ISSUE 3 (133) • 21-27 JANUARY 2010 • €3 • WWW.HELSINKITIMES.FI DOMESTIC INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CULTURE EAT & DRINK More Haiti Expat DocPoint: Testing options for left in forum Against ready-made first graders carnage gathers mainstream meals page 4 page 7 page 8 page 15 page 16 among others, those in danger of be- ing alienated with society should be Tighter helped while there is still time. Pent- Winter escapes on display ti Partanen, the Interior Ministry’s Director-General of the Department PETRA NYMAN ten includes trips abroad or within el encompasses literally of slower security for Rescue Services, also emphasised HELSINKI TIMES Finland,” she says. modes of travelling, such as biking that schools are not apart from the Nonetheless, the means of trav- or hiking, where speed travel refers for schools rest of society. “Actions related on- IT'S THAT time of year again, when elling have changed with the eco- to trips that take the holiday goer to ly to schools and educational institu- one can escape the winter and take nomic situation, with an increased his destination and back as swiftly PERTTI MATTILA – STT tions aren’t suffi cient. The prevention a trip to the Travel Fair, Matka 2010, emphasis on thrift. Domestic trav- as possible. MICHAEL NAGLER – HT of risks and risky behaviour requires at the Helsinki Fair Centre. Around el and trips to nearby countries are If there can be any positive out- broad socio-political action.” 1,200 exhibitors representing over popular choices at the moment. Also comes of the current economic SCHOOLS should have cameras and The report on the improvement of 70 countries will apppear at the fair. renting holiday apartments in Eu- situation, then it is the price of trav- access control devices installed if school safety also shows that security There is also plentiful information ropean destinations and choosing elling. “The prices are at an all time necessary in order to enhance secu- is a multifaceted term. “In our coun- on the Helsinki region, with ten ex- destinations by cheap fl ights have low. Some of the deals that are on rity. Such is the proposal of the secu- try we are mostly prepared for fi res. hibitors offering fresh takes and in- become the trend over the more offer at the fair are unbelievably rity work group, whose report was There are many kinds of threats in so- formation on what the capital has to conventional package deals, Ank- cheap,” Ankkuri reveals. With in- published on Tuesday in Helsinki. ciety, however,” Holmlund says. offer. kuri explains. The way people plan creased competition over the best “The school shooting cases showed The Interior Minister thinks that Although the recession has tak- their holidays nowadays has also deals in the travel industry, now is that our society is faced with very se- many of the ideas in the recent re- en its toll on the travel industry, peo- changed drastically, with decisions an excellent time to plan a trip – if rious and partially new types of prob- port are also applicable in other con- ple continue to travel. According being made only a few months you can afford one, that is. lems. Security is created in everyday nections, such as the development to Lumia Ankkuri of Finnexpo, the ahead of the holiday instead of a life with the co-operation of all par- of shopping centre security. Accord- Travel Fair is taking off with a pos- year or so which was the norm for ties,” Interior Minister Anne Holm- ing to Holmlund, more ideas are due itive note this year. “Last year the a long time. lund (National Coalition) said as she soon, as the report on the Kauhajoki general mood at the Travel Fair was Curiously enough, according Matka 2010 Travel Fair received the report. school shooting is fi nished. The pro- somewhat pessimistic, but this year to Ankkuri the two most popu- Helsinki Fair Centre According to Holmlund, alienation posals will also be compared with we know that those who have been lar present day trends in travel are 21-24 Jan is the most serious threat to Finland’s the conclusions of the previous re- lucky enough to keep their jobs con- quite the opposites of each other: Tickets €13 domestic security. For this reason, port on the Jokela murders. tinue to lead normal lives, which of- slow and speed travel. Slow trav- 2 21–27 JANUARY 2010 VIEWPOINT HELSINKI TIMES James O’Connor The writer is a doctoral student at the Department of po- litical science at the University of Helsinki. His doctoral research is focused on various cosmopolitan conceptions of the idea of moral progress. man burden on the planet. cist sympathies, such as the WHAT these, and any number It is hardly surprising that, British National Party’s lead- of other shocking statistics Apocalypse? No... as reported in the Hufvud- er and European Parliamen- one might care to list, clear- stadsbladet after the Kau- tarian Nick Griffi n, it is a ly suggest to any reason- hajoki school shootings in purely self-serving strate- able person is that drastic autumn 2008, Matti Saari gy. The BNP sells itself as the changes must be made to the At both individual and collective levels, responding to the world’s and the mass murderer he country’s “only true Green way we live. But it requires a severest problems without contributing to their escalation demands imitated, Pekka-Eric Auvi- party”: “the BNP is the only monumental leap in the ar- nen, were both infl uenced by party to recognise that over- gument, and a tragic failure nothing less than cautious optimism, writes James O’Connor. Linkola’s writings. (Nation- population – whose primary of both morals and imagi- al broadcaster YLE’s Elävä driver is immigration, as re- nation, to conclude that hu- arkisto website contains a vealed by the government’s mankind should be sacrifi ced “THE HORROR!” The horror!”, ing call to action entitled The inventor, and radical envi- good range of documentary own fi gures – is the cause to save the planet. Individual exclaimed Colonel Kurtz in Bridge at the End of the World: ronmentalist James Lovelock footage and interviews with of the destruction of our en- and collective human behav- Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Capitalism, the Environment, in Gaia, the “collapse” book Linkola). vironment.” Where the BNP iour must be changed, cer- Darkness, and in the rework- and Passing from Crisis to in which he fi rst developed have gone, others of the same tainly, but that is an entirely ing of the novel as the fi lm Sustainability. Speth fi tting- the theory that the Earth is FOR LINKOLA and others, mindset have often followed. different matter altogeth- Apocalypse Now. There are ly uses the term “collapse a self-regulating organism. such as the like-minded Brit- It may be too much to hope er, one for which totalitari- plenty of horrors around, in books” to refer to the ever- Lovelock is surely right to ish environmentalist and that their eco-opportunism an measures of any kind or real life as in fi ction. The en- growing fl ood of scholarly criticise the excessively an- zookeeper John Aspinall, will not also drive several on any scale are far too high vironmental horrors we have and popularised studies gen- thropocentric frame of mind mass killing is justifi ed on ec- Finnish political campaigns a price to pay. brought about, for exam- erally predicting that, unless that is wreaking havoc with ological grounds. When told in next year’s parliamentary ple, demand radical action, we change course, the world the planet. But is there any by former US President Rich- elections. THERE are of course good something that might seem is headed for environmental logical or moral justifi ca- ard Nixon in the early 1970s reasons to be wary of runa- less likely now considering collapse and all the atrocious tion for going to the opposite that a nuclear war could kill GIVEN the scale and pace of way optimism. When it is al- the outcome of the recent Co- effects that entails. extreme? 200,000,000 people, Aspi- environmental destruction, lowed to get too far ahead of penhagen climate summit. nall responded that this was misanthropy is easy enough facts on the ground, it invar- GROWING public awareness SOME, less distinguished and not enough. to understand. According to iably creates dangerous illu- BUT EVEN if optimism seems of the likelihood of further more fanatical than Love- fi gures cited by Speth, half of sions of progress in all sorts unwarranted, what other op- environmental breakdown is lock, clearly think there is. MISANTHROPY is nothing new, the world’s tropical and tem- of situations where there has tion is there? None, I would of course a good thing. But it A local example is long-time not even to environmental- perate rainforests are now really been none, or very lit- guess. Towards the end of also creates a need to address Finnish environmentalist ism. But what does seem new gone, and deforestation pro- tle. But it is worth remem- his life, the American phi- a disturbing trend that seems and columnist Pentti Linko- is the tendency for advocates ceeds at a rate of about 0.4 bering that optimism is a far losopher Richard Rorty ar- to be indirectly intensifi ed la. He is well known in Fin- of more specifi cally targeted hectares a second. Half of all more motivating force than gued that the idea of moral by the growing realisation land and, ironically given his form of human hatred to hi- wetlands are no more, and pessimism.