First time poster, signed up today after having gathered the spoons to do that for a few weeks (AuDHD).
I am an 80s kid from one of the Nordic supposedly utopian countries. Grew up seeing the neoliberal project and shock therapy lite work its way into our everyday existence in a way that is now hegemonic. Grew up between the whites and the Reds in my own family, still very much remember it all and a lot of those brain worms are alive today and actively used to further the capitalist project.
During the 90s everything here got privatized, there was a big rise in nationalism. Our own Nazis from the wartime got reframed as heroes. The welfare state that only existed because of us being so close to the Soviet started its slow collapse. These days we have the highest out of pocket prices for our “public healthcare”, health disparities are wide. Poorer people live ten-year shorter lives on average. Our social security level is so low it has been flagged in the EU three times as a violation, yet this isn’t even talked about. Instead, it will be cut even further.
We are doing the “nice fascism”. On the surface a lot of stuff looks good, but that is not the whole picture. Many basic folks spend their time being worried about our “country brand”, unironically. We opted for nato in a moral panic after decades of propaganda that the right has very actively pushed.
I have a kid who has played a huge part in my deprogramming from the socdem liberal that I too used to be. Another big factor for me was diet culture and deprogramming myself from that, this led to discovering all kinds of wrongdoing that always had their roots in the capitalist or imperialist system. Reading Fearing the Black Body was a turning point. Eugenics, race biology, patriarchy and all that seemed to go hand in hand with colonialism and capitalism. After that I read more about the treatment of East Karelian folks here during, before and after the war. Found out that the lefts were put into camps during the war. Started to study social sciences and history, went to do social work for a living.
Left Twitter last November, went to Mastodon. Soon after the progressives from my country flooded the site and started to discuss their electricity bills, bicycles and being oh so outraged about the rise of fascism and right-wing politics here. And how voting wrong is what caused this. Every single talking point from Amerikkka gets repeated here.
Lately this has started to take a toll on my mental health. Today our national news had a think piece in it that announced the hammer and sickle to be russofascist symbols. Statues of Lenin are being removed and streets renamed (nothing against removing statues as such, but in this case, this is about something different). People here send signed bombs to Ukraine with pride. There is widespread disgusting russophobia that echoes the way people here talk about refugees and minorities.
And here I am with the realization that we were always Nazis actually and that one side of my family has played an active part in the misery imposed on the Karelian people, just to name a few things.
I always say that if a country would the embodiment of liberalism, this would be it. There is a total and numbing denial of racism. And a myth of sameness that makes all the margins disappear and invalidates them.
Having lurked here for some time reading posts has given me so much hope that I thought I should join.
Welcome! May I mention that one of my best friends is Finnish. I genuinely like him as a person, he's super smart and humble. He's got a really dry humor which I find funny. I do get what you say about he whitewash of history. He's got a real amnesia about the continuation war and Finnish civil war. Also he seems to think that Russia is the greatest danger and anything is worth doing to defend against a possible invasion, and nothing I say will make him budge from this. Anyhow he's still a solid guy and I much prefer him to to any average Anglo.
If you are Finnish, can I please share my favourite Youtube channel.
Accurate apart from the pandemic.:D
As covid hit, people here started to really get on each others skin. One reason I am here is how fast masks got dropped and people thrown under the bus in this country. Far faster than elsewhere in Europe for example.
This is pretty much the mindset. And nothing, nothing will make them budge from it.
I am not saying there isn't nice people here either, there is plenty. But there has also been a very effectively homogenization and nationalism process that has been very effective. Starting from the 1800s. From language, minorities, the way winter war and indepence are framed in a way that is often somewhat uhm right biased. A lot of banal nationalism and such. Hell even Donald Duck, a favourite of many, was brought here to make us yearn for that american freedom. I don't know if anyone can be blamed for liberal takes now, it's all there is. But it is exhausting.
Some parts are explained with the ability to wash our hands from colonialism as we were supposedly only complicit to it, so no hard questions are asked. Some by the myth of the independent Nordic farmer which is a very Swedish influence here. Some maybe by how young the country is.
But, there were many Reds and the October revolution and civil war are parts of our history that to me explain why the welfare state for instance came to be. They had to give the workers that much. This is now reframed fully.
