As Finnish Independence Day comes and goes the city is ablaze with Christmas lights Finnish style. Which means, more reminiscent of a traditional country Christmas than the neon lights seen in most capitals and cities of importance. For the record, I love and embrace both (much more than the concept of snow beyond Epiphany). 

The city is – or was – also ablaze with protestors who have to make their alliances heard. On the one side there is the hardened right, fiercely proud of its country and the fictionalized ideal(s) it represents, no doubt perpetuated by the repeated bouts of viewing The Unknown Soldier year after year in a stupor fueled by Cousin Pekka’s incredible moonshine, more commonly known as kilju. Yet another reminder of the fact that while US culture is vilified, it nevertheless doesn’t stop the vast numbers of fierce patriots in Finland voicing their disgust at “Yankee Stupidity” while chewing a gum brand of the same name but spelled phonetically to ensure everyone gets it. All while also expressing their disgust at “my brother’s neighbor’s ex-wife’s girlfriend’s second cousin thrice removed being asked in ‘Yankeeland’ about whether we have polar bears walking down the street or as pets.”

On the other side we have the self-declared righteous who stand up for “the oppressed” all while spewing messages of hate against the usual suspects, doing precisely that of which they accuse the(ir) enemy. 

Both sides decided to go head to head, fighting for their ideal(s), spouting off slogans at the Helsinki Library, named Oodi, presumably (also) as a nod to EU funding, though it was touted as a “present for the people of the city by the city to commemorate 100 years of Finland.” The present came one full year later, but no big deal was made of this fact, again presumably mirroring that Finnish mantra of “if we ignore it, it will go away and if we then repeat the version we want to put out often enough, that’s the narrative that will stay.”

I decided to go for a bomb sushi and keep it in the family, then kick back with a Disney movie that had nothing to do whatsoever with anything even remotely Finnish. Though when I reached for my phone to check on something completely unrelated, reality hit pretty quickly. Next to the congratulatory messages of Finns and token “immigrants” were the accounts of a much harsher reality, the testimonies of constant rejection due to nationality, skin color or (perceived) religion. The personal tragedies perpetuated by the very Finns many foreigners trusted, and the by now all too familiar accounts of microaggressions accompanied by the customary gaslighting and “encouraging” words that are as helpful as a quickly muttered / scribbled “thoughts and prayers.”

I wanted to post something positive, I really did, but then reality always gets in the way. And when you are put on a course that is meant to “help you gain some perspective on how you can find (better) employment here” only to be made co-facilitator with the words “I wish I could pay you for that” and everyone commenting on how good you are, while even the facilitator who made you his unpaid assistant wonders “why you didn’t get a proper job” yet, you know there’s something going on beyond you being unqualified or shit at your job. More so because in every country outside of Finland you were sought after for the very skills Finns are trying to tell you are deficient. The statement someone made on the course “we are only here so the facilitator has a job” is the truest thing to come out of that course. 

Meanwhile at another event organized to “help immigrants find work” the idea is to “help you find out what you should or could be doing” the message is again along the lines of “how you can better yourself” i.e. keep trying,  “oh, and have you considered becoming an entrepreneur?” It is as ironic as all the people on the premise telling you to look for hidden jobs while they themselves are only there because of these very hidden jobs they keep mentioning without disclosing how to go about getting them (though everyone there having acquired Finnish citizenship and knowing a Finn who knew about their job long before they were announced should give you a pretty fair idea of how to go about getting said hidden jobs). The irony of their statements is either intentionally masked (much like the present to the citizen’s of the glorious city of Helsinki mentioned above) or wilfully ignored (and once again, the same library in the Finnish capital comes to mind). 

This was supposed to be about Independence Day and the spirit of Christmas, which aside from the lights everywhere (including people’s windows in some places) seems to manifest in a form that most clearly eludes the foreign mind. Perhaps, like everything else that is being hyped in this fiercely proud country, it is only accessible to the Finnish mind. A mind that can by virtue of its history in its own, oft cited, words “not conceive of a colonial mindset as we have never colonized but were always ourselves colonized.” A philosophy which all too conveniently glosses over what exactly happened to and with the indigenous souls a.k.a. the Sami people before those brave Nazi-swinging and national-anthem-singing perma-drunks that now revere Paavo Lappalainen and Suvi Suomalainen as though they were the hail bringers of the second coming of Christ.