out in the elements and all men above the age of 18 go on between 6 and 12 months of what seems to be a quite rigorous stint of military service. However, for some reason, the national sport here is complaining about absolutely everything that doesn't work perfectly. Something that the average resident of a relatively dysfunctional country like Belgium would shrug off with an "ah well, shit happens" is treated as a large (and possibly distressing) inconvenience here. It is a country where social security throws money at absolutely everyone. I get 480€ a month of absolutely free money just for being a student here - kids start getting this in high school and just about anyone is eligible for free money of some sort - including the large population of alcoholics and those who just can't be bothered to work (one man I shared a hospital room with claimed to have not done any work for 15 years because he didn't like working - he had been supported by the state every step of the way. They were also paying entirely for his operation whereas I had to shell out for mine). I have never been perplexed at peoples' distress as much as I have here where people have a tendency to have a total nervous breakdown over something very trivial. Consequently, I'd hazard a guess that if kids growing up in this situation don't have entertainment and money right on their doorsteps, they'll just go and drink and smoke with other kids. Where they get the money to buy cider and cigarettes, I would imagine, is quite obvious. Life is hard indeed - I'm sure the children of Angola and Afghanistan are thanking their lucky stars that they were born in their respective social paradises !

This situation of excessive teenage angst leads to a bifurcation of the population of Helsinki, for example - half of it will hit the bottle, live on the number 6 and 8 trams and get battered every day on cheap vodka, berating passers-by and falling asleep in bus stops by mid-morning. Others will kick the habit, get jobs, and complain about how things don't run quite as well as they should. Before I moved over here, my ex described Finland as a country where "when a bus is 2 minutes late, the president hears about it". I laughed at the notion then but I'm getting more and more convinced of the reality of it.