Independence, global warming and rohypnol shopping sprees

January 13 2008

Anyone who has spent time among the Finns will quickly notice how fiercely independent they appear to be. They even have a word, 'supisuomalaiset' that describes a person who is "Finnish to the core". I've yet to meet one who doesn't meet that description. This sense of hard-fought independence has been born out of the years beneath the yoke of Sweden and Russia, the long struggle for independence, and finally the grim winter wars, which they won.
So your first impression of Finland (perhaps after noticing how modern, efficient and well behaved the place seems to be) is how parochial and introverted it is. They trumpet the divine classical music of Sibelius, the wonderful architecture of Alva Alto and the bold prints of Marimekko as if each Finn earned a retainer from the tourist board.

Like predictions for last week's US primaries however, you can't always trust first impressions. For, while Finland might be fiercely independent, it is also outward looking too. A quick review of its printed media reveals that it can easily put our self-centred equivalents to shame. Maybe that is due to the fact that most Finns are at least tri-lingual. As well as Finnish (Suomi), each child must also learn Finnish-Swedish and English. It also might have to do with the fact that Finns are the most literate people in the world, routinely topping league tables for maths and literacy and scoring high in science and problem solving. It also might have to do with the size of Finland. It is roughly as large as Italy or Poland, but at five million has a population closer to that of Scotland. Whatever the reason, a greater emphasis is stressed on international news than many of its British counterparts. 

Finland has one national newspaper. The Helsingin Sanomat, a broadsheet, is read throughout. Politically it is slightly right of centre, pro-europe and strongly in support Finland's membership of Nato (well you would be with Russia as a neighbour). It has a daily circulation of 426,117 making it the largest newspaper in the Nordic region, but strangely, the front page is often given over to advertisements, with the leader on page two, effectively making page three the front page.

A quick scan of today's edition found that the biggest preoccupation was global warming. For the fifth winter in a row little snow has fallen on Helsinki, leading to fears that climate change is reaching this corner of Europe. The arrival of snow this week has been treated with relief and the feature pages point to how the white stuff has affected the rest of the globe.
The only Briton to make it to the pages was Jamie Oliver, whose campaign to improve the life of the UK's battery chickens received about half a page. More interesting, for me, was the report that according to a recent survey, the vast majority of Finns (66%) believe that the environment is the dominant factor in shaping a person's destiny, which is probably why they set such store in education.

The paper I found most interesting is the Turun Sanomat. Ostensibly this is a large regional paper, serving the area around the old capital of Turku, but its balance of local news and foreign affairs tells us much about the state of the Finnish media. Its 'front' page (like Helsingin Sanomat this is page three) has a story about biomass energy being developed in the region, but it shares space with stories about politics in Georgia, and how the desks in the local schools are causing the kids to suffer back problems. This healthy balance of global and local is reflected in even smaller local papers like the Hameen Sanomat. It carries page long features on relief work in Africa, alongside news of people falling through the ice, and adverts for chainsaws.

Finns might be highly educated but many still enjoy a daily dose of tittle-tattle. This is provided by two tabloids, the Ilta-Sanomat and Iltalehti (Evening News and Evening Paper respectively). The McCann's are featured quite regularly here but without the sensationalism exhibited in Britain. Naomi Campbell popped up calling Hugo Chavez a revolutionary angel, and there's other standard tabloid fare about former ski champions battling the bottle.

My favourite story of the whole time I spent in Finland was on the arrival of the 'date rape' drug Rohypnol in the country. It’s not what you think. The two victims were men, who were picked up by two Russian women and enticed back to a hotel room. The men were drugged, their credit cards stolen and the two women went on a pre-Christmas spending spree. Tabloid gold!

By Sean Dodson

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