Kirjoittaja: David Arter

David Arter — Fri, 01 Mar 2019 18:54:50 +0000

In his recent review of my book Terve-Suomesta Moi Suomeen (Vastapaino 2018), Jiri Nieminen asks an important question: ’Miksi se on julkaistu tai kenelle suunnattu? I cannot answer the first part of the question but I assume it was because Vastapaino liked it. As to the second, this was not intended to be a revelatory academic opus, presenting new interpretations based on exciting, untouched archive material. The archive material is in my memory and in my mind. Rather, the book is simply a modest attempt to interest political science students – and potentially too lukiolaiset and members of the general public – in recent political history by documenting a personal journey through my half-century association with Finland. The sub-title ’henkilokohtaisia kohokohtia’ tells it all. If the highlights are deemed not too high, everything is of course relative. In any event, my 10-year experience in Tampere has taught me that political science/IR students are surprisingly ignorant of, and disinterested in the recent past. Two years ago, nobody in a class of 30 students was sure who Esko Aho was/is. My challenge then was to write something they might read, even find interesting and follow up on. It is a personal account, not a comprehensive account of aspects of socio-political change in Finland and I present a basic decade-by-decade chronology of events to point them in the right direction.
In the book I consciously avoid hindsight, except when reflecting on my interpretation of the 1979 Juhannuspommi, when I admit I got it wrong. I tell it as I experienced it at the time: the tears of my adult students in Suomussalmi on witnessing the black-and-white television pictures of the Warsaw Pact tanks rolling into Prague on August 21 1968; ’SMP Ville’ in Haukivuori; Ingvar Carlsson’s bombshell in a Helsinki hotel; Paavo Lipponen’s concern over Mara’s election in 1994; and the fear of the Finnish elite over the outcome of the EU membership referendum on the Royal Yacht Britannia. And so on. In many ways the book is self-indulgent. I recall incidents with a rueful, at times awkward smile. But I do not take myself too seriously.
It is a pity the reviewer found really nothing positive about the book. As the Finns would say a ’matter of taste’ I suppose. However, I feel I must respond to Nieminen’s charge that I do not give any details of my PhD and his depressing inference that a main point of the book is to showcase my publications – written at a time, he notes, when Finns did not have the confidence to publish abroad. My doctoral dissertation is a comparative study of agrarian parties with particular reference to the Norwegian, Czech and Finnish cases and a shortened version was published by Tampere University Press with the title ’Bumpkin against Bigwig’. Perhaps he would care to read it?
PS Apologies. I cannot do Finish vowels on the internet on this British laptop – and that is even before Brexit! DA

Artikkelin Arter: Retrospektiivi Suomen politiikasta kommentit

Kirjoittaja: David Arter