Rant about well of course I do

I’ve been very pleased when recently some people, instead of trying to enquire WHEN I was going to have babies, have begun the conversation by politely enquiring WHETHER I want to have kids.  So there appears to be a growing appreciation of the fact that not everyone wants to have kids and that is just fine.  Not having children is recognised as a valid, respectable life choice. 

So why doesn’t the same seem to apply to marriage?  I recall being asked once whether F and I will get married.  Every other time (in total about two million times by now, no exaggeration) I have been asked when the wedding bells would be ringing for us.  As if there was no question about the fact, only the timing.  As if marriage was not a choice, but inevitability for a straight couple that was committed to each other.

While the society seems to be making it very clear which way it wants us to choose,* can we please try to appreciate that the choice is still for each individual couple to make for themselves, and remain from being presumptive one way or the other?  There are numerous reasons to marry, but there are also numerous reasons not to marry.  From what I could see, it was quite normal for people not to marry a few decades ago, but those days seem to be long gone.  Nowadays marriage is quasi-automatic.  If you're not married, there must be something wrong with you.  You're an unlovable loser; a spinster.

I think it would be good for everyone to evaluate the pros as well as the cons of marriage before taking the decision.  But whether you do or not, please do not assume that others have forgone that exercise, or that the result of the evaluation for them has been obviously to get hitched, the only question being when.  Some might actually have actively decided to try to live happily ever after without an official paper that testifies to this decision.

* Thank you very much for the subtle hint, draftsman of the Swiss Tax Code.

Rant about "the new face of Russia, efficient and friendly and open to the world"

 

I am not quite sure whether to laugh or cry.  It is all just so absurdly, cynically, poetic.

I felt a tiny tinge of vindication with all the brou-ha-ha preceding the Sochi Olympics, where it looked like finally the grand lie of “politics should not be mixed with sport” that had been perpetuated around the Beijing Games and the human rights violations that they were built upon was not very often voiced.  To the contrary, we heard all kinds of noises about gay rights, corruption and environmental degradation.  Us Westerners were eagerly wagging our fingers, and it seemed to work to some extent: Putin went on to release a host of political prisoners, including most famously the Pussy Riot performers Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina as well as Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the run up to the Games.  We could all slap ourselves on the back and focus on the sport.

The sports were as fascinating as ever, nobody can fault that.  However, I was mortified to find out how completely, utterly we forgot all about the moralistic posturing once the Games were on the way.  The corruption and environmental degradation had not gone anywhere, but instead of continuing to highlight this, the REAL cost of the extravaganza to the people most affected, Western media was unanimously gushing over how great the organisation was and how gleaming the brand-spanking new event venues.  Environmental activist Evgeny Vitishko was sentenced to 3-years in prison on trumped up charges and the indefatigable Pussy Riot were beaten and detained during the Games.  Did you notice?  If you noticed, did you care?  If you did, good on you, you were just about the only person in the whole world.

This is what the President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach said at the closing ceremony; it pretty well sums up the general media feeling about the Games:

President Bach thanked Putin for his “personal commitment to the extraordinary success of these Olympic Winter Games”, as Putin watched on from the stands.

(…)

Bach said the 25,000 volunteers had shown the new face of Russia, efficient and friendly and open to the world, and described the Sochi Winter Olympics as “the Athletes’ Games”.

Earlier in his address, the IOC President urged global leaders to follow the Olympic society in displaying peace, tolerance and respect, which he described as sending a “powerful message” around the world.

You do not launch a military invasion of foreign territory on a day’s notice.  This means that while President Putin was lapping up the praise of the foreign media and politicians for his “personal commitment” to the “extraordinary success” of the greatest winter sports event of the world, one that apparently “display[ed] peace, tolerance and respect” and the “new face of Russia (…) open to the world”, he was preparing indeed to send a “powerful message around the world”, but not quite the one we thought was coming. 

Rant about Gays, Kids and Consumer Boycotts

The bill attempting to amend the Marriage Act to make the institution gender neutral is meandering its way through the Finnish Parliament.  To kick off the debate, Green MP Oras Tynkkynen stated that “[t]he law on equal marriage diminishes nobody’s rights.  It costs nothing.  There are only winners.”

This did not convince the diehard opponents, who have continued to repeat their arguments which can at times only be described as cringe-worthy.  It is hard for a casual liberal to be anything but baffled by these.  Why is it that two people who love each other getting hitched is somehow seen as a threat to somebody else?  How can gay marriage threaten hetero marriage?

Mr Tynkkynen’s argument, which we liberals find so compelling, comes from a strongly individualistic viewpoint.  My marriage is my business, what I do in the bedroom is my business, as is what I cook in the kitchen or wear to decorate and warm my body.  But this is not the only view or even the best view in all respects.  Many individual life choices can have an impact on the environment, on our friends, on our neighbours.  In the case of gay marriage the argument against says that the collateral damage is suffered by kids. 

The fact that research shows this argument to be rubbish and gays being no worse parents than straight people is not, however, decisive for us liberals.  Would I change my view on gay marriage if the argument was accurate?  If straight folk really were the better parents?  I would not.

So maybe this is about something else.  Maybe it is about means – about the role of laws and regulation.  Maybe us liberals, while taking a moral stance about issues ourselves, are inherently uncomfortable with the state legislating about them, about behaviour not being directed by the better argument and market forces but by simply prohibiting it?  I do not want to intervene in other people’s choices by way of actual bans, but I do engage in discussion with people around me.  This is mostly to exchange ideas, but I cannot deny an underlying motive at times to make them change their attitudes or behaviour.  I also wish the markets would take a more social or environmental role in directing conduct (see my rant about airplanes on 24 April 2013).  Combining the two, I believe in consumer boycotts, which is why I was at home and not in Sochi earlier this month. 

However… I do not think this is it either, as it does not fit with the political breakdown of who is for and who is against:  The prime example is found in the United States where the Republicans, who are traditionally all about individual freedoms and small government, are against the legalisation of gay marriage.

Having turned this thing round in my head a million times and tried to understand the arguments that to me look so obviously nonsensical, but which are still made by smart people not only with a straight face but with fervour, I had to concede that the argument is not going to be won by being rational. 

This brought back memories of a talk I had the privilege of attending back in 2009 when my legal hero Albie Sachs* was touring to promote his book The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law.  When sitting as a judge on the South African Constitutional Court, Justice Sachs penned the court’s landmark decision in the 2005 Fourie case** ruling that defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional.  What was interesting was not just that the Court found the law to be unconstitutional, but that instead of judicially changing it, the Court ordered the Parliament to fix it within a year and thus forced the nation to have the difficult debate on the subject.  During his 2009 talk Mr Sachs explained why this was important: the Court was the court of all South Africans, not just the liberals.  While it was clear that fundamental rights could not be denied to one part of the population, this had to be done in a way that respected also the views of conservative South Africans, who were often vehemently against the idea.

How can we do the same thing?  How can we ensure that the discussion on gay marriage remains civil?  That we respect those irrational feelings and the people holding them without permitting them to stall the granting of equal rights to all?  Justice Sachs, I know your humane wisdom is needed in many parts of Africa (like in Uganda, Gambia or Nigeria) right now, but Finland could also use it.  Please help.

 

*This is not a joke, there are such things as legal heroes.  If you are not familiar with the biography of the admirable Mr Sachs, check it out and be convinced.

**Minister of Home Affairs and another v Fourie and another; Lesbian and Gay Equality Project and others v Minister of Home Affairs and others, [2005] ZACC 19; 2006 (3) BCLR 355 (CC); 2006 (1) SA 524 (CC) (1 December 2005).

Rant about St Galentine

Valentine’s Day is a tough one.

On the one hand, love is always good and never celebrated enough.  Realistically speaking we all need the occasional nudge to voice our appreciation to the special somebody whose “special-ness” might get neglected in everyday drudgery of work, family and a mountain of dirty laundry.

On the other hand, the whole business is uncomfortably hetero and not a little sexist, suggesting that a woman’s happiness depends on a loving man.  There is an unmistakably “feminine” (in the derogatory sense of the term) whiff of desperation and clinginess about Valentine’s Day.

The resourceful ladies in the feminist movement in the US of A have resolved this conundrum by adopting the cringe-free version: Galentine’s Day, introduced during the second season of Parks and Recreation.  Galentine’s Day is a celebration of that underappreciated virtue that is a woman’s friendship with other women.  There is a misperception that women are all jealous bitches in the workplace ready to trample any ambition seen in their female colleagues and jealous bitches in their private lives pretending to be friends with other women only to try to steal their husbands/boyfriends.  Really, I’m not exaggerating.  Try to think of a few examples of positive representation of women’s relationships with other (unrelated) women in the media and you will draw a blank.  THIS is why Sex and the City was so revolutionary.  (Here is a good recent article on this phenomenon more broadly.)

So hooray to Galentine’s Day.  Because in real life all us lady people are surrounded by numerous other lady people providing us with happiness, support, advice and laughter.  I can tell from professional and personal experience that lady people are GREAT.

But as great as Galentine’s Day is, it is still a bit exclusionary.  Not all of our friends are women and some don’t like the gender binary to begin with.  Really, who cares who your friends are, as long as they provide all the wonderful things that a friend provides?  So Galentine’s Day is an improvement, but it is not quite there yet.

Finnish readers will know by now where I’m going with this, because Finns have solved the whole thing decades ago.  You see, Finns were wary of the icky pinkness of Valentine’s Day from the beginning.  The joke goes like this:

The wife is mooching so visibly that even the husband notices, prompting the compulsory question of “What’s wrong?”  “You never tell me that you love me” the wife responds.  “I told you at our wedding ten years ago, didn’t I?  Well, I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

So Finns have never celebrated Valentine’s Day in the romantic sense of the term.  Instead, 14 February in Finland (and in Estonia) is Ystävänpäivä (Sõbrapäev) – Friendship Day.  It is a day when we give cards to our friends and hug them and tell them how awesome they are.  What could be better than this?  Not everyone has a “valentine”, but everyone has friends, and everyone loves to tell their friends that they’re great, as well as hear this in return. 

I don’t think the idea is patented or even copyrighted, so feel free to implement it in your countries!

Hyvää ystävänpäivää everybody.

Rant against Democracy

Democracy seems to be in fashion right now.  Not perhaps in all parts of the world (hi there, General el-Sisi), but definitely in the west.  Mind you, not just any democracy: the representative kind is so last century, we want the direct kind. 

Out of the countries I’m familiar with, United Kingdom seems to trot out the direct democracy card every time a thorny EU question comes up, in a wonderful attempt by politicians to wash their hands of difficult decisions (which I thought was what politicians were elected for) and Finland has been the last one to fall head over heels in love with direct democracy.  I’m intrigued to see how long that infatuation lasts, considering how little results you get for all that brouhaha.  In the particularly diluted Finnish version of direct democracy the Parliament doesn’t even have to bring a question raised by a successful citizens’ initiative to a vote.  So far, as far as I understand, exactly zero such initiatives have been voted on.  While the citizenry has been quite enthusiastic about their new found political power, the politicians have been decidedly less so. 

This might just as well be for the better.  I have had the privilege of observing the frontrunner in direct democracy for a number of years now, and my feelings about the whole thing are very mixed.  The Swiss system works, to a large extent, but that might just be because it is Switzerland.  The country and its political system are both quite peculiar.  The Swiss are extremely wary of anyone getting one up over the rest.  There is no capital city, there are four official languages, and the presidency rotates every year among the members of the Federal Council (the Cabinet) – the Council itself being the official Head of State.  Try THAT at home...

As far as direct democracy is concerned, it is very real: Anyone can introduce initiatives to either reject laws passed by the General Assembly, or force the country to adopt new ones, including amendments to the Constitution.  Many cantons, including Geneva, also permit referendums at the local level.

This can actually be quite tiring.  Although there are sometimes sensible initiatives to get at least the conversation going on issues that are important to the population but less attractive to politicians, in its more usual form direct democracy permits special interest groups to hijack the national (or local) discussion with their niche interests.  The system also demands a lot from the population.  There is a vote going on about once a month on one initiative or another, and the issues are rarely straightforward.  Most people just don’t have the patience to inform themselves of all the relevant aspects of a given question, which leaves the door open to knee-jerk decisions based on first, often emotional, impressions.  This unfortunately also shows.  The streets are always full of posters urging people to vote one way or another on a given issue, and the message, when given in a single picture with a few sentences, is rarely nuanced.  Most of the time it is cringe-worthy, even on issues with which I agree. 

The easy example is of course immigration.  UDC/SVP, the local right-wing party (think Front National in France, UKIP in Great Britain or Perussuomalaiset in Finland), at regular intervals brings one anti-immigration measure or another to a vote, just to keep the issue perpetually on the agenda.*  The garishness of this really hit me when my friend J, who is Jewish, remarked drily upon getting off the train from Paris that the posters around the Geneva station is what Berlin must have looked like in the 1930s.  Ouch.  Here is an example of a poster that the citizens are currently being bombarded with, as yet another UDC initiative to reduce immigration is coming to a vote:

As I said, hardly subtle.

So before you ask for more direct democracy, ask yourself whether you want to spend a lot of time educating yourself about complex political issues almost every month, as opposed to once every 4-6 years (when general elections are held).  Ask also whether you would want to have the political discussion dominated by emotive questions pushed by groups obsessed by marginal issues.

Political activity and interest is good.  The two times I’ve personally witnessed political excitement were in Kenya when the first post-Moi election was held in late 2002 and in Paris in the run up to the 2007 presidential election.  What seemed to electrify people was real choice, and potential real change.  This never appears to happen in countries like Finland where there is a wide coalition in power no matter what one votes or United Kingdom where the majority of parliamentary seats are always safe in a first-past-the-post system.  But nor does it seem to happen in the queen of direct democracy, Switzerland. 

The key does not seem to be lots of opportunities to impact the little things, but an occasional opportunity to have a real say in the big things.  Sometimes less democracy can be more.

Or do you disagree?

*Switzerland on the whole is a very open, pro-immigration place, which I must mention in case anyone suffered from a bout of holier-than-thou snootiness as a result of that poster.

Rant about Racist Christmas

It would be mildly put to say that we have “moved on” since my childhood on some of the most overt issues regarding racism.  I don’t know if you have similar examples from your countries, but at least in Finland we kids happily played a card game in which the loser was the one with “Black Pete” (Musta Pekka) in his hand when all the other (white) characters had been united in their families.  Black Pete had no family.  While we played this game we may have been munching on a weird sticky biscuit/candy concoction called “nigger kiss” (neekerinsuukko).  My favourite was the strawberry nigger kiss.

While I cringe writing down these examples, the crowning moment is thinking about the little snot-nosed me standing in the middle of the school yard and shouting “WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BLACK MAN?” while all the other kids run away from me (the black man) screaming.  Because that is of course what kids should do when they see a black man.

Honestly.  This all happened.  Not that long ago.

But at least kids in Finland no longer play “Black Pete” or “who’s afraid of the black man” or eat nigger kisses.

Which is why I was so unprepared to find to my embarrassment and horror that a Finnish Christmas tradition that in my mind clearly belongs in the same camp as the examples above was still going strong last year at least.  It is a little play and it is called “Tiernapojat” (a version of Star boys’ singing procession).  It features four boys (it is played by children of course) who act out the scene in which King Herod is told about the birth of Jesus.  One of the characters is called “Murjaanien Kuningas” (King of the Moors).  Not only does this character not do much else except kneel before King Herod (don’t ask me what this has to do with the birth of Baby Jesus, I have no idea), but he is played by a white kid with his face painted black.  Yeah, that’s right.  A white kid in blackface kneeling before another white kid.  This is how we celebrate Christmas in Finland.

Last year I saw on TV this play being put on at a school somewhere in Finland and I hit the roof.  I hit the roof so hard I immediately started ranting at my mum and dad who were in the room.  In addition, I was so agitated, and so unprepared for my parents’ reaction (=they thought this was a totally innocent Finnish Christmas tradition) that I can’t pretend to having made a particularly coherent argument.  I mostly just screamed at my parents, although they obviously had done nothing wrong.  After a while they got annoyed and started screaming back at me.  So it was all very merry at our little Christmas party!

I still can’t get over it, though.  Earlier this month I was obsessively scanning the Finnish media for signs of awakening to how racist this whole thing is.  Nothing.  Not a peep.  Instead, the main newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported recently on the Dutch beginning to consider the racist implications of their Zwarte Piet tradition – and at no point did it cotton on to the reporter that maybe there were some parallels to be drawn with our own blackface tradition.  Oh, the irony.  At least the Dutch version brings presents as opposed to KNEELING before a little white dude!

Please somebody tell me that we’re not alone in this, that other countries have similarly embarrassing remnants of some racist crap from decades ago to which everyone continues to be blind...?!?

On a more positive note, I thankfully heard nothing about Tiernapojat around this Christmas, so ours was a lot more peaceful than last year.  I hope yours was too!

Hints to Santa

For logistical reasons we celebrated St. Nikolaus as a sort of “pre-Christmas” with the German side of the family this year and exchanged presents already then.  I got from my in-laws a piece of paper, rolled and tied with a very nice ribbon.  Inside it told me that they had made a donation to the MSF Syria fund.

This pressie was one of the best I have ever received.  It made me incredibly happy.  It still does.  Many charities now provide the option of giving an “alternative” kind of present, namely buying cows, trees, chicken, school books etc., mostly in developing countries.  I have received some of these in the past and they have never been a bad gift, it’s always better to give something like that as opposed to something material which I probably don’t need.  But they’ve not been like this one.

The reason is that this was personal.  This was not just a generic “do something good” gift.  It was specifically for me.  It was something I care passionately about.  

Having had such a strong reaction to it, I decided to throw the idea out there more generally.  When pondering what to get various family members and friends, how about expanding your search to not just gadgets, food or books that they might enjoy and think about issues or causes that they care about?  An example: F feels very strongly about the rights of refugees and asylum seekers and has devoted large amounts of his time to helping them both in Germany and here in Switzerland.  Recently he has been dropping hints that HEKS/EPER offers some gifts tailored at assisting these very people. 

Not that I’m referring to anything specific, nobody can guess what Santa might bring in his sack...  If anything at all for that matter.  It all depends on whether you have been naughty or nice.  (The Santa's-little-helper-jury is still out on you, F.)

Merry Christmas everybody.