Helsinki Times

All quiet on the home front

Until about a week ago it had felt as if Finland’s media had been totally consumed by domestic-election fever for over a year.

So, with the presidential election over and local elections a whole eight months off, what’s going on in the post-election purgatory in which Finland finds itself? Not much of any consequence, according to newspaper editorials over the weekend and at the beginning of the week. I’m exaggerating, of course, but it’s true that even regional newspapers’ editorial teams have suddenly woken up to the fact that the world doesn’t end at Finland’s borders.

For instance, Helsingin Sanomat, Tampere’s Aamulehti (AL), Turun Sanomat and Lahti’s Etelä-Suomen Sanomat (ESS) have all shared their thoughts on Russia’s upcoming presidential elections in the past few days. Although emphasising different aspects of the election, each make reference to Vladimir Putin’s control of conventional media sources but also, with the exception of ESS, his inability to extend this to social media. Additionally, AL and ESS both mention Putin’s promises to substantially increase military spending.

Events in places further from home also received comment. Helsingin Sanomat has written about the Balkans, Venezuela, US-China relations and Tibet, while French presidential elections made it into Ilta-Sanomat and Oulu’s Kaleva editorials, Rovaniemi’s Lapin Kansa outlined the issue of mineral exploration in the Arctic, and AL published leaders on Latvia, Iran and German domestic politics.

Jyväskylä’s Keskisuomalainen, on the other hand, separately brought up the topics of global hunger and linking development aid and human rights, making the observation that Nicaragua, based on Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala’s (Greens) criteria of human rights, the rule of law and good governance, has been correctly removed from Finland’s list of development aid partners. However, keeping Afghanistan on this list is contradictory, according to the paper.

Then, of course, discussion of the situation in Syria and the UN General Assembly’s 137-12 vote could be found in a number of papers, with Russia and China singled out for criticism. Joensuu’s Karjalainen tells the reader that, “China is defending Syria because its own human rights situation wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny.” Perhaps, but it should also be noted that a number of countries that voted in favour of the resolution, such as Israel, Sudan, Turkey and the US, didn’t seem to be troubled by similar considerations when casting their votes.

Allan Bain
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.