“Finland is what it has always been: a periphery to be taken away by the big ones, without knowledge and will for independence,” says Mauno Saari, our new Finnish columnist whom we introduce with great pleasure. Our Serbian readers will understand his point easily. On February 15th Serbia held its annual Statehood Day celebration. It was a sad occasion because everything Mr. Mauno Saari has written about Finland applies to Serbia also, and in full measure.
The independent state of Finland has never existed. And it doesn’t come with the current trend. I do not apologize for this perception, I want to justify it.
We were part of Sweden. The saying Sweden-Finland was a false invention. The part of Sweden, the eastern country, had been robbed and plundered, from which men and horses were taken to fight to secure the interests of the Swedish great power.
The Swedish army marched across Europe, smoking behind them. The kingdom could not afford to repatriate its large army. To keep things in order, the king gave his soldiers the right to booty. As is known, it agreed to this, slicing open the stomachs of the slain to find the gold coins it had swallowed.
Until there was a defeat, Pultava, the collapse and then the transfer of Finland to the Russian Empire. The best time in our history began. We became prosperous, got “independence” and rights, which finally made the emperor nervous. Other Russian provinces became jealous.
Revolution and Lenin, Finland’s “independence”. As Juhani Suomi documents in his work “Lastu laineilla”, the politics of Finland in the 1920s was anything but the activities of an independent state. All essential decisions were circulated through London or Paris, not forgetting Berlin.
K. J. Ståhlberg copied for us an excellent constitution. He was not wanted to continue as president. In wars we allied with Germany, always. We lost. After which Paasikivi and Kekkonen created the illusion of an independent country. I admire them to no end. We couldn’t have gotten anything bigger than that: “independence” under the protection of the Soviet Union, prosperity, an extravagant standard of living, peace, a world reputation as a country of reconciliation and diplomacy.
Koivisto already gave up. We allied ourselves with the worst idea of the millennium, the European Union. Own money, own foreign policy, own politics were handed over. Great men were not born. An illusion was tried to be maintained without grounds. After which the shout started: “Finland belongs to the west!”
Is not part of. We do not belong to the “West”. Think about the world of values of the “West”, starting from the destruction of the indigenous peoples to the endless and terrible imperialism. What do we, the people of the East, have to do with that?
We would belong to the East, to the Russian family of nations, if our false and idiotic pride, the lie that the elite stuck in our heads were not an obstacle.
What a shame would that be? Not shame but honest pride to acknowledge ourselves, our soul, our origin. The obstacle is illusion and the fact that we Finns are a mixed nation. Some of us are east, some are west. The cultural differences between eastern and western Finland testify to this.
Why can’t we understand who we are? I know the reason. The “Western” high standard of living has turned Finns into little Americans. It’s a wonder that this dream didn’t go away, even though we now know that our real standard of living, which rose until the 1980s, was largely built on our good relations with the East, and that “cutting all ties with Russia” (prime minister, later entertainment star Sanna Marin) was the most idiotic, stupid and destructive state leadership statement ever.
The independent, sovereign state of Finland has never existed. But we are a people, a nation, a group of people groping for themselves, whose elite longs for the West, firmly believing in its idea: genocide, hegemony.
P.S. Unfounded faith and trust in the European Union or NATO membership will not improve the situation or turn the development curve for the better. And the direction of development is not changed either by the information about the available seats at the big tables.
Finland is what it has always been: a periphery to be taken away by the big ones, without knowledge and will for independence.
Source: Naapuriseuran Sanomat
