Political rant under the parliamentary elections, pt 2

This part of the rant is mainly a translation of my reply to a friend’s FB status, where she asked whether people thought voting is worthwhile or not, and why.

In my rant pt. 1, I mentioned how the scenario of the success of the True Finns has been met with horror among my friends. I have sensed between the lines (and even testified explicitly uttered) worry and resentment caused by the “stupidity of the people” and the fact that anyone and everyone has the right to vote.

I’m not sure whether I’m more horrified by the thought of the True Finns gaining power and in what direction that would lead our country, or appalled by the critique against democratic suffrage, uttered even by people I have perceived as civilised and intelligent.

I see democratic suffrage as an intrinsic value, which should not be compromised in any circumstances. Accordingly, I believe voting for the True Finns is just as correct as voting for any other party. As a fundamental premise, I see that one can never, ever vote wrong, as long as the vote is given according to one’s own opinion and conscience and not under exogenous pressure. I get the chills at the mere thought that there be a higher quarter dictating what is “correct voting” or who would be entitled to vote. That has absolutely nothing to do with a democratic constitutional state, which even in its imperfection is (in my opinion) the best we’ve got so far.

What the grounds are for one’s vote and in which direction politics are heading can and should definitely be a topic of discussion. Ignorance fuels hatred and fear, and I see one of the key issues being how information could be passed on more efficiently. Everyone is not capable of being an expert in society with vast knowledge of world history and politics, and I don’t even see that as necessary. But how could we increase the level of knowledge at least beyond that provided by the yellow press, especially when the target audience consists of people who have little, if any, interest in politics, but who nevertheless are members of the society and who have (and should maintain) the right to vote?

I see resentment and condemnation as a very infertile approach – although in all honesty, I have to admit from time to time being also myself offended by people’s opinions. Yet, Voltaire is rumoured to have said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” and it is a value I deeply cherish. Even if I most probably never will vote for the True Finns, I find it good that the party exists. Abolishing it would not abolish the existing dissatisfaction – at worst, there just would not be any means to channel this disaffection, but would stay bubbling under until it would manifest itself in a very uncontrollable and violent way. We have seen this all too many times in history already. Problems need to be tackled with before the outburst, especially when they are made visible already at this stage.

I have sensed from the more or less aware comments by my friends and acquaintances that meritocracy is perceived as the best form of government. Giving the power to the experts? Sure, sounds good. As long as I’d have a say in who’s qualified for being the expert for the whole people. Who, then, would be competent to assess the competency of the expert rulers, and on which grounds would some sectors of the people be left out of this process? And what if the once competent and just rulers are blinded by power and the rule turns into a despotic oligarchy?

I think I’ll stick to parliamentary democracy, as long as true politeia isn't available.

Political rant under the parliamentary elections, pt 1

Sunday is parliamentary election day in Finland. The elections will be very interesting, since the True Finns (Perussuomalaiset) have been alarmingly popular in preliminary polls. The True Finns is a populist, right-wing (on the Finnish scale), NIMBY-ish party, and their possible success has caused mild horror amongst many, especially my friends.

This election is also different for me personally. For the first time I voted for another party than the Greens, namely, the Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto). A long story short: I’ve been utterly disappointed in their work in the government, in which I don’t think they should have entered in the first place. Their negotiation position in a centre-right government with two strong parties was lousy to begin with: the two large parties, the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus) and the Centre Party (Keskusta), would have had a majority in the parliament even without the two smaller parties in the government, so in practice they’d really not have to care about the smaller's opinions at all. A part of good government custom, however, is to stick with the government’s line in votings. In practice, this means that the smaller government parties have to support the line dictated by the bigger parties. (Ok that was exaggerated, but you get the drift.)

To be completely honest, I can’t remember exactly all of the things that put me off during the past four years – we have a saying in Finnish that “the people’s memory is short”, and so is mine. The obvious achievements of the government are e.g. the omission of the employers’ KELA fee, Lex Soininvaara (yes, I do understand the logic behind it, but nevertheless it was a shitty solution) and Lex Nokia. All in all, I recall a lot of facepalming during the electoral period as well as my disappointment steadily growing. Even if the Greens have voted against some decisions, they still as a government party are held responsible. Their last chance to maintain their dignity in my eyes was during the voting for new nuclear plants. The Greens had reserved themselves the right to vote against the plants, and so they did. However, the parliament green-lighted not one but TWO new plants, and so the Greens are now part in a government that gave its blessing to something heavily in contrast with the Greens’ fundamental values. At this point, I think the Greens should have left the government, as they did in protest in exactly the same situation in 2002. There wasn’t much of the election period left anyway, and the government work had already been miserable – and as said, it would have spared their dignity in my eyes (and my vote for them).

The Greens still are the best party for me on paper, but my honour stands against voting for them now after all this disappointment – it feels like sending them a message that their work in the government has been A-OK and no probs entering a pro-nuclear, right-wing government in the future, either. Sorry, can’t and won’t do that.

I’ve anyway waddled somewhere between green/liberal*/left, so giving my protest vote to the Left Alliance wasn’t that difficult a decision. What bugs me the most is that they’re so vaguely for the basic income – the Greens still are the only party that explicitly have taken it in their electoral programme. Thank goodness the Lefts aren’t against it [any more?], but as basic income is a topic immensely important to me, their bland “let’s try to harmonise the social security system in the possible direction of basic income maybe in the very distant future” is very “meh” to me. Well, I guess I’ll have to live with that for now, since I already gave my vote. Hopefully, in the next elections I can either vote for a green party with some re-achieved dignity, or a more pro basis income Left Alliance.

* political liberal, not to be confused with economic (neo)liberal/libertanianist/whatever you wish to call it

Meh

Berlin street art

Again a project I’ve started already months ago, but that hasn’t made it to the blog yet. Until now.

Berlin is famous for its street art and bohemian/artistic way of life especially in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. In Helsinki, most of the “urban art” is mainly just tags, which I personally find just ugly and see as not much more than just clutter. Of course, Berlin certainly has its fair share of tags and like, too, but there’s also lots and lots of really cool graffiti and other forms of street art. Helsinki has taken (or tries to take) an idiotic zero tolerance line with graffiti, which is probably why few bother to make really cool pieces, as they will be wiped away before long (yes, an essential part of urban art is that it’s not permanent yadda yadda, but new graffiti replacing older ones is quite another story than everything being hysterically washed away the next day).

Berlin is much more relaxed with the matter and, as said, has gained a notable reputation. My oh-so-original project is to document urban art in Berlin. I won’t photograph the most famous graffiti, because that’s already been made several times by much more skilled photographers and their equipment. Instead I’ve focused on smaller-scale “Berlin-spotting”, and it’s not even strictly urban art, but all sorts of cool/funny things I’ve come across on the streets of Berlin. Hence the tag “street art” is a bit misleading, but maybe we can live with it.

So, on to the first batch:

An elephant on a water post in Reuterstraße, Neukölln.

Greenface. Köpenicker Staße, Kreuzberg.

Birds in Reuterstraße, Neukölln.

Uga uga. Revaler Straße, Friedrichshain.

Birds near Görlitzer Park, Kreuzberg. They are saying in French “No, no, don’t go crush the little cat”(?!)

Revaler Straße, Friedrichshain.

Mag ins Kino gehen!

Good news for those Berliners who dislike (or even despise, hate and loathe) films dubbed in German, but love to go to the movies: nowadays, amazingly many theatres show films with the original soundtrack and German subtitles :) A fact that somewhat heals my wounds for missing Berlinale despite LIVING IN THIS GODDAMN CITY, and on top of it all, it hadn’t need to be so. Oh well, it’s a long story and next year I have a good reason to visit Berlin in February.

So far I’ve seen The Howl, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Black Swan, King’s Speech and yesterday I went to see 127 Hours. Every film has been surprisingly good, not one single did I think was crap or even mediocre. Can recommend each and every one! I’ll maybe write a review on them one day, or then maybe procrastination will get a hold of me again. We’ll see.

The theatres I’ve been to have mostly been small and cosy: Babylon Kreuzberg (Dresdener Straße 126), Central (Rosenthaler Straße 39), Hackesche Höfe (Rosenthaler Straße 40/41, the entrance is right next to Central’s, so make sure you’re in the right place!) and Rollberg Kino (Rollbergstraße 70). Only Hackesche Höfe I cannot recommend, at least not room 1: it’s absolutely lousily planned/built, the room doesn’t rise especially much at least at the back and the chairs are positioned in such a manner that if you get unlucky (which is quite likely, in this case), you’ll end up staring at somebody’s head instead of the screen. Money well spent and a splendid movie experience.

Going to the movies is apparently not that devout an event as it is in Helsinki. Particularly in Orion, which is specialised in classic, not-that-mainstream (argh, I hate defining anything through “mainstream”, but here we go) films, it is at worst a mortal sin to breathe too loudly, not to mention rustling with your candy bag, if you’re unsophisticated enough to bring candy to the Sacred Place. Grown-ups don’t need candy in order to enjoy their films, and most certainly do not ruin the pleasure of others due to their infant desires.

Well, believe you me, not to worry that you’ll encounter any sort of behaviour or attitude pictured above... On the contrary, you can almost be sure that you’ll get at least a dozen of kicks in the back of your chair, your fellow viewers are certainly not shy about eating or drinking (with all the appropriate noises, of course), and they’ll at the very least make commentaries on the film in not-that-lowered-a-voice, quite probably just talk about the everyday stuff you normally go through with your friends, accompanied by giggles and snorts, etc etc. Yay, it’s like going to the movies with the kindergarten shift!

Ok, I’m really not as pissed off as one could interpret, but it indeed has been somewhat of a culture shock after being used to the Finnish custom. It doesn’t have to be as Naz...uh, strict as it is in Orion at worst, but people could be a bit more considerate...

But it’s a small price considering that I have the possibility to go to the movies in the first place! I really expected this to be a more or less filmless year, which made my heart ache quite a bit. But as said, there are loads of films screened with the original soundtrack, and the theatres are nice and there are many of them :) A good search engine for films is e.g. Tip Berlin’s. Choose your day at Kalendersuche on the right, then type in your search term (“Stichwort”) or choose your other search criteria (e.g. area or time of day), and make sure you have chosen “Originalfassung mit Untertiteln” (original with German subs) or “Originalfassung” (original) in the “Fassung” (soundtrack) drop-down menu.

The prices are very affordable, from 5 to 7 Euros, with an extra charge of 0.50–1.50€ for long films (120 min.->). I assume you’d have the opportunity to pay for tickets in the Finnish price class (13€) for fancy 3D screenings at e.g. Potsdamer Platz, but I am very happy with these more moderate and homely places. They btw don't have seat tickets, so you'll want to be quite early if you want to be sure to have a good seat. However, normally there's not that huge an audience and thus there is plenty of room, so it's not the biggest stress in the world.

What I do miss, however, is an Orion-like theatre that shows (also) other than just the latest and hottest films. One possible candidate could be fsk Kino (Segitzdamm 2) at Oranienplatz (very near me, in other words!). I’ll have to familiarise myself a bit more with the programme, but it seemed promising at a quick glance. Recommendations on other similar theatres are naturally warmly welcome :)

Recipe: Soup with roasted capsicum and lentils

Yes, yet another soup. But I eat loads of soup in wintertime! And this certainly is a perfect winter dish: smoky and satisfying.

I’m not especially fond of cooked capsicum but prefer it raw, but then again I just l o v e anything that’s been roasted. Capsicum turns incredibly sweet and charismatic when roasted; plain cooked it’s just sweet and dull. Smoked paprika and Peruvian pepper complement the capsicum’s sweet and roasted flavours in a wonderful way. I paired the sweet soup with a goat’s cheese cream, and probably needless to say that the marriage of salty and sweet certainly is a merry one. To boost the soup’s nutritional values, I added some red lentils. Yum!

Roasted capsicum and lentil soup
Serves 4–5

3 red capsicums
1,5 dl red lentils
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
200 gr sour cream
vegetable broth
smoked paprika, Peruvian pepper (crushed)

1. Preheat the oven to 250°C. Deseed the capsicums and cut them into large chunks. Place them on an oven tray and bake them until the skin turns black. Leave the capsicums to cool and “sweat” in a dish covered with e.g. tinfoil, and when they are cool enough, peel the skin off.
2. Sauté the onions and garlic.
3. Add the lentils and vegetable broth and cook until the lentils are (over) done.
4. Add the capsicums and leave to simmer for a while.
5. Purée the soup with a hand blender or like until it is as smooth as it gets, and then pass it through a sieve to achieve the most lean and silky consistency ever. It really is worth the effort.
6. Add the sour cream and spices, buzz it once more with the blender to get it all smooth and fluffy. Serve with goat’s cheese cream (soft goat’s cheese, yoghurt, water) or crumbled goat’s cheese.

Bliss!

Reminiscence

Yaay, last dreaded exam over! It was a short lecture course exam, only 30 minutes, and I was a bit anxious that I wouldn’t have enough time, especially since we were supposed to answer in German. But it went surprisingly well and I’m sure I’ll pass, so this semester is pretty much over and done with :)

After the exam, I went for a walk (how surprising!) and walked past a farm or stable with horses grazing outside. I was suddenly overcome by a flood of memories and started thinking about how much life has changed in the past five years.

In February 2006, I had not yet enrolled at the university, but the horrendous entrance exams were only ahead. I was almost daily at the stable, as I still had my mischievous little horse. We had spent almost a decade together already, and he was the most important thing in the world for me. I had yet no clue that in just a few months, his legs would be in such a bad condition that I made the tough decision that it would be his last summer. I also did not know that in half a year, I would have enrolled myself at the university as a political history fresher, finally after two failed attempts. I was also moving to my first own home – now that I no longer had a horse to take care of, I could afford moving out.

In February 2011, I’m fulfilling two of my dreams. I’m doing my master’s degree in fields I am extremely passionate about. My studies also have brought me to the city I fantasised about living in for so, so many years, and I’m loving the city more by every minute that goes by. Strangely, also my love and appreciation for Helsinki has grown stronger during my time abroad.

During the past five years, I have met so far the most important people in my life (in addition to my family, of course), and I don’t even have the words to express my gratitude and love for my friends. There have been ups and downs in my life, quite rough ones, too, but it all has contributed to my growth as me – someone very different from who I was five years ago. I certainly have not only developed and refined qualities, but developed some new, previously unknown bad sides. But I guess that’s part of being human, and keeps the never-ending process in motion.

I was suddenly really overwhelmed by emotions and seriously thought of finding a small private spot where I could cry it out just a little. I don’t even know why I would have cried – I didn’t feel sad, despite also painful memories. There’s a time for everything; even if I’ve had the most wonderful moments in the past, they’re good to be there, left behind. Now is good just as it is. I guess that’s what I would have cried for. Not for grief over things being in the past, but for gratitude that they have happened, and brought me to this present state. I certainly would not describe myself as a fatalist, but sometimes, pieces just do seem to fall in place, building something really good, bit by bit.

Heh, I certainly at least have grown a lot more emotional during these years. Or maybe I’m just on better terms with my emotions and let them exist in the first place.

Knock knock

Forgot to mention a funny habit: instead of clapping their hands when showing appreciation for a lecture, presentation etc., people knock on the table with their fists :)