[lit-ideas] Rights ad infinitum
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 22 Feb 2006 04:24:22 -0800 (PST)
It is not really fair to compare Finns (or Poles, or
Germans...) to Palestinians. WWII turned out to be a
blessing in disguise for us. Pre-war Finland was an
agricultural country with living standards way below
Western Europe. After the war, Finns had to pay
punitive war compensation to Soviets, house something
like 15% of the population that were displaced as
refugees, while at the same maneuvering between Soviet
demands and preserving what was a fairly liberal
democracy. The nation rapidly industrialized, the
so-called "frontier man houses" gave hundreds of
thousands homes of their own that nowadays sell for
very nice prices, and the rifts of civil war (1918)
were healed and the democracy strengthened. We got
lucky.
The difference is that we got good leaders. First
post-war president Paasikivi in particular, who was
something of a Churcillian figure who also left a
legacy of fine quotes: "Can't change geography" and
"Wisdom begins with acknowledgement of facts" comes to
mind. Crucially, Soviets also saw it in their interest
to have a strong prosperous neighbour, to sell them
working machinery if nothing else.
*These are interesting observations, especially the
last one about the Soviets seeing it in their interest
to have a strong neighbour. There is a bit about that
here:
http://countrystudies.us/finland/24.htm
The Western powers would also probably have seen it as
being in their interest to have a reasonably strong
buffer-state on the Soviet border. However, there
might have been other differences, such as the Finnish
still had a nation-state even with a somewhat
diminished territory - it seems Finland lost about one
tenth of its pre-1939 territory - while the
Palestinians did not have one. And, Finland was still
a fairly large country with a scarce population, which
could absorb refugees, while the West Bank and Gaza
are small patches of territory which are already
heavily overpopulated. For history freaks, there is
some info on Soviet-Finnish wars and how Finland lost
its territories here:
http://hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/finland_wwii.html/summary.html
There is also something of a moral difference, namely
Finland made the mistake of joining forces with the
Nazi Germany from 1941. to 1944. (though admittedly
somewhat understandable given the circumstances), and
so was forced to sign the Paris treaty accepting the
loss of territory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Treaties%2C_1947
It seems that Finland unilaterally abrogated the 1947.
and 1948. treaties after the demise of the Soviet
Union, but it's not very clear what the practical
consequences of that might be. I wouldn't be too sure
that the issue is buried forever.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3238.htm
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