Russia to Triple Its Military Presence on Finland’s Border

According to a report by Finnish military intelligence, Russia is set to triple the number of its troops stationed near Finland’s borders after the war in Ukraine ends. It is doing so because Putin’s military prioritizes its northwestern direction – essentially the area near Finland – highly in its strategic considerations.

The military intelligence assessment suggests that the number of Russian troops in the region will increase from around 30,000 combatants to an estimated 80,000 soldiers. At the same time, Russia’s behavior is “likely to become increasingly unpredictable” as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has severed Russia’s ties with the global economy.

As a result of all this, the border region between Finland and Russia will become “tense.” Naturally, this poses a significant challenge – and risk – to Finnish society as a whole and its independence.

For this reason, it is good that Finland’s Defense Forces have been working to integrate into NATO as quickly as possible, enabling Finland to rely on NATO’s support when necessary and to fully utilize its resources. It would also be beneficial if this were understood in Russia so that they would refrain from any aggression along their northwestern border.

This would also be in Russia’s own interest, as it is clear that its army would face significant challenges in an attack on Finland, especially given the difficulties it has already faced in Ukraine. Finland’s military is far better equipped than Ukraine’s, the size of its reserves is exceptionally high due to compulsory military service, the Finnish people’s will to defend their country is the highest in the world, and all of this is backed by the United States-led world’s strongest military alliance.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
No Low-Hanging Fruits Among Russian Neighbors
Ukraine Plans to Recruit 160,000 Soldiers, but Will It Turn the Tide of the War?
Finnish military intelligence: the Russian army is at the limits of its operational capability

Impact of Diversity in Films

In recent years, the use of individuals with distinctly different appearances in various movies, television entertainment shows, and advertisements has become more common. Therefore, it was interesting to find an American study that examined viewers' reactions when minority actors were added to leading roles in movie sequels.

The study analyzed movie series released from 1998 to 2021, and researchers found that movies with added minority actors received lower ratings and more toxic reviews than those without such additions. However, this effect weakened after the advent of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, especially when the movement's activity was at its peak.

According to the researchers, this demonstrated that social movements are significant factors in promoting diversity, equality, and inclusion. However, I couldn't help but wonder about the current situation, now that the BLM movement has lost some of its significance, and at least a significant portion of people—at least in Finland—are annoyed by the use of black individuals in movies and advertisements at a frequency much higher than their proportion of the population would suggest.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
A Finnish police officer is afraid to speak about the problems of immigration
Attitudes towards immigrants are not becoming more positive in Western countries
A white family does not represent real Londoners

Why doesn't immigration cause protests in Japan?

Nathan Cofnas published a message on social media where he wondered why increased immigration in Japan does not cause similar resistance as in Western countries. His conclusion was that "ethnonationalism isn't very popular."

He had added a figure to the title of a story in Foreign Policy Magazine, saying that "Japan Radically Increased Immigration - and No One Protested." Half of the answer to Nathan's question is provided by the story, describing that immigrants in Japan have to work in the country and are not supported by the social welfare system - read "taxpayer's money" - as in Europe.

The other half of the explanation can be seen in the statistics shown on Wikipedia. At the end of June 2022, there were 2,760,635 foreigners residing in Japan. The most important ethnicities were Chinese, Vietnamese, South Koreans, Filipinos, Nepalese, Indonesians, Americans, Thais, and Taiwanese.

This list is completely different from the ethnicities of immigrants in Europe, especially those raising negative attitudes among ethnically Europeans by committing rapes, terrorism, and other illegal activities. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why immigration is considerably more popular among Japanese than Europeans. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
100 percent of the violence is related to migration
A Finnish police officer is afraid to speak about the problems of immigration
Sweden already in trouble - Finland following

Finnish women have enjoyed a privileged position since medieval times

Finland was one of the first countries to grant women the right to vote and stand for election, so we have an exceptionally long and still ongoing tradition of political gender equality. And, of course, this is closely tied to the generally good societal position of women.

However, it is unclear how long gender attitudes persist in places undergoing significant societal changes. This question was studied by Swedish researchers Taylor Damann, Jeremy Siow, and Margit Tavits by analyzing the teeth of about ten thousand medieval individuals from 139 archaeological sites.

The researchers used differences in the dental health of women and men as a measure of disparities in nutrition and healthcare. Additionally, they compared these archaeological measurements to data on gender norms from surveys conducted in the same geographical areas.

The result was quite clear, as historical indicators of gendered health disparities were significantly linked to modern gender equality norms in the same locations. However, this connection weakened in places where significant population turnovers had occurred over history, meaning that new populations brought their own attitudes with them.

In other words, the gender attitudes of population groups can persist across generations, even for extended periods, spanning hundreds or thousands of years, despite major societal, economic, and political changes. This seems to be the case in Finland as well, as the study included one Finnish site, Luistari in Eura.

Based on the analysis of dental remains, women from Luistari's medieval population had even been "more equal" than men, meaning they received better nutrition and healthcare. Among all 139 sites, Luistari women ranked as the 16th best-treated.

Thus, Finnish women have enjoyed a privileged position since medieval times. This strongly equal position of women in society applies more or less to the entire Northern European population, including Scandinavians and Balts.

The original thought in Finnish:
Suomalaisnaiset olivat jo keskiajalla tasa-arvoisempia kuin miehet

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
"Woke" pushes American science academies to favor women in their membership selections
History of Finland XI: Finnish democracy and gender equality for women
Discrimination against women?

Attitudes towards immigrants are not becoming more positive in Western countries

If you follow the European media, one could imagine that racism in Europe - and thus also in Finland - would be terrible, yet gradually disappearing. Therefore, it was interesting to read a study that examined changes related to race and ethnic discrimination in hiring practices across six European and North American countries.

These countries were Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and the United States. The data included all available discrimination assessments from 90 recruitment experiments conducted in various fields, covering over 170,000 job applications.

However, the time periods covered in the study varied by country: for instance, experiments conducted in the United Kingdom spanned from 1969 to 2017, while in Germany, the study only included the years 1994 to 2017. Discrimination trends were analyzed in relation to four groups with different origins: Black, Asian, Latino, and individuals from the Middle East or North Africa.

The results obtained by the researchers indicated that observed discrimination during recruitment has either remained the same or slightly increased in most countries and origin groups. Three specific changes were particularly notable. The first change was an increase in recruitment discrimination against individuals from the Middle East and North Africa, from the 1990s to the 2000s. The second significant finding was a reduction in discrimination in France, but only from extremely high levels to "only" high levels. The third change was that discrimination had increased over time in the Netherlands.

All of this suggests that the often stated claim of decreasing discrimination due to increased interactions with immigrants is not true. On the contrary, discrimination had not decreased in the past decades in five out of the six Western countries examined in the study - and most likely not in Finland either.

This raises the question of why it often appears that attitudes towards immigrants in Finland are most positive in large immigrant-rich cities, according to surveys, and more negative in rural areas where immigrants are scarcely present. Is this a case of urban residents simply misleading surveyors, or perhaps their conformity, the tendency to adapt to others' opinions - or at least perceived opinions?

Such perception might be due, especially, to the way our press tends to report on anything related to immigration in an overly positive light and, on the other hand, remain silent about its negative aspects. Additionally, the rural population might be influenced by the fact that there are hardly any immigrants there, so there hasn't been much interest or need to pay attention to press propaganda. The pressure to conform - or to lie in survey studies - hasn't arisen nearly to the same extent as it has among city dwellers.

On the other hand, recruitment is an action that measures people's real attitudes, and there's no room for conformity, as the success of the company or hiring leadership directly depends on the hired individual. Therefore, it is a much more reliable gauge of people's attitudes towards immigrants compared to survey studies.

The original blog in Finnish:
Suhtautuminen maahanmuuttajiin ei ole muuttumassa positiivisemmaksi länsimaissa

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
"Woke" pushes American science academies to favor women in their membership selections
Racism or self-preservation instinct?
People with Middle Eastern and North African inheritance identify themselves as non-Whites

Explanation of Finnish attitudes towards Israeli and Palestinians

Today I was reading about Israel´s air strike to Syria, which resulted in a death of five Al Assad´s soldiers. The reason for their death - according to Israel - was the Iranian presence in Syria. 

This brought to my mind the attitudes of Finns to Israel. The people close to the political left - and liberal values - are almost invariably negative to the Jewish state, whereas many people with sympathy to the political right - and conservative values - support them. 

(The exception are deeply Christian Finns, who consider Israeli as the people specifically selected by the God. However, I am not writing about them in this blog post as the number of strictly religious people is not high in Finland.)

This distribution among Finns is weird because the society of Israel is politically - and especially in its values - much more liberal than any of its neighbors. And what independent Palestine would more than probably be. 

My explanation to this dissonance comes from the common affection towards the weaker side of a conflict. In Finland that may have been strengthened by the fact, that throughout our history we have been dominated by our bigger neighbors: we were the poor Eastern part of Sweden since medieval times until 1809, when Russia conquered our land up to the Torne river, which still today is the border between Finland and Sweden - often also called as the most peaceful border in the globe.  

Finally in 1917 we became independent as a result of a temporary weakness of Russia due to Lenin´s revolution. But even after that we were attacked by the Red Army in 1939 and although Soviet Union  was not able to join Finland in itself, Russian leaders strictly affected our foreign policy for decades. Therefore, all people of Finland have got a long history of being the weak one.

According to this, almost all Finns had much more understanding towards Israel that to its Arabic neighbors up to 1970´s. The situation was commonly considered as being similar to the biblical story of heroic David against evil Goliath. 

However, after the Yom Kippur war in 1973 it became clear that Israel was not the weaker one, but a strong military power supported by the United States. And at the same time, the position of David was slowly transferred to Palestinians - a development, where Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza played a major role.  

After that, the better and better flow of information throughout the globe has slowly changed the attitudes, and we have ended up into a nation with a weird distribution of supporters of Jews and Palestinians of the holy Land. Value liberal people economically on the left are mostly favoring ultraconservative Arabs, and conservative people supporting market economy are usually sympathizing Israeli. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
A notable difference between Social Democrats in Sweden and Finland
Ellet ole meidän puolellamme, olet meitä vastaan (text in Finnish, but translatable by Google translator)

A notable difference between Social Democrats in Sweden and Finland

New members will soon be elected to the parliament of Sweden. Therefore an analysis of attitudes and values of Swedish parties was published in Aftonbladet - an afternoon magazine - as a part of a voting advice application. 

The economic, environmental and educational dimensions were as expected, namely Left Party being the most "progressive" in economy and related issues and Moderate and small Christian Democratic parties located at the "conservative" end of the distribution. Social Democrats were on the "progressive" side, but with some distance from the Left and Green Parties. All of that would have been quite similar among the corresponding parties in Finland - except that Social Democrats might have been placed closer to the other left wing parties.

The surprise, however, was seen in the immigration policy. There the Swedish Social Democrats were clustered among the right wing parties - very close to the Liberal party and not far even from the Swedish Democrats, considered previously as an ultra right or even a Nazi group due to their criticism against the previous immigration policy. That would not happen in Finland, where Social Democrats - the current Prime Minister party - is still advocating mass immigration from developing countries. 

The reason for the difference between the two Nordic Social Democratic parties is obvious. Sweden is already in huge trouble with their immigrants, and therefore former immigration policy is not popular among voters. In Finland, the problems are so far only rising, and not evident to everyone. 

The question arising is: would voters - or even politicians - in Finland understand, that repeating the unsuccessful immigration policy conducted in Sweden would repeat the Swedish outcome in Finland too? I certainly hope so, but unfortunately can not see much evidence for that. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:

Increase of violence by youngsters in Finnish towns
Riots in Sweden: what next?
The Danish government proposed reforms for immigration policy

Will an attitude lead Ukraine into EU?

The European Commission has taken a positive attitude towards granting Ukraine an official status as an EU candidate, according to Politico. The solution roots itself in Ukrainian requests for an official recognition as an EU candidate country as that would provide a morale boost to their soldiers and other citizens. 

An anonymous EU senior official said that "the Commission does not forget that Ukraine is the only country in Europe where people died, where people were shot at because they were on the streets carrying EU flags... Now, we cannot tell them, ´sorry guys, you were waving the wrong flags.´"

As having a great sympathy towards Ukrainians in their desperate defense against Russian invasion, I definitely would like to provide them a membership in the Union. Despite that, I urge that during the becoming negotiations EU will not loosen its demands and economic conditions to be fulfilled by a member country. That includes also getting rid of the wide and deep corruption known to have flourished forever in the country.

Good hope can be seen in the attitudes of Ukrainians. That was expressed by the deputy head of Ukrainian President office, who said that "when you ask Ukrainian soldiers fighting somewhere in the Donbas or in the south of Ukraine against Russian aggression, ´Do you want to be a part of the European Union family?´ They say, ´Yes, definitely. Because that´s what I’m fighting for. I´m fighting not only for Ukraine, I´m fighting for European values. I´m fighting against aggression in Europe.´"

I hope this attitude will make impossible a viable option, and help Ukrainians to turn their country to an acceptable and successful member of the European Union in near future. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
A new route for the Ukrainian crops
Afghanistan now and in the future
Tractor course for Ukrainians

Afghanistan now and in the future

Taliban regime is leading its "Islamic empire" by pushing women out of the visible society. That means no school to girls after the sixth grade and coverage of women´s face in public space - and ultimately pushing the more beautiful gender out of the decision making. 

However, according to a Finnish official in the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is not the full picture. Although conservatives are now in leading positions in Afghanistan, there are people even in the government, who would like to see also elder girls in the school. 

And we should not forget that after the revolution the country has calmed down so much, that international help can be provided to those who need it. Also the share of people suffering from direct hunger has halved. 

I am not aware what has happened to the corruption, that was enormous in the country during the regime supported by western countries before the Taliban revolution. That, however, is one of the key issues to be solved in attempts to make Afghanistan a decent country for living. 

In regard to the humanitarian development, the most important development will take place among the Taliban leaders. When the current ultraconservative leaders will step out, will they be replaced by similar but younger people? Or will the power be moved to more liberal politicians. 

The latter option might even draw some Afghan expatriates from other countries back to Afghanistan. If so, they could bring skills and attitudes learned in western countries that could accelerate the development of the democracy and economy of the society. 

Although the latter option would change government policy towards more civilized and equal society, the Afghan´s attitudes ares a big question mark. Would they - and especially their most powerful tribal leaders - accept more liberal steps, or would another version of Islamic extremity, namely ISIS, raise its head as a counter reaction? And would that drive the country again into a chaos?

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The arrival of caliphate citizens must be prevented