Jussi Niinistö and the lost touch with reality

I thought I could have let this topic be for a bit longer, but apparently no. Earlier today, news broke that Jussi Niinistö, Finland's minister of defense is worried about financial problems the military will see in the near future. His solution, among other things, included temporarily suspending, or at least limiting, the possibility for women to volunteer for military service. According to him, by not taking in volunteering women into service for a year, the military could save up to 4 million euros. Not surprisingly, this has led to a massive backlash against him.

If you've read my blog before, you can probably see why this is a stupid idea. Finland still retains conscription for men. And I mean men. Women are not forced into service, meaning that every woman serving in the military is doing so of their own free will. On the other hand, the system has received a lot of criticism from international human rights bodies, most notable ones being the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN Human Rights Council, as well as NGOs like Amnesty International. Specifically, the criticism has been directed at the treatment of conscientious objectors, namely, the length of the alternative civil service, which is considered punitive in length, the practice of imprisoning so called "total objectors" who refuse both forms of service and the preferential treatment given to Jehovah's Witnesses, as they are the only group of total objectors to be exempt from service (the last two are currently on hold, thanks to a recent court case. Details here). So, what has been Niinistö's reaction to this criticism? According to his own words, it doesn't mean anything.

So, just to make this clear: when the most respected human rights bodies and NGOs involved with the topic call Finland out for violating the freedom of conscience of certain group of people, minister Niinistö simply brushes it off. Not only that, but he actually wants to double down. He has in the past called for abolishing the special exemption given to Jehovah's Witnesses and has also talked about limiting the right to conscientious objection. But suddenly, when the military is facing financial problems, his solution is to temporarily prevent volunteering women from serving. Essentially, he wants to force as many men into service as possible, even if it means forcing them to go against their deeply held moral beliefs, but doesn't want volunteering women to serve because it costs too much money. Where is the logic in that?  There's also the fact that while Niinistö has been against the idea of expanding conscription to women, he has in the past expressed support for women to take part in the draft, just like men, to increase the number of women volunteering for service. So, which one is it?

Not only would this be a stupid decision because of the reasons mentioned above, it's even more idiotic when you start to look at the numbers. In 2018, 1516 women volunteered for service, which is a all time high. On the other hand, about 25 000 go through the conscription process in total, the number including civil service. So basically, only about 1 in every 25 people in service are women. There's also the fact that while women make up a small minority of people serving, majority of them end up serving in leadership roles, which really shows their motivation. So, if you really want to save money, wouldn't it make more sense to cut the number of conscripted men, instead of preventing volunteering women from serving? Why ban those who actually want to be there, instead of letting go those who really don't? Again, where is he getting this logic from?

There's also the fact that while Niinistö is so worried about the military's finances, the military is also expecting massive investments in their equipment. In next few years, Finland will be buying new fighters for the air force, new ships for the navy, as well as modernizing existing equipment and also getting additional hardware for the army. In total these investments are estimated to cost around 20 billion euros. On the other hand, the possible savings from Niinistö's idea would be around 4 million at best. So is it really worth it?

As I said, this has created some major backlash against Niinistö.  Both the Finnish Reservists Association and Varusmieliitto, an organization fighting for the interests of conscripts have called out Niinistö for his statement. Others have been calling out the contradictions with his past statements on this topic. People like myself have also been calling out his double standards on the motivation of men and women in service. Unfortunately, I'm not too hopeful about the man taking back his words.

Yet again, this shows the sheer absurdity surrounding the discussion about this topic. On the other hand, as somebody who follows this discussion closely, I'm not really surprised about anything this man says. All I can say, is that I'm glad this guy won't be in charge after the next election, because of his party fucking everything up.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, there have been new developments. After receiving backlash for his statement, minister Niinistö actually backed down on his words. However, in the weirdest way possible. He basically said that he didn't really want to ban women from serving. Instead, his statement was a cry for help. It was meant to provoke people and wake them up to the financial situation of the military. Well, he definitely succeeded at provoking people. But then, after spending the last few days talking about the need to save money, he actually proposed additional expenditure in the form of a discharge payment for conscripts finishing their service, to help them return into civilian life. Finland actually used to have this, but it was abolished during the 90's recession. The problem here is that according to his own estimations, this discharge payment could cost up to 4 million euros per year, meaning it would actually eat up the savings his proposed temporary ban for women would create (WHICH HE DEFINITELY NEVER WANTED TO DO). He proposed that this could be covered by implementing a special military exemption tax for those who didn't serve, like Switzerland does. The thing is, Niinistö has in the past been critical towards the idea of this tax and actually admitted himself that implementing this tax could be problematic in terms of equality and non-discrimination. Even in Switzerland, the tax has received backlash, and the European Court of Human Rights has actually deemed aspects of the practice to be discriminatory. So really, does this idea actually make sense?

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