CPF Congress 4 June 2016
Political Report of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Finland to the
To the Party Congress
CLASS STRUGGLE ON A PLURALIST AND FEMINIST FRONTLINE
For the working class, Finnish society is nowadays
developing at the beck and call of big money and big business. The
political elite and influential parties in Parliament have either
bent to the logic of the market economy or have simply given it a
blank cheque. What’s worrying from the viewpoint of working women
and men is that even the parliamentary Left and the Greens have time
and agan been uncritically willing to join government colaitions,
even though it means continuing with cuts similar to those we
experience now. Not one of the influental parties in Parliament has
clearly distanced itself from policies continuing the transfer of
incomes from the poor to the rich. This is because the name of the
parliamentary game is to get into government at any price whatsoever.
If we put the countries of the world in order of GDP, we
see that Finland is ranked somwehere in the top 25, together with
Belgium, the UK and Oman. According to a report in Metro newspaper,
Norway is the world’s happiest, richest and healthiest country.
Finland is ranked ninth among the 10 happiest countries. The
indicators used in the rankings use things like GDP and the numbers
of people in work. It covers 142 countries. At the bottom we find
Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen.
From the perspective of the working class, prosperity in
Finland is distributed unevenly. Globally, the 62 richest people own
as much as half the world’s population. According to an Oxfam
report, the gulf between rich and poor is fast accelerating.
Last year, some 350 000 asylum seekers crossed borders
into Europe. The ratio of asylum seekers coming to Europe to the size
of the EU’s 500-million population is 0,07% (January-October 2015).
This 0,07% is termed – depending somewhat on who’s talking – a
’wave’ or a ’surge’. It’s actually really only a small
ripple.
Wars cause deprivation and anguish, in addition to
economic turmoil. According to the UN, the largest numbers of
refugees have been from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
In addition to the economic misery, deprivation and
fears are caused by wars. In recent years, the United States alone
has been fighting and continues to fight in Afghanistan (2001 -),
Iraq (2003-2011), Pakistan (2004-), Libya (2011) and then in Syria,
Iraq, Libya and Nigeria (2014-). It is specifically because of war
that people are forced to flee their homes and seek refuge elsewhere.
COOPERATING WITH OTHERS WANTING CHANGE
The CPF has proposed a policy of cooperation with a wide
range of Left and Green forces. Our policy idea is based on
cooperation with different forces for change. We cannot and do not
want to build a new society by ourselves. A new society will be the
result of working together. And clearly this means that we cooperate
with different mass movements. In working and acting against the
government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä we have been able to see
that cooperation specifically againist the government’s austerity
policy has been productive. This cooperation has brought thousands of
protestors onto the streets in Finland. The masses of protestors –
collective power – have not come onto the streets by dint of
Marxist analysis or class-consciousness. Many have come to protest
because the hand of right-wing policy has sneaked into their wallets
and the lack of basic social security, health services and education
is such that they cannot just sit quietly alone at home.
We are in a situation in Finland where right-wing policy
has brought young people especially out onto the streets who
previously cared little for politics. Finnish youth follow what’s
going on in the world. We have had a wave of mass left protest that
was born of the progressive initiatve of our French comrades to
remain in the Place de la Republique following the protest against
the government’s labour law. Instead of returning home they
launched a mass gathering that continues to this day.
In Finland, a group of influential figures in cutures
and arts and young people in the Collective Power network who have
become politicised identified with this nuit
debuit – night rebellion movement of French
and some other Europeans and have since started once a week to
organise a progressive action in the current new way – openly in
the centre of the city among all the arts, culture and community
facilities.
99 % POWERED
We have a valuable experience of three years back. At
that time the small parties in Parliament were in the ’rainbow’
coalition government. Then, too, there was resistance to unequal
income distribution and capitalism, not just in Europe but globally.
In Finland, there was also action in the name of the Occupy movement
that convened activities throughout the winter. We called it the
‘marketplace movement’, and its symbol was a hurricane lamp. In
the tents of the markeplace movement folk learnt about and debated
various social issues. As communists we had our own place there too.
In addition to providing the marketplace movemnet with firewood, we
brought to it discussion on class-consciousness and Marxist
perspectives. Amidst all the activity of the marketplace movement I
remember being amazed at how Left Alliance activists had kept away
from the action. The reason for this split was the Left Alliance’s
participation in the government coalition. The same reason applies to
its avoidance of more conspicuous involvement in the peace movement.
From the perspective of citizen action, government work and social
responsibility are mutual negatives. Now that both left parties, the
Social Democrats and the Left Alliance, are no longer in government
they exhibit renewed courage in civic participation; the peace
movement has held a united protest against war games, cultural and
arts workers have come out against the government’s new definition
of artists as entrepreneurs, while pensioners and students have held
mass actions against government policy.
The strange feature of many of the demonstrations,
however, is that we see some of the key party political figures of
government austerity policies being invited to speak. This is an odd
Finnish characteristic that we cannot explain other than by the fact
that the ruling parties in Parliament want in one way or another to
retain their consensus politics identity. It was unbelieveable to
hear at the demonstration at Railway Station Sqaure packed with trade
unionists government PR spiel about why people’s working hours
should be made longer and their pay cut – that is at a
demonstration demanding a change of political direction and for fair
tripartite talks on pay increases instead of policies pushing down
pay levels, an end to intimidation by ‘local’ agreements and an
end to the diktat of employers.
SOCIALISM OF THE EARLY 2000s
The developmental problems of Finland and the rest of
the world will not be tackled by subjugating politics to the markets,
by government austerity policies and people able only to choose
differently named parties from the same neo-liberal policy drive.
We need politics where people are not just instruments
but are the protagonists and purpose of politics. It is wrong to
imagine that we can immediately provide ready-made recipes and plan
the stages of change for everything in advance. New left wing radical
change desires cooperation and seeks out and realises alternatives
together with the people, trade union movement, citizens’ movements
and parties that want change.
It is obvious to us that we want to develop common
action against neo-liberalism and big capital in order to alter the
direction of politics, to expand the rights of working people and the
poor, limit the power of monopoly capital, to ensure sustainable
development and peace and to open the road to socialism.
The power of capitalist monopolies and financial
institutions is from our communist perspective a grave obstacle to
rational, just and environmentally sustainable development.
Similarly, from the viewpoint of workingmen and workingwomen the
greatest threats and uncertainties facing humanity are directly
related to the capitalist mode of production and the dominant logic
of capital. That is why as communists we say that capitalism is an
obstacle to human freedom, the welfare of peoples and a threat to the
future of all humanity.
Today we can safely say that, yes, the movements for
socialism have experienced disappointments and setbacks, and yet
replacing capitalism with a fundamentally different society and form
of development is from the perspective of class struggle today all
the more crucial. Socialist values persist because any vision of a
dignified and positive future without them would be utterly
inadequate. The ideals of socialism are palpable and alive in
movements that struggle for human rights, equality and freedom.
The ideals and objective of socialism give us as
communists a direction in our everyday work and activity. Socialism
does not simply denote values and the politics practiced in their
name. Revolution means the creation of new power and economic
structures, as a result of the struggles of the working class and the
majority of the people, that promote the construction of a workers’
Europe, a democratic welfare society, democracy and solidarity, and
of a new human civilisation. This is why as communists we say that
the revolution is present in our daily work and activities, and more
and more so with every passing year.
Socialism signifies profound changes in our relationship
with work, power, nature and other people and peoples. Socialism does
not mean the abolition of all private ownership, but it does mean
various forms of social ownership of the means of production so that
the markets can be subjugated to cater for people’s needs and that
we can steer development systematically on an environmentally
sustainable path. It is a society of highly advanced productive
forces.
Crises have always been integral to the history of
capitalism and its efforts to solve problems. Now, the crisis is that
of the capitalist system, the distinctive feature of which is the
devastating effect of massively bloated financial markets.
Speculation on the stock market and imaginary expected value
suppresses and plunders tha rest of the economy. Another distinctive
feature of the system is the concurrence of multiple crises and the
refugee crisis triggered by imperialist wars. Capital’s multiple
crises combine financial crises, energy, food and environmental
crises as well as the crisis of parliamentary democracy. At issue is
also the crisis of the current model of economic, social and
environmental development.
More than anything, the point is that the major problems
facing humanity cannot be solved within the capitalist framework. It
is obvious that the financial markets and transnational corporations,
the stock markets and the bankers, Shell and McDonald’s have other
things in mind than solving the problems of poverty, unemployment,
inequality and chilate change. The initiative of socialism in the
2000s is one for a totally different type of society, in which the
status of ownership, money and power do not give anyone the scope to
exploit and oppress others.
It is precisely as communists that we, together with
others who want to bring about change, can meet the prospects of
revolutionary change, for socialism in the 2000s. This is a vast
challenge for us CPF comrades, who have decided to update the Party
programme so that at our next Congress we can decide on the new
updated CPF programme.
INTERNATIONAL CLASS POLITICS
The CPF is a member of the radical family of the
European Left. We also naturally have bilateral relations with
communist and workers’ partied in the Nordic countries, other parts
of Europe and the world. For the CPF it is important to be able to
develop international party relations in a more practically oriented,
not to say Marxist direction, from a relationship focussing on
messages of greetings and conferences and in a direction more closely
aligned to campaigning and joint action.
Here, the European Left is an important tool for the
CPF. We have been able to develop a variety of campaigns, such as
peace initiatives and work on specific issues in the Arctic region;
security, the environment, and human rights, both through the
European Left and communist and workers’ parties around the world.
The Arctic Initiative 6.6. immediately after our Congress shows how
with even modest financial resources we can bring together the
communist parties of the Arctic region, progressive European parties,
NGO representatives researchers, artists and workers to debate and
survey the common awareness of Arctic issues that unite us all.
The world’s communist and workers’ parties play an
important role in the CPF’s cooperation policy. We have cooperated
closely with the Communist Party of Cuba, among others, followed and
taken part in the discusson on the process of modernising Cuban
socialism. 26 September 2014 was the first International Day on the
Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Cuba has been a pioneering
state in action to eliminate nuclear weapons. We hope for broad
international support for the project and that governments,
parliaments and civil societies will observe 26 September each year
as international nuclear disarmament day, and in so doing focus
attention on the need for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.
Good, comradely relations both with the Embassy here in
Finland as with the CPC and with comrades working in Cuba have
strengthened the political work of the CPF here in the North.
HATE SPEECH AND POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE
The security policy programme of the Finns Party is that
the development of hate crime legislation should not set limits on
normal political debate.
I would argue that when ordinary workers blame
immigrants for endangering their own basic security, it emanates from
rightwing politics and the bourgeois media grinder. This in no way
excludes the point that the organisational activities of the working
class need to be improved. Collective learning about about social
matters and cultural activities are tools for understanding the
changing world. Have we organised enough discussions and training
courses? Refugees, undocumented people, asylum seekers, the sick,
pensioners and the most underprivileged and the scapegoats of
neo-liberalism’s politics of greed – not just by accident but
completely intentionally.
Though the broad left has not had any electoral
successes in the last three years and support for the CPF is
miniscule, we have advanced on the wider European front and increased
the strength of the Left in the EU Parliament, for instance. The seat
won by the Left Alliance’s Merja Kyllönen was an important gain
for the Left in Finland. Also, the European trade union movement,
particularly the ETUC, has been involved in many labour struggles and
general strikes, notably in Central and Southern Europe.
Drawing conclusions on the current situation in Europe
and the Euroregion is a key issue for all Communist and Left
movements.
For the CPF the situation in Greece is by no means a
matter of local curiosity, but rather a question of international
class struggle. It cannot be resolved within the borders of a single
country, but requires broad international cooperation and a united
front. What happens in Greece could well take place elsewhere in
Europe, and recur with even worse repurcussions. Europe’s direction
cannot be changed unless there is a powerful class struggle Left and
working class movement.
It is no doubt that we are in solidarity with the
struggle that has taken place in Greece and continues to take place
agaonst monopoly capital, the power of money and the power of the
banks. The struggle against austerity policies is not a struggle in
one country; in Finland or Greece the struggle against austerity
policies is at the core of the international class struggle. This is
why the various radical Left and Communist struggles against
austerity must be supported. We hope that the struggle for another
Europe and another world in Finland, Greece and globally becomes
stronger through the unity of the working class. The situation in
Portugal, where there is a government of social democrats, the Left
bloc and the communists, will open up new perspectives and hopes for
us on the possibility for Left cooperation.
The age-old struggle of the working class for an
egalitarian society must essentially involve a struggle for the
self-determination of peoples, equality and human rights. Our demand
is for justice, not the racist segregation of workers, longer working
hours and Sipilä’s 5% trick about lowering labour costs.
PEACE
There is no need for foreign fighter jets to be in
Finland, nor for foreign tanks nor foreign warships. The annual
surveys of support in Finalnd for Nato make it clear that people in
Finland are opposed to the military alliance. Previously, the will of
the people are been reflected in Finland’s foreign policy emphasis
on neutrality. The Sipilä government is now carrying out the policy
of the National Coalition Party and is taking Finland towards Nato
membership using war games and programmes disguised as cooperation
for peace.
Finland’s foreign policy must not be changed towards
one of military alliance. This spring, the war
games were conducted
not with Nato but directly with the United States. Neither
MPs nor even ministers have taken responsibility for security policy,
and public discussion has mainly been about communication. The US
invited itself to Finland, Russia’s neighbor, to conduct war games.
Finland and Nato signed the Host Nation Support agreement in autumn
2014. The move towards military alignment is increasing tensions in
our region and US – Russian relations have become strained in
recent years. Finland is now in danger of becoming caught up in
imperialist conflicts.
We
must keep Finland out of wars and out of Nato. Finland is not a
colony for war games. The Sipilä government’s billion-dollar
weapons acquisitions must be reversed and the money used for them
used to combat poverty and promote employment. It is absurd to devote
millions of euros to US war games in Finland. We call on all
peace-loving forces for a return to Finnish non-alignment. We must
act as the pioneers of disarmament and for ridding the world of
nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.
The Finnish peace movement’s connection to the rest of
the world occasionally rears its head. The problem is that the
Finnish peace movement suffers from political timidity, which
prevents its internationalisation. The political tensions between the
World Peace Council and the Peace Bureau are one reason for the peace
movement’s international passivity and caution. The CPF has
important bilateral relations on peace issues with many progressive
movements in Europe, including in Greece, Portugal, Germany and
Denmark. Also, concrete joint initiatives such as the Peace Alert in
summer 2015 facilitated dialogue with among others the Chinese peace
movement. From the CPF’s peace activist’s perspective it would be
desireable if the broad Finnish Left and Green could cooperate better
in the future and have political speeches at our events. It is
important that peace work can take place at grassroots level as
citizen advocacy, but it should also have natural relations with
various political forces and it should be able to challenge all
influential figures in society to take part in peace building work.
Historically, fascist parties have always been allied
with bourgeois elites: big industry, banks, the civil service class
and the military. From the perspective of fascist economic history
(Hitler, Mussolini) the habitual aim was for war and maintaining
powerful armed forces.
The security policy agenda of the Finns party states
that Finland will defend Finns and that the keystone of Finnish
defence is a territorial defence system based on general
conscription. The Finns Party is part of a government that is
increasing the defence budget while making sweeping cuts from
elsewhere in society, so tat we will soon reach the target of 2% GDP
on defence spending of a proper Nato member.
The Finns Party’s security policy agenda views
immigration policy as border control and, in addition to police
capacity, one of the central factors linked to security. Finland
should, according to the agenda, remain outside the planned
pan-European immigration and refugee policy, so that Finland could
decide for itself how many foreigners we take.
The Finns Party security policy was concretised by the
fact that the SSS [Sipilä, Stubbs, Soini – the leaders of the
overning coalition parties] government has cut development aid by
€300-million. I think that instead of increasing austerity, poverty
and injustice we must act differently. The cuts to the development
budget must be halted. At a time when the refugees and the Third
World crisis are hand in hand our own poverty and deprivation has
clearly reached a critical point, it is crucial that economic policy
be realigned. Austerity and business policy must be abandoned. People
and work to negate poverty must be put first. We must demand that the
government increases activity for the world’s most disadvantaged
people by making development aid 0,7% of GDP. Similarly, the basic
human rights of undocumented people already in Finland, particularly
women and children, to such things as health services, must be
improved. Finland needs a law on the rights of undocumented people.
We need legislation that constrains municipalities to arrange
non-emergency health care services, such as pregnancy and maternity
care, to undocumented people.
Today it is important that we recall the 2015 Peace
Alert done in Helsinki. It will continue to call on people to join
actions and campaigns against war games, armed forces, weapons and
military bases.
The text of the Peace Alert states clearly that we
oppose new war games, new weapons, new armed forces and new military
bases.
RAINBOW POLITICS
Over the last three years tere has been a thoroughgoing
discussion in Finland on the status of gender and sexual minorities.
The human rights of transgender people are still badly neglected.
For us as a party it has been obvious, and in the political bureau we
have called for people to be able to notify the registry office
themselves of their gender. We have also called for recognition of a
third gender, which in practice means that where there is a situation
where a physician cannot determine an infant’s gender, they are
defined as being of third gender, instead of undergoing gender
reassignment surgery.
The CPF has shown itself to be the strongest of the
parties when in terms of rainbow politics. It has chosen for its
chairperson an openly gay man as its leader and its positions have
sought throughout to reach the goals of equality and feminism. Many
see the CPF as a pluralist and feminist party. Whether these
positions and vision will translate into electoral support is another
matter. Firstly, the CPF seeks a membership base of fortitude,
class-consciousness and collective power to establish cooperation for
a politics in which the struggle for better basic security for all is
not a parochial issue but fundamentally international.
What we need at this time is the fire of passion: we
need feminist initiatives from the roots for building a different
society. What is needed at this time and in this society are
fundamentally different structures that do not pit worker against
worker. We need fuel and flame for the kind of society that is based
on the age-old trade union demand for equality and justice, peace and
participatory democracy. And we need action and the will that unites
progressives and subversive forces in a feminist and pluralist
popular front against austerity.
Dear sisters,
In several EU member states economic, immigration,
financial and all other crises are cited as reasons for the austerity
policies, driving down the public sector and an emphasis on
traditional family values that are undermining the situation of
women.
The Sipilän government is aligning Finland by this
bourgeois policy to the group of countries where governments use
austerity as a device for putting women in their place outside of
formal working life – if not exactly between the kitchen stove and
a hard place, then at least without being paid from within the third
sector, where work refers to charity.
Last summer, 85 Finnish professors, university
chancellors and heads of research issues a harsh criticism of the
government programme of Prime Mininster Sipilä for its complete
absence of a gender equality perspective. The crisis policy austerity
measures targeting the public sector and services have had a clear
gender impact. According to Professor Niklas Bruun of the Hanken
School of Economics, the situation of women in particular who are
asylumseekers, have disabilities or belong to sexual minorities is
worst not only in crisis countries but in the whole EU.
As leftwing European women and femininsts we act and
work to oppose patriarchy and the madness of capitalism. The
International Women’s Day appeal stressed that in Europe prosperity
and wealth must be shared. An open borders policy must be promores,
meaning that people fleeing war, poverty and climate change must be
helped – asylum must be given, people must be helped.
The statement of women of the European Left /EL-Fem
declares, “We women know that all forms of sexual violence take
place everywhere in our lives. We women of the Left know that the
whole capitalist system is based on violence. Violence is structural,
physical and psychological. And this structural violence must be
tackled, not just when the offenders are men from other cultures,
ibut it must be addressed in every form and structure.”
I agree with this statement. It is important to add to
the Finnish debate on rape and violence the Left feminist
denouncement or refusal of women being used as a racist policy or
discourse tool.
EUROPEAN POLICY
The CPF is is one of the most insightful Left parties in
issues of EU relations. In joining the EU, Finnish people were
promised peace, freedom and economic growth. These promises now seem
grotesque, as the EU elite regulates which policies EU countries are
allowed to follow and within the EU we are more concerned about the
welfare of investors than with equality, solidarity of the overall
state of the national economy.
It is important to examine EU activity and business
policy from a working class perspective. EU member states are in an
austerity race against democracy and the social Europe. From a
feminist perspective we can say that a consequence of the right-wing
policy being pursued is disregard for equality and human rights
commitments.
For us as communists it is blatantly apparent that in
our policies we are not aiming for a parochial national capitalism
like the Finns Party or the liberal ultra conservatives, whose
hallmark is pretty much along the lines of bringing back the Finnmark
and nationalism instead of international solidarity.
Fos us as communists it is obvious that talk about
bringing back the Finnmark without the demand for overcoming the
supremacy of the banks is empty talk. Similarly, talk of leaving the
EU is flawed unless at the same time we break with EU treaties and,
most importantly, from the hegemonic logic of the market economy and
the structures of capitalism.
This is why as communists we talk about a workers’
Europe and why as Communists we talk about building a workers’
Europe. Creating a workers’ Europe is not a reformist project. A
workers’ Europe is not based on the logic of capitalism or the
market economy. It’s a project that can be criticised for being too
long term. And, sure, with current power relations the way they are
we cannot right away today in our parliaments overturn the prevailing
social structures. But we have no other way than the road of
cooperation and peace. In this the analytical work and practical
advocacy work together with both radical communist and workers
parties, the network of European communist parties and the European
Left collective are of central importance.
In the EU, public services and child and family benefits
are being cut and government work on gender equality shut down or
drastically reduced. In the name of structural renewal, the
contractual structures of the labour market, the status of women and
gender equality has been palbably worsened and minimum income norms
have been flouted.
A feminist perspective is not just a communist
perspective. Among other things, the supervisory bodies, of the
International Labour Organisation’s supervisory bodies, the expert
committees on the application of standards and conventions and the
Committee on Freedom of Association, and the Council of Europe’s
body monitoring the implementation of the Social Charter have
documented these violations extensively. The UN committee monitoring
the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women has, in its deliberations on the situation in Greece,
described a country in the grip of a profound humanitarian crsisi and
has many documented violations of fundamental rights.
To us it is crystal clear that another world is
possible. And it is equally crystal clear that another European Union
based on current capitalist structures and directives and laws that
ruin people, nature and democracy is not possible.
SOLIDARITY
We call on the Finnish government to act in the EU to
affirm the rights of self-determination and peace of Palestine,
Cyprus and Weste Sahara. The government must have the courage to
promote peace and to oppose Nato and the international arms industry.
The prerequisites of EU cooperation with Turkey, Israel
and Morocco must be reassessed and the start of peace negotiations
and an end to the policy of occupation made the starting points for
such cooperation.
In 2015, I participated in the Congress of Polisario,
the Western Sahara freedom front, in Dakhla refugee camp in Western
Algeria on the edge of the Sahara desert. I was able to follow the
discussion of the Sahrawi comrades on the situation concerning the
occupation by Marocco that has continued already for 40 years, in
which the UN had not been able to organise a referendum, despit
pledges to do so, a referendum on whether the Sahrawi people want to
belong to Marocco or be an independent nation. Young Sahrawis told
about the lack of prospects. The Polisario army is preparing for a
possible end to the ceasefire. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has
visited the region but there are no radical moves toward peace at
hand.
Some may wonder what the tiny CPF can do in the desert
about world conflicts. My answer is a lot. Conflicts and wars in the
world always need countries, men and women who want peace. I my
speech at the Polisario Congress I appealed to President Mohammed
Abdelaziz to continue with the long-term peace policy. I took the
opinions of the President and the results Polisario congress and
information about the political situation to the meeting of the board
of the Communist European Left comprising representatives of 30 left
and communist parties.
In the European Left we are launching a campaign to keep
its member parties informed of contacts with Polisario
representatoves in each EU member state. In Finland, for instance, we
are aiming to get a Left Alliance MP to establish a Western Sahara
friendship group that would be an important means of political
influence for the Sahrawi independence struggle. We are making a
similar effort with respect to the independence struggle of the
Palestinian people
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland
supports the Polisario liberation front in its struggle for the
democratic and peaceful independence of the
Sahrawi people. The CPF calls on the Finnish government to recognise
the Arab Democratic Republic of Sahara.
While we are in solidarity with geographically distant
struggles we need also to be able to look at situations close at
hand. It is obvious to us that we require the Sipilä government to
urgently deal with ILO Convention 169, left behind by the previous
government of Alexander Stubb. The convention must be ratified to
safeguard the fundamental and human rights of the Saami people and
the preservation of their culture and language, and prevent efforts
to integrate them into the majority population.
The CPF’s district organisation in Lapland proposed
that we mark the Sami people’s national day, 6 February 2016 by
flying the Sami flag. I supported this.
‘WELCOME’ IS A FINNISH VERB
There has nowadays people fleeing war, poverty and
hunger have been coming en masss to us in Europe, Finland, Helsinki
and even small localities. The war of the jungle: greed, the conquest
and subjugation of weaker peoples – imperialism – have driven
people from ther homes andhome turf. Many asylum seekers have had to
witness people dying before their eyes.
For a refugee, Finland means the cold unknown North, but
also peace and protection. For Finns it means the unknown South but
also the chance to be human to another human. ‘Welcome’ is not a
difficult word for any of us; between people it is the minimum.
Karelian evacuees, war children, Gothenburg car
factory men and American Finns live today in our discussions.
This time challenges us to think. We cannot externalise
the “asylum seeker crisis” to consulates, policies, or even
professional helpers. The debate on refugees will not be resolved by
remaining silent. We must talk about it in our workplaces, in the
media, in schools and in the marketplaces. We must detect the
strucures of racism. We must analyse its thought patterns. I have
been part of many new social debates in situations where previously
there was only talk about entertainment and swingers. Refugees and
austerity have brought back politics. The tracks of this lead to
capitalism and those guilty of war policies.
Austerity hits asylum
The EU Commission has proposed that asylum seelers be
relocated from Greece and Italy to other EU countries. The Sipilä
government decided in the beginning of autumn last year that Finland
would take a quota of 2 400 asylum seekers. The same government has
decided to determine whether the social security for those who are
granted asylum can be cut and support systems unbundled. This way
those granted asylum would no longer be included in the sphere of
residence-based social protection, said Finns Party leader Timo
Soini.
I oppose this policy of the Sipiläm Soini and Stubb
government. It is patriarchial, top-down coercion politics that
intensifies inequality, poverty and racism. At the same tie, when it
comes to influencing the causes of the influx of refugees, the
government cuts the development aid budget and supports imperialist
policy whose destruction is evident in places such as Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya and Palestine.
The government’s aim of cutting the social protection
of refugees is a wrong policy that places people in a position of
inequality. It is obvious that placing refugees in even greater
poverty in Finland will produce even worse conditions for them to
learn the language and culture, to be employed and to gain an
understanding of Finnish society. Denied proper basic social
security, refugees could well fall victim to the
shadow economy.
Though integrating refugees is initially paid for by
society, over the long-term their employment generates tax revenue
and relieves the so-called “sustainability gap”. There will be
more expense and problems if there’s no investment in the
integration needed for asylum.
Instead of setting poor people against one another, we
need sufficient basic security for everyone who needs it – for both
the main population and refugees – the creation of new jobs, more
opportunities for immigrants to learn Finnish, and resources for
minority cultures for their own cultural activities. The money for
this can be found from sharing the record profits of big corporations
by taxation and by cutting weapons procurements.
The struggle of the working class movement has always
been an international activity against the power of money and for
democracy. The income transfers from the poor to the rich and the
tightening of immigration policy are impossible to backtrack. The
working class movement must through collective power demand that the
government buries its planned “two tier” social security, stop
income transfers from the poor to the rich and give people priority
before markets. Instead of cutting development aid and supporting war
policies, it must act for peace and a more just world.
The countries in which the United States and its allies
have started wars are, logically enough, the same as those from which
the largest international migration have begun. People have been
forced by imperialist wars, the poverty induced
by the laws of the market economy and the climate change brought
about by industrial capitalism – by these three main issues to
leave their homes, their home turf and their own cultures. People
have unwillingly had to become refugees and move to another country.
We Finns have over the past year had a storm of debate.
Nationalist groups have emerged demanding that the borders be closed.
Some MPs have openly incited racist and fascist activity. On the
other hand, there have also emerged movements and campaigns from
among active citizens themselves in defence of human rights and
refugee rights, and many MPs support them.
Finland’s refugee policy echoes EU refugee policy,
which has recently made a serious error in agreeing with Turkey for
the return of refugees from Greece to Turkey and the curb on refugees
in Turkey proceeding to Europe. The EU’s neoliberal forces together
with conservative Turkish politicians have made a lucrative agreement
that have left the world’s refugees to fend for themselves in a
situation in Turket where basic refugee rights are not fulfilled and
where there is an effort to solve at low cost the refugee crisis
caused by te US and its allies.
CULTURAL POLICY
The political elite is sowing a field of vipers in our
midst. The crop of austerity policy’s parochial cultural landscape
is being shorn of everything human and different by a fascist
harvester. The bread that the policy of cutting produces is
expensive, tastes bitter and contains a stone.
The government has again cropped arts and culture
budgets quite regardless of whether in its decision it was atuned to
a varied market economy or, as today, to one of monochrome
capitalism.
The freezing of the arts and culture budjets is a
tangible cut in funding. We get less for less. The arts and culture
fields are not satisfied that the Minister of Culture Sanni Gran
Laasonen does not aim with her policy to free life’s more expensive
bills. Places in the cultural sun are under this policy are more
severely restricted. Theausterity policy of the National Coalition
Party, the Centre Party and the Finns Party has concretised the
higher price of life and the erosion of social responsibility as well
as cultural services.
It is time to generate a counter culture. The 8,8% of
the national budget for culture must be increased.
HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE – UNTIL VICTORY, ALWAYS!
I would hope that the Left Alliance and the CPF’s
cooperation could find opportunities in the initiatives of the
European Left, such as the joint feminist initiatives for women’s
right to decent work and pay, the right to decide on their own body
and the right to abortion. The scope for cooperation could also be
found in an initiative to strengthen the rights of immigrant workers
and in peace initiatives together with other Left parties in Europe.
A COLOURFUL AND PLURALIST COMMON FRONT
What’s needed now is participation, work and action
for building another Finland, a workers’ Europe and a better world.
This must include the communist desire for justice,
equality and sharing. It must include the feminist vision of the
equal rights of all women and men and of every person to development.
It must include the environmental demand to transform
our planet for the universal common good.
And
It must incorporate the vision of a world culture where
minorities have the right to their own culture, and what is
important, dear comrades: it must include the right of all citizens
to decide themselves on all matters locally and globally.
