Summing up 2014

I published 21 blogs during the year 2014. My blogs were in Finnish 9 times, in Swedish 7 times, in English 3 times, once and very briefly in Chinese. In the beginning of the year, I published one of my poems in several languages as a blog (Jan. 2).

Below, I will present the main themes of the blogs, mention their respective titles, translate the titles into English if necessary, indicate the language used in the blog and give the date of its publishing.

1. Topical themes

In 2014, we saw many armed conflicts and real acts of war. I reacted against Russia's occupation of Krim in the blog Orosmoln i öster (Threatening clouds in the East, Swedish, Apr. 1) but emphasized that we must not demonize Russians even if we dislike the aggressive politics of Putin.

Laddade repliker kring Ostpolitik (Charged rejoinders on Ostpolitik, Swedish, Apr. 12) is my letter to the Swedish newspaper Göteborgs Posten, where I oppose the idea that Sweden should join the NATO, the topic of a heated debate in Sweden. It would increase remarkably the military tension in our part of the world. I dare to advocate civil resistance against potential aggressors pointing out that it can be made efficient and effective, if it is planned and prepared well in beforehand.

In Fred så in i Norden (Peace in Nordic countries - that's for sure, Swedish, June 8), I discuss the celebration in regard to the fact that Sweden has not been involved in a war since 1814. I point out that Norway and Finland have been engaged in wars during this period of time. Therefore, it is not accurate to maintain as some Swedes occasionally do that there have not been any acts of war in the Nordic countries during the past 200 years.

In the blog Si vis pacem, para mentes (If you want peace, prepare human minds (for it), Finnish, Oct. 23), I allude to the Latin proverb "If you want peace, prepare for war". I maintain that we have to give diplomacy more than a few chances, and consider using other means than the military ones such as the non-violent civil resistance to meet a potential aggressor. For information on civil resistance, see www.civilresistance.net

In Revolution, Pеволюция, Rivoluzione (Swedish, Nov. 7), I discuss the Soviet Communism and Marxism. The parades on the Red Square on the day of the October Revolution on November 7 are long gone as is the Soviet communism.

I feel sympathy with the social change movement that Danilo Dolci devoted his life to in Sicily. In the blog, I publish my translation into Swedish of his poem "Rivoluzione" the first stanza of which goes in English as follows: "The one who gets scared when he hears the word "revolution" has perhaps not understood."

The blog Pacifism (English, Nov. 10) recollects the beginning of the First World War 1914. In the blog, I discuss pacifism and civil resistance, and commemorate Arndt Pekurinen, a Finnish pacifist who was executed on the battlefront Nov. 5, 1941, in the war between Finland and Soviet Russia, when he refused to take a weapon into his hand.

2. Finnish and Sweden Finnish issues

In Näkymätön matkalaukku (Invisible suitcase, Finnish, Jan. 18) I recollect my first years in Sweden in the beginning of the 80's. Then, I spoke Swedish with my "broken (Finnish) accent" as I still do, and certain notions such as "sisu" (Finnish for persistance) were then dear to me as they still are. So, I keep hold of the suitcase that I grew up with.

In Finskhetens kärna (The gist of Finnishness, Swedish, Sept. 7), I discuss the Finnish "success story", a country that went through four wars and other kind crises during the 20th century but in 2012 was ranked as the best country in the world in a number of respects such as school education, dynamism of business life, freedom of press, least corruption, and in general, the least failed country out of the 175 countries ranked. See http://ffp.statesindex.org/rankings-2013-sortable.

Vad har Finland att tacka Sverige för (What has Finland to thank Sweden for? Swedish, Dec. 13) discusses the influence Sweden had on the conditions of living in Finland during the over 600 years when the area we now call Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom. Finnish historians have different positions in regard to this influence. I think that the influence was extensive in terms of judicial system, government, church, fending off the threat of Russia etc. Due to this long coexistence with Sweden, Finland came to be part of the Western and not the Eastern Europe. But note that Finns were subjects of the Swedish king; together with Swedes and other peoples of the kingdom they built up what we may call "the Swedish heritage". Especially in terms of their history and social conditions of living, Sweden and Finland are interwoven with one another to the degree that one could speak of "two Swedens". Note, however, that Sweden is still a kingdom while Finland turned out to be a republic. Every autumn the Swedish and Finnish athletes meet in the track and field event called "Finnkamp" in Swedish (lit. Finnbattle). As a Finn, I would like to point out that Sweden is the second least failed country in the world (cf. above). See http://finland.fi/History for a "crash course" in history of Finland.

3. Human tragedies

We shall not forget. 我们应永远不会忘记 1989 年 6 月大屠杀。 Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng, June 4, 1989. The blog was published on June 2.

In Nine eleven, Chile... ajatuksia (Nine eleven, Chile... some thoughts, Finnish, Sept. 11) I talk over the evil that violence, wars, terrorism... bring with them. I insist that we have to learn to solve our political, national and other such problems peacefully. Civil resistance has shown its usefulness many times and in many places such as in the Baltic countries when they got liberated from the Soviet occupation in the early 90's.

4. Linguistic issues

I am a linguist, and interested in linguistic phenomena. In Hur använder man kropp på finska (How do we use the body in Finnish, Swedish, March 9), I discuss words and phrases that we use in Finnish to talk about body in physical and metaphorical sense.

In Onko tietoa eli miten ymmärtäminen tapahtuu (appr. To understand, how does it go? Finnish, March 21), I deal with the process of mutual understanding in spoken interactions. Among many other factors, interlocutors' shared world knowledge, and their Vorverstehen (German, pre-understanding or unarticulated premises) seem to play a central role in these interactions.

In Kielet ja bonuskielet (Languages and bonus languages, Finnish, May 21), I put forth the idea that learning one language helps to learn other languages. So, for instance, I am able to read German fairly fluently, even though I have never studied the language. This is possible because I know Swedish and English. I think that in language teaching the linguistic bonus that we acquire when learning a given language should be acknowledged and taken into consideration when developing the language teaching methods. For example, if taught properly reading proficiency in a "bonus language" could be attained fairly easily. An instance is the Dutch language that is lexically close to English, German, and the central Scandinavian languages.

Katsomisen tarkastelua (Thinking of watching, Finnish, July 21) is a treatment of the role gaze plays in spoken interaction. I briefly deal with the concept of 'watching', and note that 'gaze' is related both to the watcher and to the one the gaze is directed at. In English, we "take a look" which describes watching as a vigorous action. In Finnish, the watcher "creates a gaze" ("luoda katse") at someone, which is also an action but less vigorous. This topic is both semantically and from the point of view of social interaction extremely interesting.

In Suomen kielen vaikeudesta (On the difficulty of the Finnish language, Finnish, Oct. 12), I deal with the question whether Finnish is a difficult language to learn for an adult person. I point out that the language may be difficult to learn for those whose first language does not have as many grammatical endings as Finnish does. The core vocabulary of the language also differs quite a lot from the vocabulary of major languages of Europe such as English, German and French.

Since there are tens of thousands of immigrants in Finland whose first language is not Finnish, teachers and authorities do what they can to make the teaching of Finnish as effective and efficient as possible. Finnish as a second and foreign language is an established subject at the Finnish universities and at many adult educational centres. A variety of Finnish called "selkosuomi" (plain Finnish) has been developed. It is lexically and grammatically simpler (in some sense of the word) than the standard written Finnish. It is being used on radio news and in some newspapers. Even some literature has been published in this variety of Finnish.

In the blog Languages in the melting pot (English, Dec. 27), I first deal with the methods that we use when we need to have a name for a new thing or phenomenon. Among other things, these include methods such as borrowing the word or translating it directly. I point out that the question of naming new things and phenomena has always been of practical interest and even of importance for relations between speakers of different languages.

We now live in a world where there is an imbalance between languages because English has become the dominant language of the wider communication. English is the main provider of the words we need to have to name new things and phenomena. Languages that cannot keep up with the development will gradually lose ever more ranges of use, and finally be without much practical use at all. However, in spite of this dark perspective, I maintain that the dream of having one world language will never materialize. The majority of the world's population will never become second language speakers let alone native speakers of the English language or any other of the so-called big languages. Instead better translation appliances will be developed and general multilingualism will be preserved for the languages that are vigorous enough to survive. Cultural and linguistic multitude should be cherished. In the last analysis, vive la différence!

5. Personal issues

In the blog Tie jatkuu! Dallataan! (Finnish Dec. 3), I tell about the times long gone when I was a scout and used to hike with my friends in forests of the South Finland and in Lapland or "Sápmi" as it is called in the Northern Sámi language. I have included one of my poems in the blog that deals with these memories. I wrote the poem in the Helsinki Finnish slang, which was the language variety we used in our youth.

Elää - se on nyt (Finnish, Sept. 6) is a vignette from my holiday in the countryside. I enjoyed living together with my family and doing manual work in our summer place.Vive la vie! or as my sister who's living in Chile wrote in her mail: Tenemos que vivir AHORA .

6. A few words of the readership of these blogs

From the beginning in 2007 until now, there have been 14 926 visits to this blog site, out of which 3 696 took place during the year 2014. The number of blogs is 188 at the moment; 21 of them were published in 2014.

In regard to the visitors' nationality, the main groups have been the following (the number after the country name indicates the total of visits in 2014): Sweden 949, Finland 681, USA 512, France 325, Ukraine 236, Germany 215, Poland 163, Russia 110, Malaysia 7, The Netherlands 1.

Regrettably, I have had no visitors from African or Latin American countries, and in Asia these blogs have been viewed only 7 times in Malaysia. Thus, my blogs seem to be popular in the U.S. and in the European countries, Russia included.

In the table below, the blogs are presented in the temporal order beginning from Dec, 27 (= 12-27). The number before the date tells how many times the blog has been viewed during the year.

	Languages in the melting pot		20	12-27
	Vad har Finland att tacka Sverige för? What has Finland to thank Sweden for?		12	12-13
	Tie jatkuu! Dallataan! The road goes on! Let's wander ahead!		5	12-03
	Pacifism		16	11-10
	Revolution, Pеволюция, Rivoluzione		20	11-07
	Si vis pacem para mentes If you want peace, prepare the human minds		15	10-23
	Suomen kielen vaikeudesta On the difficulty of the Finnish language		9	10-12
	Nine eleven, Chile... ajatuksia Nine eleven, Chile... some thoughts		5	09-11
	Finskhetens kärna The gist of Finnishness		16	09-07
	Elää - se on nyt To live - it is now		13	09-06
	Katsomisen tarkastelua Thinking of watching		8	07-21
	Fred så in i Norden Peace in the Nordic countries, that's for sure		10	06-08
	1989-06-04 Tiān'ānmén Guǎngchǎng		11	06-02
	Kielet ja bonuskielet Languages and bonus languages		37	05-18
	Laddade repliker kring Ostpolitik Charged rejoinders on Ostpolitik		70	04-12
	Orosmoln i ﾖster Clouds of worry in East		11	04-01
	Onko tietoa eli miten ymmärtäminen tapahtuu? Appr. transl. To understand, how does it go?		12	03-21
	Hur använder man kropp på finska? How do we use the body in Finnish		37	03-09
	Näkymätön matkalaukku Invisible suitcase		19	01-18
	Summing up 2013		39	01-04
	All these years and a butterfly		13	01-02

7. Forward!

I will continue blogging, because it is great fun. I wish all the best to all of my readers during the year 2015. Oikein hyvää alkanutta vuotta teille kaikille! Ha ett riktigt bra år 2015! Mi esperas bonan jaron al ĉiuj vi, kiuj ŝatas legi miajn blogojn!

Languages in the melting pot

How do speakers of a language go about when they need a name for a new thing or phenomenon, that is, a new entity? The question has always been of practical interest and even of importance for relations be­tween speakers of different languages and varieties of languages. To take an example, a notion of 'practising trade' was called in olden times "kaupōn" in a Germanic language called Gothic. Apparently, the notion was new to neighbouring Finnish tribes, since they borrowed the word from the Goths. In modern Finnish it occurs in the form of "kauppa" meaning 'trade, shop, purchase', whereas in modern Swedish the same word appears as "köpa" 'buy'.¹ 
       Like any other people, Finnish tribes borrowed words extensively from other languages, especially from neighbouring Baltic, Germanic and Slavic languages. At least a third of the modern Finnish root words derive from lexical items adopted from other languages. Often, changes in the phonetic shape of the words have made it difficult to recognize words as being derived from the same source, cf. "kauppa" and "köpa" above, or the Finnish noun "vuokra" 'rent' which is related to the Swedish word "ocker" 'usury', when the Germanic source form was "wōkra".

Adopting words from other languages is not the only way people have used to find designations to new entities. People have also translated the foreign name of the entities directly. These cases are called loan translations. An example is the Finnish compound "puutarha" 'garden', lit. 'tree yard', which is a word by word translation of the Swedish "trädgård" 'garden', lit. 'tree yard'.

In some cases, people have widened the meaning of words that already exist in their language. When gas as an energy source was intro­duced in Finland, "kaasu", a dialectal word for 'fog', was chosen as an equivalent designation of "gas". More rarely, people have come up with totally new words. This is called "Urschöpfung" in German or "primary creation" in English. A modern example is the word "googol" which means 'the number one followed by one hundred zeros, 10¹⁰⁰', the mis­spelling of which we find in the word "google".

The need to find terms to new entities has grown enormously in our time. This is primarily due to the technological development producing ever more new things, and to the ease with which we can establish relations across the world with people of different cultures and languages.

One might think that when searching for an appropriate term for a given new entity, we would prefer using lexical resources of our own language to lexical items of other languages, but this is not necessarily the case. Certain types of Swedish texts bristle with Anglo-American lexical newcomers. In Swedish computer ads, one can meet phrases like "Vissa Mac-datorer har en SD- (Secure Digital) eller SDXC- (Secure Digital Extended Capacity) kortplats" which translates as "Some Mac-computers have a SD (Secure Digital) or SDXC (Secure Digital Extended Capacity) slot". This phrase is not very hard to understand for a computer geek with just a poor command of the Swedish language. Note that in the example, "slot" has been translated with the genuinely Swedish compound "kort­plats", lit. "cardplace". So, at times Swedes do not borrow computer terms from English straight away but have equivalents of their own.

In the modern world, English with its many varieties dominates the global mass communication. As a consequence, English exerts enormous lexical pressure on other languages. When new things or new phenomena appear, they are often named in English, in the first place. This has led to different kinds of reactions. In Sweden, we have an organization called "Språkförsvaret" or "The Language Defence". Språkförsvaret operates actively against the use of English at occasions where the more natural choice should be Swedish and against excessive use of English loan words in public texts. The general premise of this assiduous work is that the genuineness of the Swedish language hinges to a great extent on the lexical usage. Both the official Swedish language board (Språkrådet 'Language Council') and Språkförsvaret aim at maintaining the linguistic identity of Swedish as intact as possible while keeping the language flexible enough to meet the lexical challenges posed by the global mass communication, in general, and by English in particular.

But why should people feel that other languages threaten their language, lexically or otherwise? A simple answer is that foreign elements such as loan words are thought to weaken the primacy of the mother tongue. Many of us identify ourselves with our native language. Previous­ly, the dominant attitude to a mother tongue was that people should acknowledge it and closely follow its norms, especially if used in public. Conceptually, this was reflected in the German terms "Sprachrichtigkeit" ('Linguistic correctness') and "Rechtschreibung" ('Correct spelling'). These ideas were and in many places still are widely supported and advocated by authorities, school teachers and others.
   Times have changed, and nowadays, we rather speak of "Sprachpflege". lit. "language care", that is, cultivating guidance on language usage. Still, the norms are there, and those who give us guidance in language usage turn to them when explaining why certain forms, words or formulations are pre­ferable to others. Moreover, many people still find the language norms of their mother tongue important to follow, possibly, because they strongly identify themselves as users of the language.

On the other hand, it is also true that people's attitudes differ. Some of us would like to preserve their mother tongue as intact as possible from foreign influence, while other people are positive to such influences.

There have always been negative attitudes to foreign languages and their influence on one's own language. This is evidenced by the fact that languages that sound different or are more or less unintelligible have been called "broken". In Finnish, "dialect" translates as "murre" which comes from the verb "murtaa", 'break'. That is, language varieties that differ from one's own variety break against what is taken for "normal". In ancient Greek, non-Greek people were "barbarians" who were babbling in an in­comprehensible gibberish. In Russia, speakers of German who did not know Russian, were nemtsy, a word derived from nemoj 'mute, speechless'. It seems that people have always had negative, condescending or outright spiteful attitudes to other languages and their speakers. Presumably, they have done so in order to strengthen the intragroup solidarity. Obviously, languages often constitute a vital part of what makes people's social identi­ty, and if it is threatened, people do react. This is part of the raison d'être of organizations such as Språkförsvaret . 

The diverse linguistic identities are threatened in the modern world. One of the reasons is that English has become the predominant means of wider communication and one of the main providers of words for new entities. This can be fatal to the languages whose speakers lack prerequi­sites to respond adequately to the challenge posed by the so-called big languages and by English, especially.

The language attrition and the language death is a present global trend. It will concern primarily languages that have few native speakers, lack a written standard and are not used on the Internet. These languages make the majority of the tongues now spoken in the world. There are approximately 6 900 different languages, but only 304 are spoken by more than one million. Only 2 287 languages have a written standard, and the whole Bible has been translated into as few as 392 languages. Fairly few are used on the Internet. It is to be expected that these languages will not keep up with the technological development and the post-industrial way of life reflected in the semantic differentiation of the vocabulary. The languages concerned will gradually lose ever more range of use and finally be without much active usage. They will become what in Finnish is called "kyökkikieli" or "a destitute kitchen language", that is, a second rate language.

Panta hrei - everything flows

As Herakleitos ho Efesios (535 - 475 BCE) said (in Greek): "No man ever steps in the same river twice", i.e. everything will change. This will concern languages as well as identities connected to them. IT, global trade, ease of travelling etc. notwithstanding, I do think that a planetary linguistic identity represented by one world language will never materialize. Even though the knowledge of English will be even more widespread than it is now, the majority of the world's population will never become second language speakers let alone native speakers of the language. Instead better translation appliances will be developed and general multilingualism will be preserved for the languages that are vigorous enough to survive. Hope­fully, as many languages as possible will do that, thrive in the world's language pot without melting and losing their genuine identity. Cultural and linguistic multitude should be cherished. In the last analysis, vive la différence! 

The U.S. melting pot

1 One may note that Swedish belongs to the Germanic languages while Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language fairly closely related to Estonian.

Tie jatkuu! Dallataan!

Nuorena kuulin vanhemmilta ihmisiltä, että Helsingin puhekieli, slangi, on huonoa kieltä, hamppareiden ja lättähattujen kielenvääntelyä. Mutta niinpä me vain sitä käytettiin murkkuiässä, parhaat ystäväni ja minä, kun olimme retkillä metsissä. Yövyimme tulilla, olipa mikä vuodenaika tahansa, ja kuljimme eteenpäin. Laadin alla olevan runon noille ystävilleni, "kafruille" (= kaveri), joiden kanssa vaeltelin 12 - 17 -ikäisenä eli (pahimpana) puberteettiaikanani. Runo luettiin Toimen Pojat-nimisen partiolippukunnan 100-vuotisjuhlissa kolme vuotta sitten.

Kafruille

kafrut,

olihan se aikaa kun

me skutassa dallattiin, pistettiin pystyyn laavu, bygattiin eldis ja tykättiin

et tää vast on kliffaa.

Räntää sato niskaan niin sulosesti, savu änki silmiin niin ihanasti

ja kun kusihätä tuli,

oli pakko kammeta makkarin lämmöstä ulos

ja hipsiä kalsareissa sivummalle.

Aamu koitti ja eldis tais sammuu,

unenhorteen läpi me kuultiin,

kun hirvi tai jonkun landepaukun karannu lehmä

rupes Kakarin suolla (*) ammuun.

Mut me ei skagattu koskaan,

vaikka mudet ois kyl hakenu veke

jos n'ois tienny missä nää skundit praijas.

Ei, ei ne ajat ollu mälsii,

vaan kuka menneitä jaksais jälsii?

Kafrut, dallataan eteenpäin,

tsiigataan mitä ton bärtsin takana on,

hogataan mitä ton bulin lätäkön takana on!

Tie jatkuu. Dallataan! 

Selitys:

"Kakarin suo" on isohko suo Nuuksion ulkoilualueella noin 30 kilometrin päässä Helsingistä pohjoiseen. Huomatkaa: 30 kilometriä on pitkä matka kulkea reppu / (omatekoinen) rinkka selässä, ja se matka tuli "dallattua" aika usein. Tosin tietysti otimme joskus "dosan" (= bussin) tai yritimme päästä polun alkuun peukalokyydillä. Tämän lisäksi me "dallattiin" myös muualla kuin Nuuksiossa kuten Lapissa, mm. Utsjoen ja Kevon maastossa. Sinne liftaamiseen meni aikaa. Kerran Pena ja minä liftasimme 24 tunnissa Ivalosta Helsinkiin, ja kyllä me oltiin polleata poikaa kun päästiin perille Stadiin. 

     Me ihailimme saamelaisia. Hankimme pitkät "leukupuukot" sekä paulapieksut talveksi; joillakuilla oli päällään lapinmekko ja hartioittensa suojana lukka eli eräänlainen poncho. Kerran kun hiihdin lapinmekko päälläni järven jäällä, vastaani tuli seurue, jonka kärjessä sivakoi pieni poika. Tämä pysähtyi, katseli ihmeissään ja huusi osoittaen porkallaan minua: "Pappa, se en lappojke!" Sen verran ruotsia ymmärsin, että osasin olla ylpeä. Muuten Nuuksiossa, retkimaillamme, oli ilmeisestikin ihan 1600-luvulle saakka samoillut saamelaisia, koskapa itse sana "nuuksio" tulee saamen kielen 'laulujoutsenta' tarkoittavasta "njukča"-sanasta. Suomalaiset ja Ruotsista tulleet maanvaltaajat karkottivat vuosisatojen kuluessa saamelaiset pohjoiseen. Saivat väistyä kaski- ja peltoihmisten tieltä.

     Mistä me saimme rahat retkeilyyn? Alkuvuosina vanhemmilta jotka varmaan huokasivat helpotuksesta, kun olimme poissa meuhkaamasta kotipuolessa, myöhemmiten kävimme (kesä)töissä, joilla rahoitimme Lapin vaellukset.

     Runossa käytän sanaa "landepaukku". Me tunnustauduimme "stadin skun­deiksi". Samoilimme maaseudulla, mutta tulimme aika harvoin tutuiksi maalaisten kanssa. Heitä ei näkynyt metsissä, joissa me liikuimme. Metsissä oli eläinten lisäksi kaupunkilaisia retkeilemässä, sienestämässä ja marjastamassa, ja heitä väistelimme. Siellä kulki myös "eräpoliiseja", jotka vahtivat maanomistajien maita mm. tulenkäytön kannalta. Eräpoliisit eivät olleet kavereitamme.

     Meitä oli eri joukkueita eli "vartioita", joihin kuului viidestä kahdeksaan poikaa - tytöt tulivat myöhemmin kuvaan mukaan, eivät "miehuus­kokeiden" murkkuvuosina. Meillä oli erilaisia tapoja kätkeä varustei­tamme kuten laavukankaita kallionkoloihin - niitä oli raskas kantaa pikitieltä saakka. Liikuimme hiljaa välttäen möykkäämistä, viestimme toisillemme mm. puhaltamalla kämmenpohjiin. Katselimme. Kuuntelimme. Auringon nousujen lisäksi mieleeni muistuvatkin juuri metsän äänet vuorokauden eri aikoina.

     Pelkäsin pimeää metsää, kunnes opin voittamaan pelkoni. Se ei ollut selkävoitto: oli aina mukavampaa istua nuotion tai rakovalkean ääressä kuin saapastella yksin pimeässä kuusikossa. Nuotiolla juttua riitti. Meistä muutamat olivat todellisia tarinan iskijöitä kuten Ravanteri ja Masi. Ikävä että aika on heistä jättänyt. Minun osakseni tuli laulaa. "On kuollut ontuva Erikson" oli bravuurinumeroni. Laulan edelleen. "Maita paljon kulkenut oon, linnun kerallain on laulaneet..."

     Kun olimme viettäneet ajan perjantai-illasta sunnuntai-iltaan "skutassa" - hiihtolomalla olimme siellä toki pitempään -, palasimme kotiin kaupun­kiin. Minulla oli kotonani kylpyamme, jossa pesin retkiliat pois. Ammee­seen jäi mustia rantuja, ja vasta vähän ajan kuluttua oivalsin, että ne johtuivat tervassavusta: olimme laavulla yöpyessämme polttaneet juura­koita ja niistä ihoon oli pinttynyt kitinkaltaista tervasainetta.

     Ja sitten koitti maanantai. Menimme kouluun nuokkumaan. Vain yksi meistä jaksoi loistaa koulussa(kin). Hänestä tuli kirurgi. Meistä muista tuli ahtaaja, mainoskuvaaja, maanmittari, rakennusinsinööri, upseeri jonka kanssa väittelin armeijan tarpeellisuudesta, rajavartion päällikkö joka opetti minut "erälle", selviytymään metsissä - murheellista että hänkin on poissa keskuudestamme -, alkoholisti joka kuoli liian nuorena, mainos­mies / tarinaniskijä josta myös aika on jättänyt, ja minä joka istun tässä työpöytäni ääressä toisessa maassa ja muistelen.

Tie jatkuu. Dallataan.

Pacifism

In the memory of the war that would have ended all further wars

1914 - 1918

Credo of pacifism:

"War and violence are unjustifiable, conflicts should be settled in a peaceful way." See http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/war/against/pacifism_1.shtml

Absolute pacifism

An absolute pacifist believes that it is never right to take part in war, even in self-defence. They think that the value of human life is so high that nothing can justify killing a person deliberately.

Conditional pacifism

Conditional pacifists are against war and violence in principle, but they accept that there may be circumstances when war will be less bad than the alternative. Conditional pacifists usually base their moral code on Utilitarian principles - it's the bad consequences that make it wrong to resort to war or violence.

Selective pacifism

Other pacifists believe that it is a matter of degree, and only oppose wars involving weapons of mass destruction either because of the uniquely devastating consequences of such weapons, or because a war that uses such weapons is not 'winnable'.

Active pacifism

Pacifists are heavily involved in political activity to promote peace, and to argue against particular wars. Nowadays most democratic countries accept that people have the right of conscientious objection to military service, but they usually expect the objector to undertake some form of public service as an alternative.

Pasifisti Arndt Pekurisen muistopäivä 5.11.

(Source: Aamulehti, Nov. 5, 2013)

The memorial day of the Finnish pacifist Arndt Pekurinen on November 5. Arndt Pekurinen was executed on November 5, 1941, in Suomussalmi, Finland, after having been brought to the frontline of the war between the Soviet Union and Finland. There, he was ordered to take a weapon but when he refused to obey the order, he was executed.

Arguments against pacifism

Pacifism cannot be national policy

Pacifism as national policy will only work if no-one wants to attack your country, or the nation with whom you are in dispute is also committed to pacifism. In any other circumstances adopting a pacifist stance will result in your country rapidly being conquered.

However, the idea of pacifism, and of seeking non-violent solutions to disputes between nations, plays a significant part in international politics, particularly through the work of the United Nations.

The logical case against Pacifism

Those who oppose pacifism say that because the world is not perfect, war is not always wrong. They say that states have a duty to protect their citizens, and that citizens have a duty to carry out certain tasks in a Just War. It doesn't matter that pacifists are motivated by respect for human life and a love of peace. The pacifists' refusal to participate in war does not make them noble idealists, but people who are failing to carry out an important moral obligation.

A second argument says that pacifism has no place in the face of extreme evil. The war against Nazi Germany was a war against extreme wickedness.

Pacifism and remembrance

Because most societies regard going to war as fulfilling a citizen's ethical duty, they honour and remember those who give their lives in war. If we believe that war is governed by ethics we should only honour those who give their lives in a Just War, and who followed the rules of war.

Give peace a chance!
Civil disobedience, civil resistance, civilized human beings, e.g. Czechoslovakians on 20 August, 1968







Non-violent resistance is more effective 
than the violent and armed resistance.

See www.civilresistance.net
or
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=civil+resistance&FORM=VIRE3#view=detail&mid=4344397D17A18164E1864344397D17A1816

Si vis pacem para mentes
If you want peace, prepare human minds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw5Mcye28BI















s

Revolution, Pеволюция, Rivoluzione

 Idag är det den sjunde november som enligt den julianska kalendern var den 25 oktober. Dagen är årsdag för den ryska oktoberrevolutionen. Rysslands härskare med sin stab lär dock inte stå på podiet vid Röda torget i Moskva och se på en parad som ledarna gjorde under sovjettiden. 

 

          Vad är revolution? Ordet kommer från latin där det har flera betydelser. Jag misstänker att den betydelse det här är fråga om är inte 'rulla tillbaka' eller 'förfalla' utan 'rulla upp, utveckla, öppna'.

          Slår man upp ordet i en encyklopedi stöter man på revolutioner av alla de slag: från revolutionerande tvättpulver till samhällens politiska omvälvningar och vetenskapliga genombrott. Man blir revolutionär när man vill vara med att ändra på de rådande materiella, ekonomiska, sociala och politiska förhållandena. Eller som en italienare som trodde på anarki uttryckte det:

"När anarkin kommer, kommer hela jorden att förändras. De hatade gränserna försvinner likväl som prelaterna och soldaterna. I världen blir kvar bara idealet som vi är begeistrade av."

          Det finns en väldigt stor skara arbetare, revolutionärer, filosofer, politiker och andra vars arbete och handlingar ligger till grund för oktoberrevolutionen i Ryssland. Att inte nämna Karl Marx i sammanhanget vore omöjligt. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy redogör för hans insats såhär: "Karl Marx' (1818–1883) arbeten inspirerade grundläggandet av många kommunistregimer under 1900-talet. Det är svårt att tänka sig någon annan som haft ett lika stort inflytande i skapandet av den moderna världen som han... 

          Den centrala punkten av Marx historiematerialistiska teori är tanken att olika samhällsformer uppstår och faller i och med att de först fortskrider och sedan utgör hinder för utvecklingen av människornas produktiva krafter... Marx analys av historia och ekonomi sammanfattas i hans förutsägelse av det ofrånkomliga sammanbrottet av kapitalismen som kommer att ersättas av kommunismen. Marx vägrade dock att spekulera i detalj kring kommunismens beskaffenhet. Han menade att den kommer att uppstå genom historiska processer. Kommunismen innebär inte förverkligande av ett förutbestämt moraliskt ideal."

          Vi kan konstatera att Marx förutsägelser inte besannades av de olika typer av kommunism som vi sedan fick.

          En annan revolutionär som jag haft varm om hjärtat är Danilo Dolci (1924 - 1997), se min blogg La lotta continua, 2012-11-11. Dolcis betydelse som samhällsreformator har, vad jag förstått, varit stor lokalt på Sicilien men även allmänt sett i Italien. Dolci var en initiativrik aktivist som satte igång grundläggande förändringar i ett politiskt och moraliskt eftersatt samhälle. Detta skedde under direkt hot från maffian och dess hejdukar. Dolci spådde ingen ny samhällsform att uppstå ur historiens askberg. Istället ingav han (och gör det fortfarande) hopp när förtvivlan och kraftlöshet håller på att smyga in. Han fick Lenins Fredspris 1958 trots att han uttryckligen var icke-kommunist.

Mer information om Dolci på svenska hittar du bla. på http://www.dixikon.se/bloggarna/danilo-dolci/

          Dolci skrev dikter av vilka en heter "Rivoluzione" (Revolution, se min blogg; dikten finns att lyssna på italienska i: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrpZDL7f598)

Revolution

Den som blir rädd när hen får höra "revolution"

har kanske inte förstått.

Det är inte revolution att kasta sten på en polisman,

spotta på stackarn 
som tagit på sig uniformen utan veta

hur han annars fick något att äta, 
det är inte revolution att tutta eld på kommunhuset
eller på jordebokskartotek
för att av dumhet hamna i fängelse

och förstärka fiendens svepskäl.
När man agiterar för att komma till makten
och inte gör det
är det inte revolution utan den saknas;
om man får makten och relationerna

förblir som de var innan,
har man förrått revolutionen

Revolution är att urskilja det goda

medan det fortfarande är levande

och kunna njuta sunt, utan ånger,
av kärlek, känna varandra i glädjen.
Revolutionen är att sköta det som går att sköta

grundligt och utan dröjsmål,
den är att ge ansvar till var och en.
Revolutionen är att bemöta varandra med klokt fördrag

genom att anamma de viktiga relationerna 
mellan jord, himmel och människor: hårdnackat, ja,
om det behövs, genom att utnyttja, nej.
De spridda mänskliga atomerna blir
nya organismer som må kämpa
för att bli av med

allt som är ruttet och all maffia