Helvetin Pastori/Pastor of Hell

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 a...

Today 6th of December 2017 is Finland's 100th independence day. Independence day has always been very important day for Finns but this year is special. As a result, multiple famous landmarks across the world have been lit in white and blue, the colors of the Finnish flag in celebration of this occasion. The whole year of 2017 has been full of events celebrating 100 years of independence. While this year definitely is something worth celebrating, this celebration takes some very grotesque forms. My main grievance with the celebrations is the glorification of war. During world war two, Finland fought two wars against the Soviets and this fact is given way too much attention. Among the public the military is one of the most respected institutions which is one of the main reasons why conscription still enjoys as much support it does. Now, I've already made four posts about that topic, so you already know what I think about that. The military is essentially considered to be above ...

My plan was to stay away from Finnish conscription for a bit longer, but turns out a few topics I was planning to write about are a bit more complex than I thought. So, just to get something done, let's take a look at one more problem regarding the Finnish military, namely reserve objectors. I already briefly mentioned these people in a previous post on this topic, but let's go a bit deeper this time. Reserve objectors are people who after finishing their military service and becoming a part of the reserves, decide that they don't want to be in the reserves anymore. In order to leave the reserves, you have to complete a form of additional service, after which you are officially recognized as a conscientious objector and you're exempt from military service under all circumstances.Their motivations vary from person to person. Some develop anti-war views later in life, while some leave just because they got a call up to refreshment training at an inconvenient time and ca...

I've already talked about the treatment of conscientious objectors here in Finland in previous posts (links at the end of this one). This is because Finland still has mandatory conscription for men, an aspect of life here that I personally do not care for and neither do multiple human rights organisations. It's also a personal topic for me, as I am under Finnish law considered as a conscientious objector myself. However, even though the Finnish system has received criticism for human rights violations, there are countries where the situation is even worse. That's why as a part of the International Week of Action Against Militarization of Youth, in this post I will talk about the treatment of conscientious objectors in other countries. Some general information about conscientious objection before we go any further. The right to conscientious objection is derived from Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads: " Everyone has the right to freed...

While I said in my previous post that I would leave this topic alone for a while, there has been a change of plans. Next week, November 20-26, War Resister's International organizes The International Week of Action Against Militarization of Youth. Since I consider myself as an anti-militarist, I decided to take a head start on the campaign and talk about one more problem about Finnish conscription: the draft process itself. This is because the whole process has basically been created to benefit the military from the very beginning. First of all, the whole process is controlled by the military. This becomes perfectly clear from the very beginning. Some time during the spring of the year you turn 18, you will receive a letter from the military,  telling you it's time to step into service. The letter includes the actual date of your draft, a personal information form and a booklet detailing information about military service. It also tells you to take a medical checkup, on whi...

Please read part one before reading this. Link here. http://helvetinpastori.blogspot.fi/2017/11/absurdity-of-finnish-conscription.html Now as I mentioned in part one, the current system has received consistent criticism from human rights organizations for years, but despite this, there is no real will to change the current system. Actually, most of our politicians are simply trying to find new ways to keep the current system alive, which mostly means ideas to include women into the system in some way and/or to increase the number of people serving outside the military.This is because even though there have been calls to go the Israel route and simply expand the draft to include women, this idea is incredibly unpopular among the public as recent polls show that only around 25% of men and an even smaller percentage of women support this. Not only that, but this idea is actually opposed by the military, as they claim there is no need to increase the number of conscripts and that it wo...