Things happen even in Helsinki sometimes – this weekend: yet another Reclaim the Streets event/demonstration to protest cars increasingly taking over our cities, organized by the local branch of the international Reclaim the Streets movement on one of the major roads right at Helsinki city center.
Observing from afar…
The Paper (the biggest, dominating one of the country) is rather neutral in its reporting and doesn’t seem to be taking sides, not dismissing or promoting neither the activist nor motorist point of view, but as usual, is more-than-slightly condenscending in choice of some terms and giving impression of much smaller participation than is visible on the video footage. It doesn’t really report on the background either, the purpose of the movement or even provide a link to sources elsewhere. Habitual for the Finnish media: anything happening a little outside or on the fringes of “the way we do things here” is to be reported in depth, with causes and effects and background by alternative press only, which with their subsription rates are hardly penetrating the masses at all (worth mentioning in this context is the 10x/year freely distributed societally critical paper Voima). (No wonder I had to literally go around the world to broaden horizons, learn about and get into things such as open source software, free culture, digital rights and generally starting to be more critical about and question the status quo)
Also in the comments the true colours of (some) Finns are shown, quite a few comments (out of 272 & counting) such as:
- “just some kids playing at making a better world . 15 years from now these people will live in the suburbia, be all bourgeois and vote for the right wing party. My biggest annoyance is this being allowed. Who will pay for it?”
- “Today’s youth have no spine! Neither does the police! Can practically anyone just go out on the streets and disturb citizens who have important business to attend to? Us proper people never did anything like this, we just did what we were told and shut up.
This reminds me again the word activist practically being a curse word in Finland. Being called one by folks such as your parents, employers, professors and other figures of authority is almost always to denounce you, put you down, to belittle and to marginalize. The effect of marginalization is dampening – requirements of uniformity so that social-democratic equality utopia isn’t disturbed the slightest by diversity, and expectations of having to map your identity into one category only make it hard to even explore declaring yourself an activist, as the label may stick thereafter. It matters little what else you do in life that may be more acceptable to society at large and what other badges you’d prefer to bear in addition, as you’ve already been marginalized and dismissed as a “childish selfish activist” – and with expectations one day to just grow up into a suburbanite live-in-a-box bourgeois consumer anyway.
Hence, I don’t really (want to) consider myself activist, this feeling of having my choices limited and voice nulled based on just one attribute of identity that in my view should rather be a mosaic – even though my activities sometimes could be classified as borderline “activist”, or perhaps something more like “activist accomplice” (mostly / especially when the digital world is concerned). I just try do what feels ethical and enjoyable in order to help out even a little bit.
Compared to the above rather mild case of socio-cultural suppressing attitudes without real danger of being permanently maimed by exercising your right for free speech, (too) many other countries of course have it far worse. So in the context of mostly-okay doing countries (as that’s the only fair comparison that can be made), I’d be curious to learn a bit more about how things are elsewhere along the lines of:
- What are the difficulties, obstacles, roadblocks in making a difference
- How do sociological and political structures suppress or encourage activism
- To what extent does activism label you? Disadvantage and exclude you from / help and include you into the fabric of society?
(responses in comments much appreciated, dear reader-friends with related experience 
)
Tags: activism, finland, helsinki, identity, labels, media, reclaim the streets