School Shooting in Finland!

[mCowboy]

Auvinen’s parents are regarded as somewhat bohemian in the small dormitory township of Jokela. His father plays part time in a jazz band and composes his own music; Auvinen’s mother is an activist for the Greens. They are regarded as stalwart members of the community and neighbours describe them as a “normal family”. Since Wednesday they have been living under police protection.

I thought hippies wanted to make love not war...

[Rosamunda]

Mr Boyes has written his reply to all those comments posted on the timesonline after his article was published:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 841038.ece


I never realised that the Times had full-time wind-up merchants on its payroll (OTOH yes I did realise it, but I never thought they would be THAT sick). This person is now trying to persuade all his readers that he knows everything there is to know about Finland because he had his wisdom teeth removed here 30 years ago.

He manages to be both patronising and arrogant...

Dear Finns, I invite you to Tuusula! I bet most of you haven’t been here. Or only once.

(...)

Don’t you think it’s worth having a debate about your family lives, about the way that teenagers often drift away? Hasn’t technology changed the nature of friendship, aren’t the rhythms of society changing? They are elsewhere and we talk about it. In Finland, it seems, you don’t.

(...)
... it happened in Finland, didn’t it? Shouldn’t you ask why and not just leave the questioning to visiting foreigners?


I hope he has had a warm welcome in Tuusula.... though he's probably sitting in some flashy hotel in down-town Helsinki trying to think of something witty to write when he gets back to the UK.

[EP]

I bet he got way more comments than those that show up. For example I commented all three of his articles and not a single one of my comments is there.

I felt very bad yesterday. It was Fathers´Day, and we had the usual program planned: Dinner at a restaurant + football tickets for father and son for the evening. All I could think about was nine families and fathers whose Fathers´Day was far from ordinary, children in the morgue. We put the football tickets to a dustbin and cancelled the restaurant reservation.

[Rosamunda]

Yes, I noticed the football stadium looked very empty. We went out for a lunch at the Peshawar but the place was deserted. I know what you mean, nobody felt like celebrating anything.

[Megstertex]

Mr Boyes has written his reply to all those comments posted on the timesonline after his article was published:


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 841038.ece


I never realised that the Times had full-time wind-up merchants on its payroll (OTOH yes I did realise it, but I never thought they would be THAT sick). This person is now trying to persuade all his readers that he knows everything there is to know about Finland because he had his wisdom teeth removed here 30 years ago. :evil:

He manages to be both patronising and arrogant...

Dear Finns, I invite you to Tuusula! I bet most of you haven’t been here. Or only once.

(...)

Don’t you think it’s worth having a debate about your family lives, about the way that teenagers often drift away? Hasn’t technology changed the nature of friendship, aren’t the rhythms of society changing? They are elsewhere and we talk about it. In Finland, it seems, you don’t.

(...)
... it happened in Finland, didn’t it? Shouldn’t you ask why and not just leave the questioning to visiting foreigners?


I hope he has had a warm welcome in Tuusula.... though he's probably sitting in some flashy hotel in down-town Helsinki trying to think of something witty to write when he gets back to the UK.

I don't think it's really my place to say, and I don't want to offend anyone, but SHOULDN'T we be asking questions and looking at the bigger picture? Perhaps, coming from a British man it may sound a tad arrogant, but I don't really find anything really overtly innaccurate about this article.

Perhaps this is based on my own personal experience working in Finnish schools-this event is changing my every day duties and work habits thanks to new policies, but is it enough? I don't think so. Perhaps I tend to agree with many of his observations because as a foreigner, I find that I can count the number of true Finnish friends I have on one hand. I didn't come to Finland to be an outsider, but it is a very closed and exclusive club for self-sufficient people, and not everyone has the skills to cope with that isolation. I have met many kind Finns and many warm Finns, but for an unsocialized teenager with raging hormones, it seems that some social pressure, some sort of outreaching and sense of community could only be a good thing, and it is clear that this boy was very isolated, alone, and frustrated in a system that failed him. I hold him responsible, but I don't think this is a bad time to be asking uncomfortable questions about the society we live in.

I don't think this article merits defensiveness. The UK has many problems of it's own, no one is denying that, but it doesn't seem to me that he is trying to patronize a tragedy, but that's just my take on it. There have been so many reports about Finland being this utopia country with high marks for happiness, high education, transparency, competitiveness, honesty, etc. Quite frankly, if a journalist didn't bring up this discrepancy of trouble in paradise, he wouldn't be doing his job.

[Rosamunda]

This was a much better article :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 843536.ece

It also highloghts some of the real issues but in a MUCH less deliberately provocative style.

Mr Boyes wrote several articles and they were all full of factual inaccuracies (gun ownership, population density, etc etc) and his tone similarly inappropriate in them all. Referring to his wisdom tooth operation in the context of this tragic event which has most of the nation in a state of shock is, in my honest opinion, the trademark of a wind-up merchant.

Sure, issues there are. And I too hope they will be discussed.

I'm sorry if you find Finland an unfriendly, hostile environment. I don't on the contrary I really appreciate the warmth and sincerity of many Finns I have met. I agree with you that there are problems but overall I find many of Finland's cultural and social idiosyncrasies have a positive impact on the education of my children rather than the contrary.

[Hank W.]

Yes well, the difference is we don't go running around the village with an icicle up our arse going uuuaaaa uuuuaaaa.

The thing is, *sorrow is private* - now I thought the newsmedia coverage of the incident was quite toned-down. Nothing too rude, even the Ilta-rags were less elaborate as usual. Nevertheless - the Jokela pupils and residents have made a petition for the newsmedia to *piss off*.

So people like Boyes, who does not understand the Finnish psyche, should not come and tell *us* anything. (Remember the Jante Law, its really crucial here). Especially coming from a country where the problems are worse its not only condecending. Its downright rude, he is "being better than us" (See now the Jante Law again).

So Boyes is not slagged for stating the obvious. He is slagged for breaking the Jante Law

[Hank W.]

but for an unsocialized teenager with raging hormones, it seems that some social pressure, some sort of outreaching and sense of community could only be a good thing, and it is clear that this boy was very isolated, alone, and frustrated in a system that failed him. I hold him responsible, but I don't think this is a bad time to be asking uncomfortable questions about the society we live in.

What are you complaining about? He *had* an outreach - in the internet. He *had* a sense of community - in the internet. He just happened to have the society and outreach from a subpart of the American youth culture that idolized the Columbine killers. He took these American teens as his role-model and then acted it out. *That* is the problem, internet peer group, though again the Japanese have a term for this otaku. Finland is not that bad, but we have our "backroom boys" phenomenon been there since before after the invention of sliced cheeze...

Yes, so what can we do? Y'all come here whining why we don't have this and don't have that and then when we really hava a multicultural event y'all start whining again. Just like your woman whining they played some rap-music in the store. It is your own goddang culture coming in the windows and doors, just like Halloween and Thanksgiving turkeys you know, all this gun-worshipping and Westboro Baptists with jebus riding dinosaurs peeks in from behind the kitchen sink. See now the people here cannot *differentiate* between the nuances of an imported culture. So they think that gun-worshipping and Halloween go hand-in-hand. Rap music and Dexter on tv are the same as a Thanksgiving turkey and a SUV.
See now you can figure it out - *they* can not.

It is *global* and you can't pick up the raisins from the pulla. If you take one thing the rest of the stuff follows. We already had a toddler "kidnapped" from the mall today (which apparently was a misunderstanding by some teenage girls with a "sense of community" who thought the kid was lost)

Maybe there *is* a reason some of us wish to be in our little in-warming club *without* the foreign ideas. Not that it would be possible in the global world of today, but I still say the parents do not *realize* what the Internet is and what it means to the teens. Just like Cory mentioned the other day its a bit "too early" for kids on 2nd grade to go surfing for meteorites.

[Rob A.]

I see this thread has riled Hank a bit...but I understand perfectly what he is saying...and from miles away!!!

I can't really be "arsed" to get into the debate, but I tend to think that these current violent episodes are largely inspired by American cultural values, particularly the violence against innocent people... Canada has been absorbing these cultural problems for years...yet the essential Canadian outlook has always been more community-oriented, less individualistic, less violent... Heck, I found out just the other day that there have only been two train robberies in Canadian history...yet that was such a common event in the US "wild west"... and the most famous of the Canadian train robberies...yes, an American from Georgia...

As to foreigners in Finland...particularly Americans, and I guess to a marginally lesser extent, the British, ...I can't see why they think their opinions are so valuable. Why not take the view that the Finns know what they are doing...and only offer opinions if directly asked???

I've been toying with the idea for a few years now of, maybe, retiring to France or at least testing the prospects... Yet I know you would absolutely NOT expect the French to give a sh*t how things are done elsewhere... So why should the Finns think any differently?? Though a select few unusually talented immigrants might get the "red carpet" treatment, as a select few...probably and even more select few, would get this treatment in France...

[Hank W.]

Rob: FYI: Janteloven:

Don't think that you are special.
Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
Don't think that you are smarter than us.
Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
Don't think that you know more than us.
Don't think that you are more important than us.
Don't think that you are good at anything.
Don't laugh at us.
Don't think that anyone cares about you.
Don't think that you can teach us anything.



In other words... It is not "your place" to "speak up" if you're not... "local"?

[EP]

This was a much better article :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/commen ... 843536.ece

I agree. Aki Riihiranta could maybe become a journalist after he has finished his football career.

I found Mr B´s articles (particularly the first one) tasteless and downright insulting. He just doesn´t have a clue of Finnish psyche and behaviour, and to call something "Finnish" when it in fact happens here the first time is strange.

Also when he wrote about the girl who went to spend the night in the church instead of staying at home with her parents, he seemed to imply that the girl (and Finnish teenagers in general) does not have a proper relationship with her parents. What the f*ck, I would have gone to the church also if all the people who were in the situation with me were there, that is called peer support.

[Rosamunda]

I agree. Aki Riihiranta could maybe become a journalist after he has finished his football career.

Yes I think he writes regularly, maybe not for the Times but certainly for some sports magazines.

[Rob A.]

Rob: FYI: Janteloven:

Don't think that you are special.
Don't think that you are of the same standing as us.
Don't think that you are smarter than us.
Don't fancy yourself as being better than us.
Don't think that you know more than us.
Don't think that you are more important than us.
Don't think that you are good at anything.
Don't laugh at us.
Don't think that anyone cares about you.
Don't think that you can teach us anything.



In other words... It is not "your place" to "speak up" if you're not... "local"?

Yes...I know this is fairly strongly stated, but the essential truth is there.... The locals, Finnish or otherwise, often have quite good reasons for living the way they do. These "cultural ways" have been built up over hundreds of years.... it may not be entirely "efficient" in the eyes of the foreigner, but so what!! It's a way of life... And it probably works for most of the locals... and even if it doesn't, I would likely only be critical if classes of people were actually being abused...like the "Untouchables" in India, ethnic minorities in Russia, native Indians in Canada, such "global" issues are "fair game", so to speak...but Finland has little in the way of issues in these areas... And what issues they might have along these lines, I'm sure there are ways to voice your displeasure if you have something useful to say. But criticizing a culture, in a general way, just seems to be something that would annoy...

In my part of the world I can tell people who were born and raised here and those that come from somewhere else...even if they speak English flawlessly, or even if English is their mother tongue!!! And I'm much more receptive to general criticism about the local culture if it comes from another local, than I am if it comes from a foreigner, or even someone from another part of Canada... I think it's just human nature...and you might actually feel like saying, "If it's so bad here, why don't you go back where you come from?"...

While I was living in Ontario, in the late 80s, there were certainly things I thought weren't that great, but, generally, I didn't complain... I remember one guy saying words to the effect of ..."For a guy from BC, you're pretty easy to be around"...But I didn't particularly try to fit in...I just didn't complain...

Heck, one of my buddies who went back east slightly after me to work on the same project, even traded in his Japanese car for an American piece of junk, because there were a number of auto plants in the area and the locals tended to be supportive of the local industry... I didn't worry about that and kept driving my BMW.... Then a Volvo... Never seemed to be an issue...

[karen]

Rob, could you remind me what your connection is to Finland?

[Hank W.]

I've been toying with the idea for a few years now of, maybe, retiring to France or at least testing the prospects...

So in other words you're planning a move to Quebec, into some Colline-des-nulle-parts-ville???