Smileys to the rescue?

By Ilkka Ahtiainen

I am a consensus Finn – a konsu. I happen to have been born in the 1970s to a middle-class family, and I probably absorbed the societal heritage of the Finland of that time in my mother’s milk – both in the good and bad sense.

Life in “consensus Finland” was a kind of steady movement forward: GDP grows at 2.5 per cent, collective incomes agreements are reached, and there is no saying no to the budget proposals of the Ministry of Finance. In addition, the country holds on to the regional defence system, and support for the Paasikivi-Kekkonen-Koivisto-Ahtisaari-Halonen foreign policy line is unshakeable.

That is the kind of Finland that I grew up in.

One noticeable feature of consensus Finland was the culture of public debate. Or actually, people tended not to notice it – that’s the point. Altercations took place in back rooms, and agreements were reached on the benches of a sauna. Public disagreement was a cause for suspicion, if not downright hazardous to the national interest.

The word itself says it all: consensus has Latin roots, and means agreement and mutual understanding.

In this conciliatory Finland, political life was stable. If a politician disagreed with others, he or she would be careful. During the presidency of Urho Kekkonen, and also that of his successor Mauno Koivisto, it was most important to be on good terms with the Soviet Union.

When the Soviet Union was discussed in public, it was important to find the right words (the Soviet Union is our friend), the right facial expression (a broad smile), and the right style (flattery). Otherwise there was a danger of being sidetracked, finding one’s self off side, or in the worst of cases, being effectively banned from polite company.

Later, after the Soviet Union fell apart, the best guarantee for consensus was a balance of terror in domestic policy. Of the three large parties, the Centre Party, the National Coalition Party, and the Social Democratic Party, only two would fit in the same government. The possibility of being left in opposition, outside the core of decision-making, was a terrible idea. This was always the fate of one of the large parties – the dreaded finale of the game of musical chairs.

Therefore, it was prudent to exercise moderation in disagreement. It was not a good idea to malign a political opponent, as that opponent might end up being in the same government.

To put it simply, consensus Finland was a predictable state.

All of this changed on April 17th, 2011. On that Sunday Parliamentary elections were held, and the power of the three large parties crumbled, leading to victory for the True Finns. The country suddenly had four medium-sized and three small parliamentary parties. No more balance of terror, no more musical chairs with three players and two chairs.

As always, and sometimes previously, we are living in historic times. The power is redistributed, and it has new takers. Right now we can hear live, and 24/7, how the society based on harmony is bulging at its seams.

So what kind of sound does the process make?

Shouting and wailing are the sounds. Inhibitions have gone and pressures are being released, both orally and especially on online message boards. Some are yearning for the days of consensus Finland.

From a journalist’s point of view the time after the elections has been pure bliss. Little effort was needed to come up with ideas for stories, or even for inventing a good headline, as they would keep coming from the mouths and pens of politicians, to appear directly on a reporter’s computer screen.

Let’s think about the week before last. Debate in Parliament was about the authority of the Finnish presidency, but it concluded with talk about “releasing the safety”, and visions of “dark shadows from the 1930s” – that is, from a time when extreme right-wing politics was raising its head in Finland in the form of the Lapua Movement.

The tone of debate in the main chamber of Parliament was completely different from what it was in the days of consensus Finland. There was no weighing of words, no control of facial expression, and the sense of style was gone.

Senses of style are difficult, and even professional writers sometimes slip. In writing it is not enough to use a particular tone. The reader, the recipient, needs to understand the tone that is used.

Especially in today’s charged political atmosphere a politician needs to take into account those readers who do not even try to understand.

In the spirit of consensus I hope that I may be permitted to give politicians a piece of advice: start using emoticons - smileys. They are short, illustrative, and what’s best, unambiguous.

Let’s take as an example the case of True Finns MP Jussi Halla-aho. He wrote the following on Facebook about the situation in Greece: “Right now Greece could use a military junta which would not have to worry about its popularity, and which could straighten out the strikers and the rioters with tanks. It is a simple fact that democracy (=elections) will prevent any political government from taking any action that would have any ‘real’ effect on the bankrupt economy of Greece.”

Imagine if there had been a :-) right after the word “tanks”. Everyone would have known that Jussi Halla-aho was just joking. Nobody could have misunderstood the message – not even those who really wanted to.

There would have been no suspension from the parliamentary group – just one good joke.

Not everything can be written off with a smiley, however. True Finn James Hirvisaari recently wrote a blog entry in which he blasted journalists as a “rude, arrogant, and lying bunch of riffraff”.

The style would appear to be rough, but the party’s parliamentary group leader, Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner suggested that Hirvisaari was just cultivating his personal style.

I asked Finnish language expert Toini Rahtua, who has written his doctoral thesis on the use of irony, to evaluate Hirvisaari’s texts. Rahtua found no sign of irony, or its subcategory sarcasm. In his view, Hirvisaari’s text was mainly defamation.

The same stylistic device is attracting other people in the political field, and not just the True Finns. Resorting to it was, among others, SDP Member of Parliament Mikael Jungner who, in an interview programme on the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE), called some of the True Finn MPs numbskulls and fanatics.

As someone who grew up in consensus Finland, I am amazed.

After decades of spinning wheels, there is finally some electricity in Finnish politics, and politicians are letting go with what they really feel.

Fresh, cleansing?

It could be, if the communication were not hampered by the old failing. Politics in Finland is still practiced with a furrowed brow. Politics is :-(.

Who is the humorist of Finnish politics of the past autumn? Jutta Urpilainen? Jyrki Katainen? Päivi Räsänen? Mari Kiviniemi? Even the witticisms of Timo Soini have become forced and they are not particularly amusing any more.

If you have seen anyone smiling in the main chamber of Parliament this autumn, please let me know.

Consensus Finland may have been boring, but in Parliament a battle of words might, on good days, rise to the level of intelligent needling, which only rarely would hurt anybody.

Contrary to what was the case this autumn, there was no need to resort to the presidium to admonish Members of Parliament for using insulting language.

At the moment we are living in a strange interim state – a period of post-consensus politics, a time when consensus has been replaced by a kind of nonsensus, in which people don’t understand, and they don’t even want to.

There is more than emotion than reason in political communication. Humour is unknown, and irony is replaced by vitriol.

Will this nonsensus last a long time? Will it be refined into a new and better political culture - the kind in which it is not necessary to choose sides and take part in the shouting?

The kind in which that even a consensus Finn can comfortably participate.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.10.2011