j***@faf.mil.fi
2005-07-04 09:02:55 UTC
Back in 1972, Finnish humorist Arto Paasilinna wrote a book titled
"Operation Finlandia", describing a Swedish invasion of Finland in the
summer of 1977, at the time still near future. The book was not a
particularly serious work, and wasn't intended as such. As a piece of
dark, sometimes even sick humour, it certainly had its merits, and even
though the book is occasionally repetitive and the narrative structure
leaves something to be desired, it still provides some entertainment
even for the reader of today. What's more, in spite of its primary
humoristic value, the book is also interesting as a description of a
future that has now, in the course of the time, become alternate
history. Therefore, discussing Paasilinna's book and the historical
plotline that he presented might be appropriate also in this newsgroup.
In the introduction of his book, Paasilinna explained his motives for
writing his novel, with the following words: "At all times, wars are
waged all around the world. Yet somehow we, people of the Nordic
countries, consider ourselves to be living in the middle of some golden
era of global peace. The wars of today are regional and, thankfully for
us, fought far away in the Third World. With this book, I want to
spread war to the peaceful North. My primary intention is to show that
the propensity for war exists even here, and all that it takes is one
small spark to start the conflagration. I want to make it clear that
there are absolutely no countries and nations in this world that could
not start fighting against each others under suitable conditions".
In this first post, I'll focus on describing these "suitable
conditions" that trigger the Swedish-Finnish conflict in Paasilinna's
book. As the term is expressed on this forum, this post will deal with
his point of divergence and the overture of the main scenario. I'll
cover the story of the war itself in another post.
Paasilinna sets up his scene by relying on two very simple factors; the
rising Finnish immigration to Sweden in the early '70s and the mounting
Swedish economic problems. His story begins in the autumn of 1975, when
Sweden has received 350'000 Finnish immigrants. At the same time, the
Swedish consensus society has drifted to a constant turmoil, and the
economy is plagued by a terminal labour strife. Finally, a general
strike is declared in November, lasting for three weeks. The Swedish
economy grinds to a halt, the government is forced to declare a state
of emergency to secure energy and food supplies for the population, and
clashes between the strikers and the police contribute to the
increasing unrest. Simultaneously, the ordinary Swedish citizens direct
their hostility towards the immigrants, and assign the blame for the
strike on the "agitation of communist Finnish guest workers". The
evening press and popular newspapers provide more fuel for the fire and
stir up the developing Swedish hatred of foreigners, especially Finns.
The radicalization of the Swedish society and the hostility towards the
immigrant population is manifested in the parliamentary elections of
1976, where a recently-established extreme-right-wing party scores over
a fifth of the popular vote. The share of the Social Democrats drops to
27,2%, and the balance within the riksdag swings to the right, with the
new extremist elements controlling the key position. The newly-elected
legislature enacts several measures depriving immigrants of all legal
rights and protection, as well as preventing them from applying Swedish
citizenship. The new laws are presented as a "safeguard against all
foreign intervention in Swedish democracy", legalizing official and
unofficial persecution of all immigrant groups: Finns, Yugoslavs and
Turks.
The Swedish decisions provoke a series of protests from the Finnish
government, but these diplomatic notes are ignored by Stockholm. Soon,
Helsinki has a far more direct cause for concern, as the nationalist
agitation in Sweden causes a sudden increase in the separatist
tendencies in the autonomous province of Åland. On December 6th 1976,
the provincial legislature in Mariehamn openly announces the wish of
the province of Åland to separate from Finland and join Sweden. The
Finnish government declares the manifesto to be null and void, and
dispatches six hundred armed policemen to maintain order in the
islands. By the New Year, Åland has turned into a Scandinavian version
of Northern Ireland.
In March, Finnish guest workers in the iron ore mines of Kiruna in
northern Sweden start another strike, which is brutally supressed by
the Swedish police and military. The arrested strikers are interned at
new concentration facilities founded in southern Sweden.
Simultaneously, over two thousand Swedish paramilitaries cross over the
ice to Åland, smuggling a massive amount of weapons with them; only
six hundred men are captured and interned by the Finnish police forces.
On June 4th 1977, the province of Åland begins a coordinated,
full-scale rebellion against Finland. Twenty Finnish policemen are
killed by the Ålander rebels and their Swedish supporters, two hundred
end up as prisoners, and the rest are evacuated by Finnish gunboats.
The Ålander Rising marks the point of no return. Finland holds Sweden
guilty of instigating the revolt and severes the diplomatic and
commercial ties with Stockholm immediately. Both countries mobilize
their naval and air forces, and the situation on the maritime frontier
grows more and more tense. On July 2nd, during a casual overflight
across the Sea of Åland, one fighter squadron of the Royal Swedish Air
Force strays over the southwestern Finnish mainland and is fired upon
by the local Finnish anti-aircraft batteries. As a retaliation, the
commander of the squadron orders an immediate attack on the nuclear
plant in the Finnish town of Naantali. The surprising air raid destroys
both the plant as well as the nearby oil refineries, and sets the town
ablaze. Over a thousand people perish in the fire.
Stunned by the surprise attack and filled with a desire for revenge,
Finland takes the final step and declares war on Sweden.
[...]
Let's pause for a while right there, and save the story of the war for
a later time. As a description of alternate history, how plausible is
Paasilinna's work so far? Even though it's by no means intended as a
serious presentation, could it be made to function as a believable
description of alternate history?
The idea of a politically radicalized Sweden would obviously need some
work. The electoral defeat of Swedish Social Democrats to a new
promising political force is certainly plausible, and is actually
something that happened even in our timeline. The Swedish parliamentary
elections of 1973 already ended in a draw, with the parties of the Left
and the Right holding an equal amount of seats in the Riksdag, and the
government of Olof Palme managed to extend its tenure only after tough
negotiations. The historical elections of 1976 finally witnessed the
end of the four-decades-long Social Democratic reign and thrusted the
party into opposition for the following six years. The new
non-socialist government coalition was formed by the victorious Centre
Party, which had emerged as the primary challenger of the old
establishment and attracted most of the protest vote.
The fundamental difference to Paasilinna's timeline is, of course, that
the Swedish Centre of the '70s was not an extremist right-wing
movement, and the main protest campaign of the party wasn't directed
against immigrants, but against nuclear power. Still, in retrospect,
the thought of a soaring Swedish xenophobia in the early '70s does not
necessarily seem any more impossible than the increase of ethnic
passions in former Yugoslavia after the late '80s, or the sudden rise
of populist and extreme right-wing movements all across Western Europe
at the turn of the millennium. At the risk of sounding anachronistic,
for a European person who has observed the temporary successes of
people such as Haider, Fortuyn and Le Pen, the idea of a similar
process in Sweden, a country that even in our timeline has become noted
for its youth radicalism and occasional murders of leading politicians,
may appear a lot more convincing than one would wish to admit it to be.
The only real problem would be to explain the rise of these
anti-immigration tendencies a quarter a century ahead of their time.
The historical single-issue populist protest movements in Scandinavia
during the '70s and the '80s were usually directed against other
things, such as high taxes, or, in the case of the Christian protest
movements, against abortion and pornography. Immigration was not yet an
issue that it would later become. What's more, Sweden was the one
Nordic country where these hard-core protest movements _weren't_ able
to score a breakthrough and gain seats in the legislature. In contrast,
in Denmark and, to a lesser extent, in Norway, both the anti-tax as
well as the Christian populist movements did manage to score a part of
the popular vote and win seats in the legislature, while in Finland,
the 1970 elections witnessed the emergence of Veikko Vennamo's
protest-fueled SMP (Rural Party) as the new player on the political
scene. But in Sweden, similar movements were unable to break the
electoral barrier until 1991.
The political radicalization and anti-immigrant agenda could make more
sense in the middle of the economic troubles and labour strife that
Paasilinna has postulated. So, how possible would these be?
Obviously, in our timeline, Sweden _did_ experience economic and
financial problems in the '70s, triggered by the Oil Crisis, an event
which was still waiting one year in the future at the time when
Paasilinna wrote his book. The successive non-socialist Swedish
governments of our timeline were able to curtail the level of
unemployment by massive subsidies to the industry. This created
additional problems in the form of high inflation and rising national
debt, and also made the planned tax cuts an unfeasible proposition.
Still, severe labour conflict didn't take place until 1980, and even
then, Sweden continued to remain as the one European country after
Switzerland with the smallest number of days lost to work stoppages.
Given the historical record, the idea of a national strike paralyzing
the entire Swedish society does not seem all that plausible. Besides,
Paasilinna has made Sweden a full member in the EEC, which should in my
opinion have alleviated the worst economic problems.
However, wouldn't simply saying that "it could not have happened there"
be precisely the Scandinavian self-satisfaction and complacence that
Paasilinna warned about? Who is to say that a more inept economic
policy by the Swedish governments could not have thrusted the country
to a terminal turmoil in the aftermath of the Oil Crisis, never mind
the decades-long traditions of settlement and compromise? Who is to say
that in such a situation, an ensuing labour conflict could not have
assumed violent proportions? When pressed hard enough, a welfare state
based on a consensus society _can_ eventually break and deteriorate to
a level where riots and public violence become commonplace. As a case
in a point, we have the example of the United Kingdom in the '70s and
the '80s.
And in this kind of a situation, why couldn't a nation-wide labour
conflict also trigger a hostile reaction from the right? And wouldn't
it seem at least a marginal possibility that this reaction could
harness additional momentum from the developing xenophobic tendencies,
resulting in the radicalization of the society to the level where even
extremism and authoritarian, oppressive rule would be welcomed by a
nontrivial part of the population?
So, my feeling is that Paasilinna may have inadvertently created a
scenario which might, after some thought, be more believable than he
intended it to be. Even though the process that he described would
require a lot more explanation and detail for the sake of plausibility,
I think he is at least raising an interesting question: what would it
take to destroy a stable, modern European democracy from within? What
would it take to have all the dark sides of the post-war West European
political life that have, from time to time, surfaced in different
parts of this Continent to manifest themselves in one single country,
all at once?
In short, I _think_ that the "Bad Sweden" could perhaps be done as a
believable scenario, even with a point of divergence set in the '70s.
At least I wouldn't completely rule it out as a challenge that can
never be answered. However, my guess is that it would take a longer
period of time than just one year to wreck the Swedish democracy, and I
don't think that it would require the birth of a new extremist
movement; the radicalization of the pre-existing parties would do just
fine. But would this Bad Sweden necessarily be also expansionistic and
raise the question of Åland islands as the national irredenta?
For me, the role of Åland in the story is a good deal more difficult
to accept than the premise of a Bad Sweden. Paasilinna's story relies
on the idea of Ålander separatism, something that I don't find
particularly plausible. To be sure, the province _has_ had a rather
vocal separatist/independence movement even in our timeline, but
somehow, it's hard to think of a scenario where this separatism could
win truly large-scale popular support, let alone be able to rise to the
level of an open, armed rebellion. It's also difficult to see how the
rise of a militant, extremist Sweden could somehow facilitate Ålander
separatism - rather, it seems more likely that this would make the
generally peaceful Ålanders more _reluctant_ to separate from Finland
and join Sweden. The idea of Åland as a willing counterpart to the
1939-Danzig or the 1991-Krajina doesn't really seem believable to me.
Nonetheless... a drastic rise of the pre-existing separatist tendencies
in Åland could make sense if the emergence of a Bad Sweden and the
actions against Finnish immigrants would be matched by a similar
increase of popular hostility towards the Swedish minority in Finland.
And with an immigrant-persecuting Bad Sweden around, it doesn't seem
too impossible that the ever-flickering language strife in Finland
could be re-ignited to the level where it could eventually give birth
to violent ethnic passions, leading to an unofficial popular
persecution and harassment of Swedish-speaking citizens on the Finnish
mainland. This seems a possible reaction if we accept the premise of a
Bad Sweden, and it could also plausibly trigger fear-induced separatism
in Åland.
Assuming that this would also be backed by the secret arrival of
Swedish paramilitaries to the islands, as Paasilinna has described, an
equal scare reaction from Helsinki and the dispatch of an armed police
force to Åland would certainly make sense. Due to the
internationally-imposed demilitarization, sending the military would be
politically unfeasible for Finland, but even a pervasive police
surveillance could create enough antagonisms among the islanders and
nicely complete the vicious circle leading to an actual provincial
rebellion.
So, in order to ignite the Ålander separatism, we would need not only
a Bad Sweden, but also a Naughty Finland, where the Swedish minority is
a target of popular hate, contempt and harassment. And the NF would
certainly seem like a logical consequence of the BS. However,
Paasilinna has regretfully overlooked this possibility, and ignored the
potential for Finnish hatred against the Swedish-speaking minority.
Instead, he has simply presented the Ålander separatism as a direct
result of Bad Sweden, and the very few references that he makes to the
Finnish Swedes in his book would indicate that they manage to live on
their life with no trouble at all during the crisis and the eventual
war. Paasilinna names Erik von Frenckell as the loyal supporter of his
Finnish homeland and Jutta Zilliacus as the head of the peace
opposition, and also mentions the continuing involvement of the Swedish
People's Party in the Finnish politics, apparently without any
controversies or accusations whatsoever. Disappointing.
Of course, the Bad Sweden and the Naughty Finland (we could also name
this "Palme-as-Milosevic-and-Kekkonen-as-Tudjman"-scenario) wouldn't
necessarily have to start a full-scale national conflict over Åland.
Given the North Irish and Yugoslav examples from our timeline, some
kind of a prolonged terror-counterterror-campaign or a regionally
limited proxy shoot-out would seem more realistic possibilities, and
could provide lots of interesting possibilities for the historic '70s
or the '80s.
But, since Paasilinna's idea of a real, honest-to-God, old-fashioned
full frontal war with large-scale military operations on sea, air and
land is more fun, let's just accept his idea of an accidental air raid
leading to a war, explore his scenario and make some comments on its
possibilities. But, before moving on and making a post on that, are
there any questions, comments or any other expressions of interest in
this scenario?
Cheers,
Jalonen
Post Scriptum: the Swedish air raid against the "nuclear plant at
Naantali" is one of the several futuristic plot devices in the book.
There is no nuclear plant at Naantali, but the town was considered as a
possible site for one in the early '70s. In our timeline, the reactor
eventually went to the village of Eurajoki, somewhat further to the
north. Paasilinna has also given the office of the President of Finland
to the Centre leader Johannes Virolainen, who was the heir apparent to
Kekkonen in our timeline. Evidently our humorist underestimated
Kekkonen's personal lust for power and was unable to foresee the
exceptional legislation that skipped the presidential elections of 1974
and extended Kekkonen's reign still further.
"Operation Finlandia", describing a Swedish invasion of Finland in the
summer of 1977, at the time still near future. The book was not a
particularly serious work, and wasn't intended as such. As a piece of
dark, sometimes even sick humour, it certainly had its merits, and even
though the book is occasionally repetitive and the narrative structure
leaves something to be desired, it still provides some entertainment
even for the reader of today. What's more, in spite of its primary
humoristic value, the book is also interesting as a description of a
future that has now, in the course of the time, become alternate
history. Therefore, discussing Paasilinna's book and the historical
plotline that he presented might be appropriate also in this newsgroup.
In the introduction of his book, Paasilinna explained his motives for
writing his novel, with the following words: "At all times, wars are
waged all around the world. Yet somehow we, people of the Nordic
countries, consider ourselves to be living in the middle of some golden
era of global peace. The wars of today are regional and, thankfully for
us, fought far away in the Third World. With this book, I want to
spread war to the peaceful North. My primary intention is to show that
the propensity for war exists even here, and all that it takes is one
small spark to start the conflagration. I want to make it clear that
there are absolutely no countries and nations in this world that could
not start fighting against each others under suitable conditions".
In this first post, I'll focus on describing these "suitable
conditions" that trigger the Swedish-Finnish conflict in Paasilinna's
book. As the term is expressed on this forum, this post will deal with
his point of divergence and the overture of the main scenario. I'll
cover the story of the war itself in another post.
Paasilinna sets up his scene by relying on two very simple factors; the
rising Finnish immigration to Sweden in the early '70s and the mounting
Swedish economic problems. His story begins in the autumn of 1975, when
Sweden has received 350'000 Finnish immigrants. At the same time, the
Swedish consensus society has drifted to a constant turmoil, and the
economy is plagued by a terminal labour strife. Finally, a general
strike is declared in November, lasting for three weeks. The Swedish
economy grinds to a halt, the government is forced to declare a state
of emergency to secure energy and food supplies for the population, and
clashes between the strikers and the police contribute to the
increasing unrest. Simultaneously, the ordinary Swedish citizens direct
their hostility towards the immigrants, and assign the blame for the
strike on the "agitation of communist Finnish guest workers". The
evening press and popular newspapers provide more fuel for the fire and
stir up the developing Swedish hatred of foreigners, especially Finns.
The radicalization of the Swedish society and the hostility towards the
immigrant population is manifested in the parliamentary elections of
1976, where a recently-established extreme-right-wing party scores over
a fifth of the popular vote. The share of the Social Democrats drops to
27,2%, and the balance within the riksdag swings to the right, with the
new extremist elements controlling the key position. The newly-elected
legislature enacts several measures depriving immigrants of all legal
rights and protection, as well as preventing them from applying Swedish
citizenship. The new laws are presented as a "safeguard against all
foreign intervention in Swedish democracy", legalizing official and
unofficial persecution of all immigrant groups: Finns, Yugoslavs and
Turks.
The Swedish decisions provoke a series of protests from the Finnish
government, but these diplomatic notes are ignored by Stockholm. Soon,
Helsinki has a far more direct cause for concern, as the nationalist
agitation in Sweden causes a sudden increase in the separatist
tendencies in the autonomous province of Åland. On December 6th 1976,
the provincial legislature in Mariehamn openly announces the wish of
the province of Åland to separate from Finland and join Sweden. The
Finnish government declares the manifesto to be null and void, and
dispatches six hundred armed policemen to maintain order in the
islands. By the New Year, Åland has turned into a Scandinavian version
of Northern Ireland.
In March, Finnish guest workers in the iron ore mines of Kiruna in
northern Sweden start another strike, which is brutally supressed by
the Swedish police and military. The arrested strikers are interned at
new concentration facilities founded in southern Sweden.
Simultaneously, over two thousand Swedish paramilitaries cross over the
ice to Åland, smuggling a massive amount of weapons with them; only
six hundred men are captured and interned by the Finnish police forces.
On June 4th 1977, the province of Åland begins a coordinated,
full-scale rebellion against Finland. Twenty Finnish policemen are
killed by the Ålander rebels and their Swedish supporters, two hundred
end up as prisoners, and the rest are evacuated by Finnish gunboats.
The Ålander Rising marks the point of no return. Finland holds Sweden
guilty of instigating the revolt and severes the diplomatic and
commercial ties with Stockholm immediately. Both countries mobilize
their naval and air forces, and the situation on the maritime frontier
grows more and more tense. On July 2nd, during a casual overflight
across the Sea of Åland, one fighter squadron of the Royal Swedish Air
Force strays over the southwestern Finnish mainland and is fired upon
by the local Finnish anti-aircraft batteries. As a retaliation, the
commander of the squadron orders an immediate attack on the nuclear
plant in the Finnish town of Naantali. The surprising air raid destroys
both the plant as well as the nearby oil refineries, and sets the town
ablaze. Over a thousand people perish in the fire.
Stunned by the surprise attack and filled with a desire for revenge,
Finland takes the final step and declares war on Sweden.
[...]
Let's pause for a while right there, and save the story of the war for
a later time. As a description of alternate history, how plausible is
Paasilinna's work so far? Even though it's by no means intended as a
serious presentation, could it be made to function as a believable
description of alternate history?
The idea of a politically radicalized Sweden would obviously need some
work. The electoral defeat of Swedish Social Democrats to a new
promising political force is certainly plausible, and is actually
something that happened even in our timeline. The Swedish parliamentary
elections of 1973 already ended in a draw, with the parties of the Left
and the Right holding an equal amount of seats in the Riksdag, and the
government of Olof Palme managed to extend its tenure only after tough
negotiations. The historical elections of 1976 finally witnessed the
end of the four-decades-long Social Democratic reign and thrusted the
party into opposition for the following six years. The new
non-socialist government coalition was formed by the victorious Centre
Party, which had emerged as the primary challenger of the old
establishment and attracted most of the protest vote.
The fundamental difference to Paasilinna's timeline is, of course, that
the Swedish Centre of the '70s was not an extremist right-wing
movement, and the main protest campaign of the party wasn't directed
against immigrants, but against nuclear power. Still, in retrospect,
the thought of a soaring Swedish xenophobia in the early '70s does not
necessarily seem any more impossible than the increase of ethnic
passions in former Yugoslavia after the late '80s, or the sudden rise
of populist and extreme right-wing movements all across Western Europe
at the turn of the millennium. At the risk of sounding anachronistic,
for a European person who has observed the temporary successes of
people such as Haider, Fortuyn and Le Pen, the idea of a similar
process in Sweden, a country that even in our timeline has become noted
for its youth radicalism and occasional murders of leading politicians,
may appear a lot more convincing than one would wish to admit it to be.
The only real problem would be to explain the rise of these
anti-immigration tendencies a quarter a century ahead of their time.
The historical single-issue populist protest movements in Scandinavia
during the '70s and the '80s were usually directed against other
things, such as high taxes, or, in the case of the Christian protest
movements, against abortion and pornography. Immigration was not yet an
issue that it would later become. What's more, Sweden was the one
Nordic country where these hard-core protest movements _weren't_ able
to score a breakthrough and gain seats in the legislature. In contrast,
in Denmark and, to a lesser extent, in Norway, both the anti-tax as
well as the Christian populist movements did manage to score a part of
the popular vote and win seats in the legislature, while in Finland,
the 1970 elections witnessed the emergence of Veikko Vennamo's
protest-fueled SMP (Rural Party) as the new player on the political
scene. But in Sweden, similar movements were unable to break the
electoral barrier until 1991.
The political radicalization and anti-immigrant agenda could make more
sense in the middle of the economic troubles and labour strife that
Paasilinna has postulated. So, how possible would these be?
Obviously, in our timeline, Sweden _did_ experience economic and
financial problems in the '70s, triggered by the Oil Crisis, an event
which was still waiting one year in the future at the time when
Paasilinna wrote his book. The successive non-socialist Swedish
governments of our timeline were able to curtail the level of
unemployment by massive subsidies to the industry. This created
additional problems in the form of high inflation and rising national
debt, and also made the planned tax cuts an unfeasible proposition.
Still, severe labour conflict didn't take place until 1980, and even
then, Sweden continued to remain as the one European country after
Switzerland with the smallest number of days lost to work stoppages.
Given the historical record, the idea of a national strike paralyzing
the entire Swedish society does not seem all that plausible. Besides,
Paasilinna has made Sweden a full member in the EEC, which should in my
opinion have alleviated the worst economic problems.
However, wouldn't simply saying that "it could not have happened there"
be precisely the Scandinavian self-satisfaction and complacence that
Paasilinna warned about? Who is to say that a more inept economic
policy by the Swedish governments could not have thrusted the country
to a terminal turmoil in the aftermath of the Oil Crisis, never mind
the decades-long traditions of settlement and compromise? Who is to say
that in such a situation, an ensuing labour conflict could not have
assumed violent proportions? When pressed hard enough, a welfare state
based on a consensus society _can_ eventually break and deteriorate to
a level where riots and public violence become commonplace. As a case
in a point, we have the example of the United Kingdom in the '70s and
the '80s.
And in this kind of a situation, why couldn't a nation-wide labour
conflict also trigger a hostile reaction from the right? And wouldn't
it seem at least a marginal possibility that this reaction could
harness additional momentum from the developing xenophobic tendencies,
resulting in the radicalization of the society to the level where even
extremism and authoritarian, oppressive rule would be welcomed by a
nontrivial part of the population?
So, my feeling is that Paasilinna may have inadvertently created a
scenario which might, after some thought, be more believable than he
intended it to be. Even though the process that he described would
require a lot more explanation and detail for the sake of plausibility,
I think he is at least raising an interesting question: what would it
take to destroy a stable, modern European democracy from within? What
would it take to have all the dark sides of the post-war West European
political life that have, from time to time, surfaced in different
parts of this Continent to manifest themselves in one single country,
all at once?
In short, I _think_ that the "Bad Sweden" could perhaps be done as a
believable scenario, even with a point of divergence set in the '70s.
At least I wouldn't completely rule it out as a challenge that can
never be answered. However, my guess is that it would take a longer
period of time than just one year to wreck the Swedish democracy, and I
don't think that it would require the birth of a new extremist
movement; the radicalization of the pre-existing parties would do just
fine. But would this Bad Sweden necessarily be also expansionistic and
raise the question of Åland islands as the national irredenta?
For me, the role of Åland in the story is a good deal more difficult
to accept than the premise of a Bad Sweden. Paasilinna's story relies
on the idea of Ålander separatism, something that I don't find
particularly plausible. To be sure, the province _has_ had a rather
vocal separatist/independence movement even in our timeline, but
somehow, it's hard to think of a scenario where this separatism could
win truly large-scale popular support, let alone be able to rise to the
level of an open, armed rebellion. It's also difficult to see how the
rise of a militant, extremist Sweden could somehow facilitate Ålander
separatism - rather, it seems more likely that this would make the
generally peaceful Ålanders more _reluctant_ to separate from Finland
and join Sweden. The idea of Åland as a willing counterpart to the
1939-Danzig or the 1991-Krajina doesn't really seem believable to me.
Nonetheless... a drastic rise of the pre-existing separatist tendencies
in Åland could make sense if the emergence of a Bad Sweden and the
actions against Finnish immigrants would be matched by a similar
increase of popular hostility towards the Swedish minority in Finland.
And with an immigrant-persecuting Bad Sweden around, it doesn't seem
too impossible that the ever-flickering language strife in Finland
could be re-ignited to the level where it could eventually give birth
to violent ethnic passions, leading to an unofficial popular
persecution and harassment of Swedish-speaking citizens on the Finnish
mainland. This seems a possible reaction if we accept the premise of a
Bad Sweden, and it could also plausibly trigger fear-induced separatism
in Åland.
Assuming that this would also be backed by the secret arrival of
Swedish paramilitaries to the islands, as Paasilinna has described, an
equal scare reaction from Helsinki and the dispatch of an armed police
force to Åland would certainly make sense. Due to the
internationally-imposed demilitarization, sending the military would be
politically unfeasible for Finland, but even a pervasive police
surveillance could create enough antagonisms among the islanders and
nicely complete the vicious circle leading to an actual provincial
rebellion.
So, in order to ignite the Ålander separatism, we would need not only
a Bad Sweden, but also a Naughty Finland, where the Swedish minority is
a target of popular hate, contempt and harassment. And the NF would
certainly seem like a logical consequence of the BS. However,
Paasilinna has regretfully overlooked this possibility, and ignored the
potential for Finnish hatred against the Swedish-speaking minority.
Instead, he has simply presented the Ålander separatism as a direct
result of Bad Sweden, and the very few references that he makes to the
Finnish Swedes in his book would indicate that they manage to live on
their life with no trouble at all during the crisis and the eventual
war. Paasilinna names Erik von Frenckell as the loyal supporter of his
Finnish homeland and Jutta Zilliacus as the head of the peace
opposition, and also mentions the continuing involvement of the Swedish
People's Party in the Finnish politics, apparently without any
controversies or accusations whatsoever. Disappointing.
Of course, the Bad Sweden and the Naughty Finland (we could also name
this "Palme-as-Milosevic-and-Kekkonen-as-Tudjman"-scenario) wouldn't
necessarily have to start a full-scale national conflict over Åland.
Given the North Irish and Yugoslav examples from our timeline, some
kind of a prolonged terror-counterterror-campaign or a regionally
limited proxy shoot-out would seem more realistic possibilities, and
could provide lots of interesting possibilities for the historic '70s
or the '80s.
But, since Paasilinna's idea of a real, honest-to-God, old-fashioned
full frontal war with large-scale military operations on sea, air and
land is more fun, let's just accept his idea of an accidental air raid
leading to a war, explore his scenario and make some comments on its
possibilities. But, before moving on and making a post on that, are
there any questions, comments or any other expressions of interest in
this scenario?
Cheers,
Jalonen
Post Scriptum: the Swedish air raid against the "nuclear plant at
Naantali" is one of the several futuristic plot devices in the book.
There is no nuclear plant at Naantali, but the town was considered as a
possible site for one in the early '70s. In our timeline, the reactor
eventually went to the village of Eurajoki, somewhat further to the
north. Paasilinna has also given the office of the President of Finland
to the Centre leader Johannes Virolainen, who was the heir apparent to
Kekkonen in our timeline. Evidently our humorist underestimated
Kekkonen's personal lust for power and was unable to foresee the
exceptional legislation that skipped the presidential elections of 1974
and extended Kekkonen's reign still further.