No More Don´t Ask, Don´t Tell

My biggest awakening of this year has been on the political aspects of food. I blogged earlier about Pollan and Safran Foer as some of the people kicking the discussion food going. Having now finished Safran Foer´s Eating Animals, it is becoming more and more obvious that we need to treat food more as a political issue. We´ve kind of let ourselves be swept away by nutritionists and health advocates.

Never have we Finns spent such a small part of our income on the things we eat. What we eat is making the planet and ourselves sick. We push stuff down our throats without a faintest clue of what it contains. Food comes increasingly from the Alepa shelf, not from the field. We´re like that awful Clinton policy on gays in the military: we pretend that there are no problems by not asking any questions. When something goes wrong, we say it is an individual mistake.

EU governments and the EU itself spend an insane amount of money on subsidising and promoting food. Just last year the Finnish government spent 257 000 euros on promoting diverse eating of pork (result here). Let me say that again: 257 000 euros on diverse ways of cooking pork. Honestly.

We have elections in 2011. I want the next government to take food seriously. I want better consumer policy, better ingredients and food produced closer to where I live. I want agriculture policy that takes climate change seriously. As a consumer and citizen I want to know where my food comes from, how its been grown and how ethical it is. And yes, I am willing to pay a bit more for the things on my plate.

I want better and more sustainable food. I want exciting food policy. I want beets of different sizes, big and dirty parsnips, uneven carrots and local bread in my grocery store. I want less of those soggy mozzarella-tomato paninis and more root vegetable delis. I want more publicity to proud farmers like Janne Länsipuro who gets excited over a pumpkin and a burdock. I want to take my nephew to a farm for a weekend to see how flour is made and where herbs come from.

But we also need actions by local and national government. Schools and lunch cafeterias are great places to teach people what good food tastes like. These are also excellent places to create sustainable ways of cooking for instance by diversifying the vegetarian meals.

People need incentives to make right choices. Food if anything can be a political issue that is truly participatory. Good food is a fun issue.

Immigration is a question of resources

We at Demos Helsinki (together with the centre liberal think tank e2) organised this week a future course for Finnish decision makers on immigration policy and the future of Finland. By focusing on the year 2030 we wanted to stress the fact that diversification will happen and it forces the society to rethink both cohesion and welfare. Detaching the participants from the current challenges, starting from 20 years from now and then counting backwards demonstrated well to them that change is possible as well as needed. Already in 2025 Finland is expected to have 500 000 pensioners and 300 000 immigrants more than currently.

We asked the twenty participants to narrow the outcomes into statements, which will be developed into a larger publication during the fall. Here are the outcomes:

It´s about resources.
Immigration cannot be solved purely as a question of attitudes and tolerance. It is fairer for all to talk about resources and needs. Immigration is already part of Finnish reality. Immigration will not save nor destroy Finnish welfare state but it offers a possibility for starting a rethinking process on welfare.

The work place needs to change.
Change is needed more in the work place and in professional communities than in the individual immigrant. Transformation training is needed in organisations faced with diversity. In order to open up the strong Finnish social networks we need financial support for extracurricular activities (sports, hobby clubs) around and within culturally diverse companies and public organisations. In order to speed up change, affirmative action can be used as a tool in recruitment for professions such as police officers and teachers (encounter professions).

We need a joint, hopeful future.
There is need for an inspirational concept of a Finnish future that is based on rights, responsibilities and goals of a better shared daily life. The best possible brand for Finland is created through happy people and communities. We need stricter equality politics in order to build a shared and fair future.



We need to learn Russia.
Understanding Russia and Russian are crucial for understanding immigration. Finland has already loads of unused competence on the issue, mutta purely mobilising that is not sufficient. There is a need to update the stuffy and narrow ideas of Russia into more exciting ones.

Politics of experimentation
We need courage to live with uncertainty. We need to openly acknowledge that we do not know what works. We need more research and more experimental politics. We need to support also unclear organisations.

Good Finland, happy families

We need to bring families to the core of diversity politics. Finland needs to strive to be the place for the happiest childhood on the planet without forcing families into uniformity. Schools need to be used as buildings and communities for parental volunteerism and non-governmental work such as hobbies, sports and clubs. Taking part in pre-school education only part time of the week needs to be possible in order to support various ways of combining work and parenting.

This clip is insane

I don´t know whether to feel sorry for CNN´s Anderson Cooper for having to try and make sense out of Sarah Palin´s PR officer Meg Stapleton or for Ms Stapleton having to explain the actions of her erratic boss. But one thing is for sure: this 5 minutes 49 seconds only proves that no normal logic works for Sarah Palin as a politician.

Next move: we just sit and wait for Levi Johnston´s tell-it-all book on the Palin family.

The Doctor Will See You Now

Geert Wilders
Originally uploaded by dmatsui

Having met several Dutch friends over the last two days, there´s been one issue popping up in every chat: the success of anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders and his party PVV. The question is what explains his growing success and what is the needed response.

In the European Parliament elections Wilders´ PVV grew into the second biggest party winning certain key areas such as Rotterdam and The Hague. These are also the cities with some of the highest numbers of people of non-Western descent. His party has now 4 seats in the European Parliament, which is one more than the Greens, the Social Democrats or the two Liberal parties. He is serious business.

His biggest target are the Muslims in the Netherlands. He has has for instance suggested a 5-year ban on non-Western immigration. He has publicly confessed a hatred of Islam. Wilders´ agenda is largely similar to many other populist parties. His party is basically built around him as the undisputed leader, he makes a clear distinction between himself and "The Hague elite" and says the country has drifted into an "anything goes" sort of cultural relativism. He calls for tough measures and wants the country to declare openly an Judao-Christian value basis.

In the discussions I have had, I have heard different analysis of his support. I find all of them intriguing as they call for different solutions. As one knows from medicine, one needs to identify the illness correctly to ease the pain. There´s no need for surgery, if the problems are psychosomatic.

Analysis 1: The people voting for Wilders are ignorant and only if they would understand that immigration is beneficial for the Netherlands, we would all be better.
Solution: Isolating Wilders from the other political parties and increasing contact between groups.

Analysis 2: Wilders´ support builds on disappointment on one´s fellow citizens. The people voting for him feel like they have been left behind not only by the government but also the people who are doing better.
Solution: The elite needs to sharpen up and use emotional strategies to build a sense of belonging stressing to themselves and to the disappointed people that we are a whole and that we have responsibility for each other.

Analysis 3: We are in a culture war. Wilders represents a different society model, which gains support from a large part of the society. Similarities can be found from the US on issues such as euthanasia, abortion and race.
Solution: Both sides need to sharpen up their argumentation. Wilders´ great challenge is creating an intellectual basis for his policy as the party matures.

I don´t want to take a stand on the matter apart from ruling out number one. I sense an undemocratic flavour in it and find it disturbingly arrogant. I am all for increasing contact but it cannot start from the notion that the other side is seen as a victim of false consciousness.

In some ways I find the emotional aspect quite appealing. A lot of people are feeling scared even when they cannot actually give the fear a name. And for a person in panic, the newcomer is an easy scapegoat. Large parts of the population feel a risk of losing all their life is based on. We as a society need to take these fears seriously. Fear needs to be tackled not only with rationality but with emotion.

This situation should be seen by all parties as a possibility to be clearer on what kind of future you are fighting for. If we really are in a culture war, it is time for everyone to get more clever, sharper and more active. The good thing is that at least until now this dissent on the current rule is channelling largely through elections.

Despite which explanation one follows, one thing remains. It is all about bringing politics back to politics.

Shaken, Yet Still Standing

SDP - social democratic party of finland
Originally uploaded by heipmann

Yesterday´s elections were quite exciting, I have to say. It is always fantastic and good for democracy when things get shaken. Here a few observations:

- True Finns: Most of Finnish media is making the wrong analysis on this political party. Putting the party leader Timo Soini and his folks in the same category with the Dutch islamophobe Geert Wilders is a misrepresentation of the truth. The policy and popularity of True Finns works much more on the anti-establishment card than on xenophobia. This is quite obvious when you listen to them in debates. The party has a natural attraction amongst poor pensioners or unemployed youth - people feeling abandoned by the illusion we call the welfare state. Taking these fears and this anger seriously is a difficult challenge for the rest of the parties.
And let´s face it: how low would the voting rate have been WITHOUT True Finns? The fact that people wish to express anti-establishment sentiments and disappointment by voting is something we should take joy from.

- SDP: That old poster in the picture tells it all. SDP´s slogan: We will make some noise on your behalf. A political party unable to provide a role for the citizen deserves a defeat. As someone wrote on Facebook today: the problems of this party-turned-institution are the same as the Lutheran Church´s. And it is not saved by recycling Blairite slogans from 1997. Defending the System goes down badly at a time when people are seeking for a sense of involvement and belonging. Yes We Can is not only a disguising slogan for old politics, it means that you actually involve people in making change happen. It is a new way of doing politics and calls for a new way of building trust and communities. If they have the courage, this is a great opportunity for Social Democrats: empowering the people in the margins to be change makers in their own lives.
And let´s face it: we have come far from the 1903 goal on the separation of church and state when the leading man of the Social Democrats is a priest who is not even a member of the party.

- Greens: Good tail wind, have to give them that. I am not really interested in the boxes provided by other parties for the Greens: garden party of the right or the new Communists? This discussion does not really solve anything and is purely an intellectual masturbation exercise of political hacks.
If I would be making strategies for the party, I would try to find ways to diversify the party´s image from the current one: an upper middle-class smart party posse setting themselves above the rest of the society. The Greens should listen carefully to the increasing comments on arrogance and inability to understand other view points. Softening of actions, image and policy might be worth considering.

- National Coalition (Kokoomus): Kokoomus is still the biggest party in Finland although they did not make their target of keeping four seats. The party ran a campaign relying highly on the youthful Minister of Finance and the Minister of Foreign Affairs (neither of whom were running). They ran a campaign focusing on good mood, simplifications and happy-happy-joy-joy - an exemplary campaign of the republic of entertainment.
But the party stumbled in the last weeks when some candidates pushed some content to the surface which did not fit the party line. Cartoon TV ads do not explain away candidates calling immigrants social bums or questioning climate change.
This is the destiny of all parties controlled by spin doctors: there comes a point when you need to realise that you just cannot control it all.

All and all, the results tell a good story. The parties which have invested in their local actions and on bringing new people in did well in these elections. The ones at a loss with their objectives were punished by the voters. This is what we call democracy.

That´s Not Me

Le Chauvinist
Originally uploaded by John.P

"I am not on my way home to beat my wife but to take care of my children."

A comment thrown into the air by philosopher Jukka Relander tonight made me think. I was attending a Green Party meeting as part of a journalistic assignment and managed to catch part of the debate led by Relander who chairs the Green Men. With the comment above Relander was referring to the problem-oriented discourse on men and on something very wise said by Amu Urhonen - one of the candidates to chair the Council of the Green Party for the next two years.

Urhonen assessed that many men do not recognise themselves in the descriptions of men in political debate. Some of the roles thrown easily around are the sleazy middle-aged man and the underprivileged, alcoholic construction worker beating his wife. If a man resembles one of the groups only in terms of looks, political language forces them into a claustrophobic corner where they end up having to defend themselves against perceptions of a chauvinist and sexist cave man without any evidence that they personally would be guilty of such disapprovable action. It´s like the old tricky question:"When did you stop beating your wife?"

Most of these categorisations are done unintentionally and thrown around without really careful thinking. Urhonen reminded the Green politicians of their responsibility in choosing their words and stereotypes carefully. She managed to formulate in 60 seconds one of the core problems of the equality debate - both for women and men. I mean how many women have been pushed to choose between Virgin Mary and Maria Magdalena.

Institution First

Day 7/365
Originally uploaded by Timo Kirkkala

Today´s Helsingin Sanomat writes that the parliamentary committee reforming the national public broadcaster YLE is most likely going to suggest that YLE will be financed in the future through a separate YLE tax. Unlike the current license fee, this compulsory tax would be collected as part of the normal tax collection. It would not go into the government´s total budget but straight to YLE. Journalist Teemu Luukka writes:"It is not likely that the committee will suggest radical changes into (YLE´s) duties."

I had yesterday lunch with a Danish friend of mine. She is one of those social entrepeneurs like me, i.e. people searching for new solutions to current problems. She said that her current interest is in using standard design techniques also for the planning of public services. This would mean bringing the problem and the end user into the core of the design process. As she pointed out, the common public service design process works like the YLE case: how do we fund an existing institution in the future.

When the design process starts from the institution, we are already kill a big majority of good ideas even before they see the light of day. When we take an institution and its current structure for granted, it is hardly surprising that we do not find very good solutions.

Everyone following media discussion today would know that public service communications needs rethinking. This is not an issue of organisational reform but an issue of citizenship - what kind of information and analysis do we need in order to play our role as citizens in a better and more informed manner? Getting stuck on the word broadcasting avoids looking into a landscape of new tasks, new actors and more flexibility. Now the fix is making a poorly functioning funding system compulsory. So it´s band aid instead of recovery process.

The private media corporations (Viestinnän keskusliitto) have been calling for Finland to follow the BBC Trust´s example in having an independent body supervising YLE. When the reform is prepared by a parliamentary committee, this is very unlikely to happen.

Although I am somewhat skeptical to the total agenda of the anti-YLE campaign of the private actors, I would strongly support an independent supervisory board. I believe it would strengthen YLE´s role as a supervisor of the ones in power, which would need to get its legitimacy not from decision makers but from people directly. It would make clearer that we as citizens have rights to proper critique and information and this might someone work against those in power. That sometimes the benefit of the state and the benefit of the people are not equal.

An independent body would also widen YLE´s stakeholder basis, help its directors in creative thinking and in the end - provide better public service media for us and help us in doing our share in a democracy better.

Nordic

Dagens Nyheter
Originally uploaded by Henrik

I sat the last two days in a seminar by the Nordic Culture Fund on diversity and Nordic cultural work. On the last day we ended up in a heated debate in our workshop on whether being Nordic is an identity and how does that come together with goals of inclusion and integration.

I said first in the discussion that I would see the Nordic countries rather as a natural area of collaboration rather as an identity with historic routes. The ethnic-cultural-historical argument for the Nordic countries easily stands in the way of true equality and integration. The links are obvious to those Europeans who claim that we share the same values and a history.

I realised towards the end of the seminar that my idea of the Nordic region was something special and I feel parts of it can be explained through the Finnish language. I realise that I have grown up with an idea of the Nordic region as something where peace and justice prevail. This is something I picked up from school, not that much which country oppressed which Nordic country at which time and who really had the vikings.

I was brought up with the idea that the Nordic identity and aspiration can be explained through actions of people like Anna Lindh, Olof Palme, Martti Ahtisaari or Hans Blix. That Finland was on its way to being Nordic. That Nordic means also peculiar people who do not fit to all conventions and who dare to touch our sensitivities like Tove Jansson, Lars von Trier or Ingmar Bergman. That Nobel Peace Prize illustrates Nordic actions by Nordic and non-Nordic people. That being Nordic means believing in the human being, having a clear sense of ethics, trusting your neighbours (passport-free border-crossing for ages) and working for the benefit of mankind. That here in the North we give from our own when we have enough. That Nordic is something we need to work for - hard. And more often than we would like to admit, we we fall short in living up to those noble ideals. That Nordic is not a state of being, it is a responsibility for action. And that of course we should not claim to own this package of ideals but that the combination of them makes our life up in these circumstances worthwhile.

I wonder if this articulation of the Nordic identity could also function as a tool for integration and inclusion. It may sound slightly naive but it gives me a sense of direction and a reason for optimism. In term of integration we wound need recognise those beautiful ideas, make concrete the individual and societal work needed to make our way towards them and be honest about the shortcomings in terms of greed, protectionism and selfishness. Of this we have a tremendous amount of examples from the last 20 years.

That we would consciously shift our focus to what we can become at our best and to our personal responsibility rather than obsessing over a shared past. The Nordic Dream seen here would be very different from the European or American one.

Public Service

Entertainment has been one of the issues on the battlefield - whether public service broadcasters should do entertainment or leave it to the commercial competitors. Watching Sweden´s SVT´s work on the Eurovision Song Contest (they call it Melody Festival) shows how an innovative public service broadcaster can turn European cooperation amongst public service broadcasters into a national megaprojects reinvigorating areas by taking the semifinals to different parts of the country. It is entertainment but entertainments with a special value. Corny, camp but brilliant. In Sweden the national finale is the main thing, not how the Swedish entry ranks in the European arena. I kind of like that.

Watching this programme and looking into the issue of commercial screens, I must conclude that I do support the idea of an independent expert body to control, set limits and open new areas for public service communications and press work. I feel this would make YLE stronger, release YLE from (unnecessary) parliamentary control and also serve the society and the license fee payers better. It might help us in really articulating in a clearer way what is actually the public service in public broadcasting. BBC says:Educate, Entertain and Inform - I would go more for something like Empower, Encourage and Represent (I wrote about this issue in this blog in September).

Minorities in the Media

Henry Jenkins
Originally uploaded by Joi

"One is tempted to argue that African-Americans (and other minorities) enjoy greater opportunities to communicate beyond their own communities now than ever before. But we need to be careful in making that claim. Recent research suggests that there are far fewer minority characters on prime time network television shows this season than there were five years ago. There remains an enormous ratings gap between white and black Americans: the highest rating shows among black Americans often are among the lowest rated shows among white Americans. The exception, curiously enough, are reality television programs, like American Idol, which historically have had mixed race casts.

We've seen some increased visibility of black journalists and commentators throughout the 2008 campaign season -- and they may remain on the air throughout an Obama administration -- but we need to watch to make sure that they do not fade into the background again. But, if we follow your argument, even those figures who make it into the mainstream media are, at best, relaying critiques and discourses which originate within the black community and at worse, they are involved in a process of self-censorship which makes them an imperfect vehicle for those messages.

The paradox of race and media may be that black Americans have lost access to many of the institutions and practices which sustained them during an era of segregation without achieving the benefits promised by a more "integrated" media environment. And that makes this a moment of risk -- as well as opportunity -- for minority Americans.

I suspect we are over-stating the problem in some ways. There are certainly some serious constraints on minority participation in cyberspace but a world of networked publics also does offer some opportunities for younger African-Americans to deliberate together and form opinion, which we need to explore more fully here."

In the quote above, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins brings together the two issues that I am focusing on at the moment: future of media and diversity. Jenkins upholds his reputation as a critical, academic but enthusiastic researcher. In his blog, Jenkins is currently engaged in a debate on the future of African Americans communities online with Dayna Cunningham, the Executive Director of the Community Innovators Lab at MIT. In her first post, Cunningham described how the black voice is disappearing from the media sphere:

"However, I would argue that today, black politics has largely been reduced to the electoral and legislative spheres; African American media too often promote black celebrity and individual advancement, and along with much of the black civic infrastructure, rarely focus on freedom discourse as a means of exploring strategies for collective political action and accountability to black interests. Perhaps only the Church has survived as an independent space for black voice--and even the Church is sometimes compromised by "prosperity gospel" preachers who have little time for freedom discourse."

Jenkins answers well to the concerns expressed by Cunningham and acknowledges the risks posed by the fact that online it is very difficult to contain ideas in a certain context. There are still two chapters to follow in their discussion, I recommend staying alert.

Greener Across The Border

Globalicious!
Originally uploaded by rogiro

Today´s Forum Virium Hidden Treasure seminar showed the difficulty of international comparisons in policy debate. A presentation painted a picture of the Dutch innovation system and Innovation Platform as a smooth and efficient actor in fostering innovations. However, what was not mentioned was the heated discussion before the last Dutch parliamentary elections whether the entire organization should continue. It was largely seen as an inefficient bureaucratic failure. Alike what was not mentioned today at Vanha was the recent book by Frans Nauta, the first General Secretary of the Innovation Platform, in which he highly critically went through the setup and work of the body. Nauta, who is currently lecturing on innovation in Arnhem, left the office out of frustration quite quickly due to immense struggles with the government engine.

Before the last elections I did an article for Suomen Kuvalehti on the Dutch Innovation Platform as it was assembled following a Finnish example. Most of the interviewees then criticized the Innovation Platform for its broad agenda and the big publicity around its launch. Whereas in Finland the Science and Technology Council is not known by most people and is largely seen as a coordination body, in the Netherlands the government did a huge publicity stunt around its launch – i.e. it was doomed to fail in its delivery. As Joeri van den Steenhoven said in my interview for Suomen Kuvalehti then:”In Finland compromise means that people discuss, vote on the propositions and everyone lives with the result. In the Netherlands compromise means that we discuss and discuss, we split into numerous subcommittees and make an overall strategy so broad that everyone can keep on doing what they were already doing.” As someone on the coffee break rightly said in the Forum Virium seminar:”The problem with the Innovation Platform is that it has no money so it really cannot initiate much.”

I am all for international comparisons and learning from others. I also hope the Innovation Platform has learned from its start. I am also all for investment in innovation and R&D. But without a full picture of the international case, we end up making the wrong conclusions of it and therefore carry out our changes in false consciousness. But then again, I guess we have come full circle now in the Dutch-Finnish relations: some years ago van den Steenhoven´s and Nauta´s Kennisland was an active lobby in the Netherlands for learning from the Finnish model following Manuel Castells´ and Pekka Himanen´s work. Now we are presented in Helsinki the work of the Innovation Platform only to be followed by statements praising the leadership position of the Netherlands in investing in innovation. How did it go: what goes around, comes around.

Right to Exclude

The Immigrant - Kildare - Ireland
Originally uploaded by ratemypub

I guess it is OK to post twice in a day if you run into really good stuff. The Finnish Institute of International Affairs published today a clear and important paper on the relationship of immigration and recession. Researcher Toby Archer´s concise clarification is highly helpful in understanding the current sentiments in Finland and elsewhere regarding populism and xenophobia. As Archer writes, "during the recession there is a danger that the EU single market and labour movement become seen as negatives - taking away sovereign control from states: stopping governments from protecting jobs or from restricting foreigners from taking work away from local people".

Archer´s paper addresses a point I discussed last week in my meeting with designer Reza Abedini and graphic design agency Lava in Amsterdam: the sense of entitlement. Anti-immigration sentiments are a logical result from feeling like you are losing something you are entitled to. Proverbs like "to be born a Finn is like winning in the lottery" or "Favour Finnish" characterise what I mean. A notion that just being born to a certain citizenship means automatically a right to a certain standard of living is in great contradiction with global solidarity and openness to immigration.

As easy as it would be to judge all this as selfish, some of it has also more sincere and primal feelings behind it - especially in countries such as Ireland and Finland. In both of these countries the national identity is built on being an underdog and on relative poverty. When incredible affluence hit both nations during the last 20 years, people felt that their time had come, the hardships had paid off and that they would be able to leave their children a better place than the one they inherited. In countries like Finland, the post-war generation has gone through an incredibly rapid rise to the middle class.

When immigration is presented mostly as an economic and security challenge, it risks this dream of leaving a good world for one´s children as it brings more people to the kitchen table. And more importantly, these would be people who have not gone through the national experience from rags to riches.

Of course most immigrants come from conditions far worse than Finland during the last decade. Many immigrants, especially refugees, have gone through things no human being should experience - such as torture, starvation and persecution. But this is easily cast aside when one carries concern over one´s immediate family. This is not always loaded with racism or xenophobia but with parental instinct. I would dare to state that the more we can create trust so that people - immigrants and non-immigrants - feel comfortable expressing these fears and worries, the more interaction natives have with immigrants in professional settings and the more the media portrays immigrants who have made a significant contribution to the society, the more there are chances to answer and ease the fears and work towards an inclusive society.

Climate Change in a Nutshell

Wake Up, Freak Out - then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo.

Quite fresh and factual explanation on what climate change is about and why we need to act now. The cockroaches and rats coming out of the burning globe is a gloomy sight.

Oh and by the way, I have forgotten to link this: an article of mine was published in a book of the Finnish National Gallery around intercultural dialogue. Download the book here, my article is on pages 12-18. (download the book from the right hand side, Perspectives etc..)

Some Men Are More Equal Than Others

Milk Movie Poster
Originally uploaded by monikalel42

"All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words." That quote from gay activist Harvey Milk was one of the most moving scenes in Milk, the film on his life and death. Milk´s bold stand on equality led finally to his assassination. Some of his positions sound radical still in 2009 like the strategy that only by showing that we all have gay friends, teachers and family members, you truly pave the way for general support for equality.

Gus van Sant´s film is a great act in showing the struggle Milk and his peers went through, how far we as societies have come from those days (homosexuality is largely decriminalised) and, sadly, how far we still are from living up to those words (Proposition 8 passed in California just a few months back). And in the Obama era, it is good to remember that he was not the first one coining a phrase like:"You gotta give them hope."

The Academy Awards take place in a week or so and I have now seen three of the Best Picture nominees: Milk, Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire. Even before seeing Benjamin Button and The Reader, I dare to state the wish that these three films would win the main prizes. As much as The Reader looks into guilt and human responsibility, I feel the other three films are ones that need more the boost of the win: Milk is a powerful caption of the human sacrifices on the road towards true equality and one of the people who have paved way for all minorities. Slumdog Millionaire captures the aspiration, diversity, celebration and inequality called India and is also one of the rare films that do not need a white man telling a story of Asia or Africa (read: The Last King of Scotland etc.). And finally, Frost/Nixon shakes us awake of the corrupting influence of power and shows what is really the power of journalism.

I would dare to make the following wishes:
Best Picture: Milk
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Frank Langella or Sean Penn
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actress in a leading or supporting role are tricky as I have seen none of the films and actor in a supporting role is hard to judge before seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michael Shannon.

That´s Me

Through a Hazed Mirror
Originally uploaded by Catch the dream

I love these kind of projects. The Finnish Literature Society calls Finns every ten years to send in their stories of what they did on a particular day. These stories are important material to researchers in history and other cultural studies. Ten years ago they got 23 000 stories of Finnish life on a specific day. Today is that day again. I am taking part and encourage every Finn reading this to do the same. You can send in your story the latest on 28 February, more details here.

I am currently involved in a project where this kind of material would definitely be very handy. With a group of people we are putting together a cultural statement around national identity and self image. More details on that later.

When you talk about a self image of a nation, the last weeks have been interesting in this country. Helsingin Sanomat published a big story yesterday stating that Nokia has threatened to leave the country if legislation is not changed in a way that allows employers to look into the basic information (sender, recipient, form of attachment, time etc.) of an email if they suspect leakage of company secrets. Nokia and the government deny these accusations but it sure is interesting how the constitutional committee of the Parliament sees no problem with a legislative change that according to a great majority of legal experts they consulted is in full contradiction with constitutional rights to privacy of correspondence and freedom of speech. Not to take any stand on the validity of these accusation by Helsingin Sanomat but this is once again an example how the idea of civil rights and liberties is not really high on the Finnish political agenda.

This kind of discussion never really catches fire in Finland. This country has a tremendous amount of CCTV cameras and quite extensive rights to security guards but most Finns still think that this is all good and you have no reason for worry if you have not done anything wrong. It all stems from the idea that we are good and honest people and so are all the people holding these extensive powers. Following the same line is the idea that Finland is corruption-free. I have often wondered why there´s no more discussion about the way power ends in the same hands when a person can be at the same time in the city council, in the parliament and in the cabinet. The arguments I have heard are not very convincing:
1. this allows information to go smoothly through the system
2. people have the right to vote whom they want

Journalist Jarmo Aaltonen of Helsingin Sanomat follows the Finnish mentality disturbingly well in his article about politicians sitting in company boards:

"Of course different obligations influence people, some more, some less. This, however, does not make them automatically corrupt criminals. This is just the price one pays for democracy and open society. The alternative would be prohibiting all human interaction."

Seriously, this was published in the biggest daily of the country.

I Want My TV

Today Frost/Nixon premieres in Finnish cinemas. Just yesterday the film was nominated for an Academy Award for best direction, best actor in a leading role and best picture. I have been waiting for this film with an eagerness I have seldom experienced. There are a number of reasons why.

Some years back I was visiting London for work and met up with a friend of mine, a British playwright of Indian descent. The British media had only one issue on that day and neither us or anyone else could avoid the topic: Celebrity Big Brother on Channel 4 showing how nonsense celebrity Jade Goody and a number of other contenders were bullying Indian actress Shilpa Shetty in a racist manner seldom seen on primetime television. The white English women were according to my interpretation intimidated by the successful and beautiful Indian superstar and decided to gang up on her revealing all their prejudices on the Indians.

A large portion of the British quality media took a unified stand: the fuss around the programme was exaggerated. However, during our drink on that London afternoon I got another look into the issue. I still remember her telling me:"I am born in this country and so are my children. My children have been glued to the television during Celebrity Big Brother as they see on screen remarks they hear daily in school. As Shetty, they are told to go back to their own country. What country is that for a 10-year-old child with both parents born in the UK and one of them having Indian parents?"

That personal take showed me a part of the media often forgotten in academic media analysis and journalistic critique. The way the media validates and presents everyday situations and in that way acknowledges that these things do happen. By the media covering them, they are also submitted to a list of subjects suitable for private discussions. This has been the power of telenovelas in South America covering HIV-AIDS or As The World Turns showing a gay kiss.

After our drink she rushed to the theatre to see the "IT" play of the moment: Frost/Nixon. I tried to get tickets to it without success on the last moment.

I ran into Frost again two years ago when visiting the Museum of Television and Radio in Los Angeles and watching clips of his most famous interviews - including the Nixon one. Using the same strategy as he got Nixon to talk, his soft, direct but polite style brought into the surface some of the deepest thoughts of Muhammad Ali on black supremacy or Robert Kennedy opening up in his ideals. As one can see also in this clip from an interview with Thatcher, his background research forces people to answer directly without having to take refuge in hostility towards the guest.

I love television. I really do. In the work of David Frost as well as in the fuss around Big Brother, television has the power to reveal truths of ourselves and our societies - in more and less idealistic manners. It can facilitate people opening up sensitive discussions using commenting of a television programme as the cover up.

I never understood the people who take pride from not watching TV. How would it sound like if I would state at a fancy dinner party that I categorically don´t read printed material as I just don´t have the time?

Change Dot Gov

MixedInk Demo from MixedInk on Vimeo. Thanks, MediaShift, for the link. This is just way too cool. This links well to a project plan we are putting together on citizenship. So the tools are all there, now we just need the content and the motivation and the commitment of government to take this seriously. Something else cool on coverage of the inauguration here, this time by Washington Post. I just love these gadgets.

Government Buddies

Civil Society March, Washington D.C.
Originally uploaded by Global Call to Action Against Poverty

In today´s Helsingin Sanomat the Minister of Culture makes public his plans for reforming the funding for the arts. If Stefan Wallin gets his way, the Central Committee of the Arts would develop into a strong and largely independent body much like the Academy of Finland.

I would fully support a change where like in science, the arts funding decisions would be taken by experts of the field with a greater arm´s length from the government. This sounds more like how things were done in the Netherlands. I would also take the reform to the same level as in the Netherlands where the evaluations of arts institutions are made public so that people and the media can scrutinise and understand why dance group X gets a certain amount and why theatre Z loses half of its funding. Making government more transparent is something that I feel quite passionate about.

As a somewhat veteran of the civil society, I would encourage Mr Wallin to take a careful look also on the ways NGO funding decisions are taken. As much as I support government funding for the civil society, I am slightly troubled by the relationships emerging when civil servants or politically appointed bodies make decisions on NGO funding. I fear that the dependency on decisions by the Ministry of Education creates a civil society less willing to attack the government fiercely and a civil society serving the government rather than acting as a healthy counter force. It is only natural that a NGO leader concerned about the budget for next year feels inclined to buddy up with the Minister or the top civil servant.

In this sense I do understand bodies like Amnesty or Greenpeace which guarantee their independence by refusing government funding however this is not the solution for all civil society. I do support civil society funding as one of government´s core responsibilities. But it troubles me that it does not take years of research to identify a relationship between decreased peace NGO funding and a centre-right government, increased environmental NGO funding and the Greens in the government or the Swedish People´s Party in the government and increased funding for organisations taking care of the largely Swedish-speaking archipelago.

I would encourage Mr Wallin to look into creating an independent body deciding on funding for the civil society and making public their criteria and evaluations. This would make government more transparent, decrease risks of corruption, feed political debate and in the end support an emergence of a more active civil society.

Echoes From The Diversity Chamber

Venez comme vous etes
Originally uploaded by amsterboy

It is obvious to everyone that the face of Europe is changing. We are entering an (in my opinion healthier) era, which builds on difference as an opportunity and as a creative potential for Europe. There are more people and countries who are moving away from the “difference does not matter, let´s just get along” rhetoric and wanting to find practical strategies for negotiating the house rules of our cities, countries and Europe. More and more of us are understanding that we can never agree on values and that it is next to impossible to change one´s values. However, what we can do is agree on the ways we live and work together in a way that builds on aspirations rather than on backgrounds.

It is no wonder that the European Union is busy with the subject. With all its languages and growing migration, Europe is going through a serious shakeup. A continent that built up the nation state is now struggling with it. Therefore the year 2008 has been announced to be the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and a new slogan has been launched: united in diversity. It is difficult to find a politician who would not mention the magic words in an opening speech: intercultural dialogue. Having spent the last two days in a conference in Paris on the subject, this has also been empirically proven on local, national and EU level.

But there is a great risk in this rising interest. The more the phrase ‘intercultural dialogue’ is used without definitions or concrete proposals, the more it faces the risk of turning into a hollow phrase. When intercultural dialogue becomes the issue rather than a practical tool for mediation, the more it detaches from our daily lives. Intercultural dialogue is not something we experience, we experience interactions with other people and we deal with concrete differences of opinion. The last year has taught me that European politicians need serious training on storytelling and on touching also our emotional side next to the pragmatic one.

I cannot change someone’s values by banging them on the head with mine. If I express no sincere interest towards his or her positions and beliefs and do not recognize the difference, we just end up having a pretentious and shallow conversation. We need to focus less on compromise and more on comprehension. We need to dare to go on the level of goals and aspirations and stop with an obsession for instance on national/shared values. The core issue is what we do when we live together, not what we believe in. By being more explicit and detailed, we can also be tough on the ones that break the rules - regardless whether they are native or immigrant.

(This photo from the streets of Paris works well for this theme. Massive McDonalds rebranding campaign on all billboards in Paris saying: Come as you are.)

Just A Few Hours

"Our lives on this planet are too short, the work to be done is too great. But we can perhaps remember, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life that they seek as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, surely this bond of common fate, this bond of common roles can begin to teach us something, that we can begin to work a little harder, to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again."
- Senator, Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy at the City Club of Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio (5 April 1968)