my native soil

I grew up in a country worldwide known for its efficient and prevalent bilingualism. My father comes from a home where everyone spoke Finnish, and my mother from a home where they spoke Swedish. Having Swedish speaking peers my father learned also his second language at an early age. Fate had it so, that the village where my parents chose to raise their children made both me and my brother Swedish speaking: this was nothing we ourselves had chosen. The truth is that I nowadays occasionally grieve the full bilingualism enormousely.

When I was a child it was however totally natural to me that my cousins ​​spoke Finnish, and me and my little brother... Swedish. I was proud to be from Finland. We lived in a beautiful and safe country, without war and strife. Since my name is of Finnish caracter it would sometimes happen that my Swedish-speaking classmates made fun of it. That is how unusual it was to have a Finnish name in the surroundings where I grew up. But I was still proud to be from Finland. Swedish or Finnish - did it even matter? As children we had other ways of making ourselves understood. Some class differences between language groups were not occuring in my home area in western Finland - we were all ordinary people, farmers, industry workers, carpenters or nurses. "The nobilities" we never caught sight of.

We Finns are, by nature, not a very cheerful people. One of our emigrated national saints, singer Arja Saijonmaa, recently commented in a radio interview: "A TRUE Finn NEVVVERRR laughs!" She also said that Finns carry a fury and passion that certainly needs to be expressed but - to remain healthy - in a controlled and constructive manner. "Therefore we need the Nordic companionship, the Scandinavians - to soften us up a bit!" she concluded.

Yesterday almost a fifth of the Finnish citizens decided to vote a xenophobic party into our country's government (at this point the coalition is not yet established). The most obvious agenda has been to abolish the education in Swedish language in our elementary- and secondary school, to welcome less refugees (this in comparison to a rate which is already unethically small) and to opt out from solidarity among the European countries. When it comes to art and culture the party has found it desirable for any artform to pay tribute to nationalistic values in order to receive sponsorship - if at all.

"We are not extremists," party leader Timo Soini says. "You can sleep peacefully".

No, I can not sleep peacefully. What worries me are not the 39 seats (of mandacy) True Finns acquired, but the fact that one in five Finns support a reckless party that wants to exclude us from the world, as well as severely restrict the civil rights of a substantial part of their own countrymen.

To some extent though, I can understand the support this party has received. Biologically, human beings find it difficult to include to their social context more than 100-150 individuals (animals per herd). Considering this genetic truth the globalization and global responsibility to many of us can appear as a truly scary thought. However, it is also a fact that a community which excludes a second influense usually obliterates itself, first of all. The world will manage just fine without our little strip of land on the map, but we can not do without the world.

A people with suicidal tendencies have begun to turn their aggression and inherited agony outwards. When we have reached our goal and excluded all imaginary enemies - will we feel better then or just invent new ones?

The sun is shining, it's a beautiful day outside - still my native soil has become dry and less fertile. Over night.

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