about

here’s my five cents about the recent confrontations between the finnish authorities and some citizens, and the culmination: the burnt storehouses in central helsinki.

the VR storehouses in central helsinki has been debated for years. decisions has been made on different levels to tear down the storehouses incoming week to make way for a music hall, (think classical music). it seems the green party, oranssi ry, some young people in general and the precariat especially were opposing. as sampsa put it:

The place where this all took place has been a center for alternative happenings, flee markets, night clubs and couple of bars, basically a place where young people met their friends.

my impression is that a loosely knit group of people has, during the years, taken emotional possession of the VR storehouses. maybe because they a) are young and b) don’t belong to at least a middle class family. so you’re young and you don’t have the economic means to participate that much in society. but anybody wants a place where you can just be, together with your friends. well if you don’t have money, were are you going to hang out in helsinki? i’m not sure if i’m on to something here, because i simply don’t know. but i can hypothesize.

i can imagine that the police and firefighters emerging at the party could’ve felt very provocative indeed for the participants. it seems possible that the party and fire were under control, thus making it unnecessary to intervene, from the perspective of the participants. legally, of course, the intervention might’ve been necessary at the time reports of a fire came to knowledge of the authorities. but if you’ve taken possession of a place, generally you do not want any authorities to intervene unless you see it absolutely necessary.

having already lost the fight for the place, and have it rubbed in, since the authorities crashed the party, den brända jordens taktik (tactics of the burnt soil?) comes in just handy. the logic is not about reason. there is no point in burning down the house. but you can be in a state of mind where nothing has any point, and then it makes perfect sense. self-destructive tendencies are familiar to me when i’ve lost something tremendously precious. burning down your own house, for example, is as much an attack against the building as it is towards your self. (not having personal experience though.) or for that matter: leaving someone before left behind – destroying something before someone else gets the possibility to.

for those of you who understand finnish and are intrested to understand why the VR storehouses were so significant for some – check this out