Helvetin Pastori/Pastor of Hell

Translation of a Finnish blog post. Original available here Some of you are probably aware that recently the Finnish Greens voted in favor of an initiative calling for cannabis legalization at their party conference. The vote was close, 183 to 181. As expected, this caused some intense debate, if you can actually call it that. As somebody who was there, I guess I have to say something. Because ultimately, the idea is not as radical as it's portrayed as. The decision means that the Finnish Greens are the first party in parliament to support cannabis legalization. Obviously this is a historic moment, but ultimately we're not alone with this demand. Before the Greens three minor parties have already called for legalization. Or what about political youth groups? The Green Party Youth, which I represented at the convention, have been calling for legalization for years. From other parties in parliament, the youth wings for the National Coalition and the Left Alliance are calling for ...

Translation of my speech at the Finnish Green Party's convention on the 12th of September 2021. Finnish version available here Hong Kong is a former British colony, which in 1997 was handed over to China. Before the handover, the countries agreed on a special arrangement which was meant to secure civil liberties for Hongkongers for at least 50 years. In the Summer of 2020, China betrayed those promises by legislating the so called "National security law". For Hong Kong's democracy movement, effects of the national security law have been catastrophic: since the law was enacted, every single democrat has been kicked out, or pressured to resign from the regional legislature. Around 30 organizations, which includes political parties and trade unions. have shut down operations. At the moment of writing this 146 people have been arrested and 84 people prosecuted under the national security law. Apart from this, the Hong Kong police has issued arrest warrants on at least 10...

Translations of a Finnish blog post. Link here Well, i's happening. At the moment of writing this, the extremist group Taliban is besieging Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan and based on the most recent information is negotiating about transfer of power with the Afghani government. The whole situation feels absurd. The war in Afghanistan started in 2001, when I was only four years old. In other words, the war has been ongoing for most of my life. And when the US decides to withdraw it's troops from the country, it only takes few weeks for the Taliban to take over. I have to ask, what exactly did we achieve here?  The situation in Afghanistan is a perfect example of US foreign policy failures. The Taliban is a self created enemy: the fear of Communism during the Cold War drove the US to support local jihadists in their fight against the pro-Soviet government. But when the common enemy was defeated, the weapons were turned against the US. And once again, it's the average Afgh...

This is a translations of a blog post from my Finnish blog. Link here . A diplomatic dispute between China and Lithuania seems to be brewing. Lithuania recently announced plans to open a representative office in Taiwan, while Taiwan is opening it's own office in Lithuania. For those who don't know, these offices act as de facto embassies due to Taiwan's interesting place in international politics. On it's own this is nothing special. After all, Finland and Taiwan have a similar arrangement between them. It's the name of this representative office that is the problem: while Taiwan's representative office in Finland uses the name ”Taipei Representative Office”, the name for the office that is about to be opened in Lithuania uses the name "Taiwan". And since China considers Taiwan as it's own territory, even the name "Taiwan" in any official capacity is treated as a threat.  Now China has actually recalled their ambassador to Lithuania and ...

The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution about Hong Kong which among other things called for sanctions against Chinese officials. The resolution was adopted with quite a clear margin, with 578 in favor, 29 against and 73 abstentions. The interesting part is that the abstentions and against votes largely came from two political groups on the opposite sides of the political spectrum: ID and GUE/NGL Far rights and the far left agreeing on something? Seems like the horseshoe theory is on to something.  This same divide can be seen in Finnish politics as well. I previously posted about the case of two right wing MP's getting exposed with questionable China ties . However, questionable China ties can be seen on the Finnish left as well, especially in minor parties, namely the Communist Party of Finland (SKP) and the Communist Workers Party (KTP).   The SKP is generally described as more moderate than the KTP but I don't think this is the case. An example of this is...

Finland is one the few Western countries to still have blasphemy laws in the books. Bit of a debate rose up on the topic recently. More on that here. https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/yle_survey_most_mps_want_to_keep_blasphemy_law_but_majority_of_finns_party_greens_favour_change/12010478 Obviously I had to give my two cents on the topic and as result I wrote an opinion piece that was published on the website of Ankkuri, one of our local papers on the 7th of July 2021. This is a translation of that piece, the original one is here: https://www.pkank.fi/uutiset/mielipide-ensimmainen-pykala-kuuluu-roskakoriin-6.19.18135.dacdd6e3e6 Recently Yle asked members of parliament about their views on removing the law against "disrupting religious peace" (note: this is a literal translation, made by the writer). The law is considered problematic because among other things it bans blasphemy. In fact, the UN Human Rights Committee has told Finland to remove the law because it violates freed...

This is a translation of an opinion piece I wrote, published in Kymen Sanomat on the 4th of June 2021 (3rd of June on the website). Link to the original here: https://www.kymensanomat.fi/paakirjoitus-mielipide/4170575 For context: Suvivirsi (Den blomstertid nu kommer in Swedish) is a popular church hymn in Finland and Sweden. Due to its lyrics which celebrate the coming of Summer, it has become a popular songs in end of the year celebrations in schools. As you might guess, singing a blatantly religious song schools is something that many people oppose and as a result, Suvivirsi, while a time honored tradition, has become a topic of intense debate, which unfortunately seems to derail the wider discussion on the role of religion in general. Facebook recently brought up memories from three years ago, when I had an argument on Twitter about Suvivirsi. Now that the school year is about to end I think it's the perfect time to talk about it again. Due to the religious nature of it’s lyric...