Greetings, reader!
Well, since tomorrow is Finnish Independence Day, I figured I would be a patriot and list some of the greatest accomplishments of our current government. As a proud Finn who cares deeply about his home country, it has been fascinating and downright consuming to follow what all the government headed by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has been up to ever since the 2023 Parliamentary Elections. After careful considerations, these are my favorites!
Honorable mentions: Adding a fun visual outlook for the government's policies with Secretary Purra's giant-scissors photo-op; Boldly challenging institutions like "international human rights agreements" with the new border laws; Kokoomus steadfastly forming the coalition with the Perussuomalaiset despite the haters saying it would "show a green light to openly racist rhetoric"; Showing loyalty to our newfound NATO membership by literally cutting all funding to Finnish peace work; Party members of the coalition government literally promising to attend a Nazi rally on Independence Day in case anyone missed the more subtle indicators.
10. Bringing representation to marginalized groups (like neo-nazis)
In today's society, there are many groups who have a hard time getting their voices heard - for example, every time a nazi sympathizer voices their views on media, journalists and activists harass them by pointing out that nazi-sympathizing rhetoric is offensive and dangerous and evil. I'd imagine it can't be easy to be a vocal proponent of neo-nazi views in today's society, as you might quickly lose any friends and supporters who are into views like critical thinking or human rights.
However, Petteri Orpo's government decided to step up for this particular minority and give them a megaphone! It's inspiring, really - for any kids out there who were raised by racist parents, who might be afraid of being cancelled because "you can't say anything anymore", this government has proved that you actually can say whatever you want - even people who repeatedly and unapologetically use racial slurs and violence-inciting language can rise to be cabinet secretaries!
Also, I cannot discuss representation in this context without bringing up Orpo's beautiful story - it takes some serious overcoming of obstacles to become the first-ever human born without a spine to serve as Prime Minister.
9. Bravely defending the peat industry
In Finland, we have beautiful nature that we're very proud of (so much so that nearly 13 per cent of us even vote accordingly). One of the many riches found in our nature is the peat found in our soils, and the industry that harvests that has been somewhat controversial.
With various natural protection organizations and experts warning that expanding the current peat industry further will eventually lead to entire ecosystems being destroyed, countless species becoming extinct and gravely contributing to how quickly we run out of fresh water, a more persuadable government might have listened and made some changes to their plan. But not the iron nerves of Orpo and company - they stood by the peat industry, championing their expansion with full funding and support. You rarely see such conviction in today's politics!
8. Their amazing commitment to party lines
Anyone who has ever seen a Fast & Furious movie will know that loyalty counts for a lot. Not that that's the best comparison - the gang in F&F are criminals who pull off car-related heists, whereas the criminals in Orpo's government don't use cars when emptying our pockets. Anyhow, I'm getting sidetracked here - the point was about loyalty.
Loyalty to party above all else is a deep-rooted institution in the political history of many countries (and also several cults), and that is one thing Orpo's government holds dear. For example, I used to see Orpo's party Kokoomus as a semi-diverse party of various individuals, some of whom have views against racism (source: they occasionally say the words "I am against racism"). However, when the left-leaning opposition called a vote of no confidence into two cabinet secretaries on the grounds that their extremely racist rhetoric sends a dangerous message of unsafety to our immigrant population, Kokoomus showed where their loyalty lies - in a moment of self-sacrificing any reputation of being against racism that any of Kokoomus' parliament members may have gained over the years, every single one of them voted for confidence in the guy who has referred to Arabs as "stupid sand n*****s" multiple times and the woman who has written fantasties of violence against migrant families online under her own name as cabinet secretaries.
So, yes, party loyalty is everything, even when the party's line is to be very much on the side of racism in the fight against racism.
7. Courageously standing up for ideas like accessiblity
Wait, what's that? Oh, excuse me, there was a typo in my notes - the subtitle was supposed to say "courageously standing up to ideas like accessibility", not "for".
Indeed - Finnish society has made some major strives towards accessibility in the past few decades, although a lot of work remains to be done. However, Prime Minister Orpo and his ever-vigilant government seem keen on keeping this progress in check, making sure that we don't make things too equal too fast for disadvantaged groups.
Kehitysvammaliitto, an association that works for the benefit of people with intellectual disabilities, has had a government funding of 315 thousand euros a year for producing easy-to-read materials. In a classy right-wing move of motivating everyone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Orpo's government tried to give a spirited challenge to the disabled community by deciding to slash this funding to a zero as of next year. That'll show 'em!
6. Bringing Jesus back into politics
I've been highlighting the accomplishments of Kokoomus and Perussuomalaiset, the two biggest parties as of the 2023 election, so far in this text. But let's not forget that the coalition government also has smaller parties in its support system, such as the Christian Democrats! Having read the Bible from cover to cover, it's nice to know that there's a faction of our government keeping the wisdom of that book in mind while writing policy.
Well, except for the parts such as "They sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need" (Acts 2:45), or "On hearing this, Jesus said to them: It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners" (Mark 2:17), or "Do not say, ' why were the old days better than these', for it is not wise to ask such questions" (Ecclesiastes 7:10). I guess the Christian Democrats forgot to read those parts.
In my defense, I admit that I cherry-picked just a few carefully selected parts from the Bible to fit my agenda. Would be a real fucking shame if that's something that our people in power did when deciding how much funding gay conversion therapy deserves.
5. Inventing a fascinating new approach to immigration
Immigration, as we all know, has been a hot-button issue in politics forever. It's a classic he-said-she-said: those on the right claim that they'd be all for immigration as long as it's done responsibly and that the left wants open borders and chaos, whereas those on the left claim that immigration is good for our society and they always have the plans and numbers to back up how to do it responsibly via prioritizing a comprehensive integration system - who's to say who is wrong and who is right?
Anyways, it's always a hassle, with the anti-immigration parties always claiming that they'd be all for more immigration if only there were a way to increase it without the negative side effects of failed integration, and the left always reaching out by saying that they have realistic plans on making the current integration system better. However, Orpo's government has come up with their own, truly unique form: by cutting a whole bunch of money from the current integration system, all the problems relating to immigration will become more prominent and they'll have a reasoning for the more Trump-coded immigration policy that the Perussuomalaiset are proposing, and the opposition can't whine about how we could take in more immigrants, as they won't have any proof that their plan would work, because the integration services will have no money! Absolutely genius 4-D chess moves right there.
4. Solving the student housing problem
Here's another one where the out-of-the-box genius of Orpo's government, and Minister of Finance Riikka Purra in particular, is just mind-blowing. For a long time, university students such as myself have been demonized by right-wing politicians, and rightfully so - the student benefits used to be so high, that they were actually (barely) enough for students to pay their rent so that they could focus on their studies instead of taking a job. This socialist utopia was defended by facts like "The current system requires a student to do the average of 60 credits per year, and as one credit is the equivalent of 27 hours of work, and assuming that the student has the luxury of taking the weekends off as well as those months of the summer when student benefits aren't received, this would total to an average of over 10 hours of work per day". So, yeah, us youths are so lazy that we haven't even bothered to take another full-time job on top of the actual full-time job we already have!
Well, thankfully, Orpo's government is changing all of that.
However, the true genius of their cuts to housing benefits lies in a peculiar loophole. When Minister Purra defends the reasons for her cuts, she always makes it sound like a student struggling for money to live can always just take a part-time job, few hours a week, on top of their studies, in order to make ends meet. But in truth, as she well knows, it's not that simple - if you start making just a couple hundred extra per month, just enough to pay rent when the benefits aren't enough, our national treasure Kela chimes in with "Hey, looks like you're making money, we better cut the flow of those student benefits!" - and suddenly those two hundred per month from the job are the student’s only revenue, which naturally won't be enough to pay rent, so they have to take more shifts until they have a full-time job, therefore interfering with their studies! As a means of discouraging young people from studying higher education and rather going straight into the labor market, this plan is sure to be damn efficient, and I'm sure we'll have quite the generation of hive-mind wage slaves in the next few years after these cuts are implemented.
3. Heroically prioritizing homophobia over humanitarian aid
Ville Tavio, our Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, takes center stage in this one. Some months ago, Tavio announced that Finland would not be joining an international coalition centered on the rebuilding of Ukraine. One would think that getting behind the Ukrainian cause in light of Putin's war would be a cause that internationally respected countries such as Finland could get behind in harmony, but as Tavio pointed out, it's not that simple - as a reasoning for the decision to pull out of the alliance, he pointed to a section about LGBTQ+ rights in the agreement.
For those wondering what LGBTQ+ rights have to do with Ukraine, well, in a nutshell, war always affects various minorities to a disproportionate degree, so giving some special attention to them is considered an important part of the rebuilding of a post-war society, and Ukraine itself had asked for the inclusion of this in the agreement. However, this was too much for Tavio, and you can see his logic - two rights always make a wrong, as the saying goes! That's how the saying goes, right? Because otherwise there wouldn't be much sense in pulling out of a morally compelling alliance, for the reason that it includes the morally compelling addition of also looking out for the LGBTQ+ community in Ukraine? Maybe it’s a ’too much of a good thing’ thing? It’s gotta be that, because otherwise it would look like our foreign relations are being dictated by a massive homophobe…
2. Saving Finland's economy from those pesky welfare state elements
Finland, despite all its problems, has been successful for multiple decades in different metrics and studies where the happiness and well-being of citizens in different countries are measured. This is largely thanks to the socialist-democratic welfare state system that has dominated the Finnish society since the 70’s, enabling universal healthcare, a social security network that tries its best to look out for everyone and not just those born into money, and one of the world’s most acclaimed education systems.
But, wait - socialism? That’s bad, right? That’s who we fought in the Cold War! We can’t have that!
And that’s where Orpo’s government comes in. The inflation caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine (or, if you get you news from Fox, caused by Hunter Biden’s laptop) has affected Finland like many other countries, and in order to save our economy, Petteri Orpo’s government has made it clear that everyone and everything must participate in our cutting-fest. Well, not everyone - we can’t have them cutting from gay conversion therapy, or weaponry sent to Israel, or the various industries making the best out of our beautiful Finnish nature by destroying it. But everything else is on the line - by cutting from our education, our health care, and our benefits specifically designed to help those most in need, this visionary government is testing what happens to Finland when it is stripped of everything that makes it the country we know and love. An estimate of over 17 thousand minors will drop below the poverty line as a direct result of the government’s cuts, and the effects of these bold strokes will be fascinating to follow from the nearest homeless shelter.
Some have criticized these cuts as being ’cruel’ and ’unempathetic’, but as Orpo repeatedly says, these decisions have to be made. I reckon he’s right; I do recall seeing a government lead by a young female Prime Minister that got through the COVID pandemic and the first years of the Ukraine War and subsequent inflation, without cutting from those who have the least, and our economy and way of living wasn’t destroyed - but that must have been a dream. I’m sure if something like that could be done, our swell fellows in Orpo’s government would be working on it.
1. Bringing the American dream to Finland
As a half-American half-Finnish dual citizen interested in politics, I have an odd perspective on the politics of my two home countries. It’s especially fascinating whenever a phenomenon I’ve witnessed in one of my home countries occurs in the other one as well, which is bound to happen as politicians and national leaders often take inspiration from each other in this globalized world. As an American who followed the events of 2016 very closely, it has been abundantly clear how elements of Petteri Orpo’s government have taken inspiration from those movements, and that causes a great deal of excitement - I mean, America has often been referred to as the ’greatest country in the world’ (by various Americans, and they should know as they live in the greatest country in the world), and we’ve all seen the amount of calm, humane and reasonable politics that the events of 2016 lead to over there, so why not follow in those footsteps!
I must admire how closely the situations manage to mirror each other - Orpo and company have clearly been taking notes while learning all about the art of the deal from the very best. Basically, to dumb down the American side for Finnish readers who might not be caught up, we had a faction of the Republican Party known as ’moderate Republicans’, spearheaded by figures like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, who made it clear during the 2016 primaries that Donald Trump is dangerous and that they would never support him - this faction is comparable to the Kokoomus party, and how they made it clear before the 2023 parliamentary elections that the Perussuomalaiset are dangerous and this moderate right-wing party would never get behind racist rhetoric.
And to dumb it down for American readers who aren’t acquainted with the Finnish situation - just as happened with the Paul Ryan / Marco Rubio etc. faction of the GOP in 2016, our very own Kokoomus folded into a territory of new loyalties in an exactly similar manner - just like the ’moderate Republicans’ were suddenly okay with extremely racist populism when they bravely broke their promises in order to get Trump elected, the ’moderately right-wing’ Kokoomus leadership broke previous promises and made it clear how okay they are with extremely racist populism in order to form a coalition government with the Perussuomalaiset. Sure, they theoretically could’ve drawn the line at racism and therefore tried to form a coalition with any number of the other parties in Finland’s political landscape, but one must remember the disadvantages Kokoomus faced, with the tragedy of the party’s leader being born without a backbone. So, his hands were tied, and now the once-respected party has fully endorsed the wildly xenophobic and violent rhetoric of Finland’s own migrant-demonizing faction (the MAFA crowd, if you will).
Okay, that sounded a bit negative for the description on a list about the government’s greatest accomplishments. After all, tomorrow is our Independence Day, so maybe, as a true patriot, I should throw Orpo’s government a bone and admit that the last point may have been exaggerated. I will give them this: every time those pesky cabinet secretaries and MPs from the Perussuomalaiset party face a typical run-of-the-mill political scandal (such as using openly nazi-sympathizing language, using shocking racial slurs during parliament sessions, grooming minors, firing a gun in the streets after attempting to hit on minors at a bar, baselessly accusing immigrants of crimes they didn’t commit and contributing to the rise of hate crimes with this rhetoric, getting caught talking about how you’d love to gun down loud-mouthed immigrant families on the local train etc. (all of these examples are real)), Prime Minister Orpo always makes the point to go on national television and say the words: ”We have a zero tolerance for racism” and ”Our government program is good”. I mean, what more could he do? Actual consequences? Keep dreaming, hippies.
Anyways, I hope everyone (except for the neo-nazi protestors who will be doing their annual parade tomorrow and the government representatives who have made it clear to said neo-nazi protestors that they are on their side) has a good and safe Independence Day tomorrow!
Signed, a once-proud Finn.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week as I get back to my movie/TV themes, with a ranking of the top five things Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies did right, and top five they did wrong. See you then!
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