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Subject:      Re: Sweden's occupation of Aland (was: Jorn Donner)
From:         Jan Böhme
Date:         1997/09/15
Message-Id:   <5vjnbk$e5m$1@news.datakom.su.se>
Newsgroups:   soc.culture.nordic


Jari Partanen wrote:

>Johan Olofsson wrote:

>> 
>> Might it be that Finland not yet is prepared to receive the knowledge
>> that the White side's version of the Åland crisis was falsified on
>> several points?

>In your opinion, there is no chance, that a Rikssvensk version might be
>more false? After all, there has been much more scientific
>research about the subject in Finland than in Sweden.

The book by Meinander, summarised earlier in the thread, makes assumptions about Swedish aspirations that are not borne out in contemporay source material. There are no signs in the sources that Sweden really aspired to take over Åland. BTW, had she wanted to do so, it would have been relatively easy.

So to summarise: In Sweden there is essentially no popular opinion whatsoever about the Åland crisis and its conclusion. It is simply forgotten. In some quarters in Finland, there is a rather vivid picture, which is very critical with regards to the true motives behind Sweden's actions. However, there is very little basis for this view if you examine the actual course of events, or contemporary sources.

So it seems to be justified to speak about a "national myth" in Finland about the Åland crisis, which is not based on the events at the time. The question is: what, then, is it based on?

It can be based on several elements. One, as Johan indicated, might be a sense of resentment from the White side for not getting the Swedish support they deserved when they were fighting the Red menace.

Of course, general resentment against Big Brother, as is often evident in attitudes vis-à-vis Sweden in other Scandinavian countries, might play a role, too.

But there is another component, that I think might havecome into play. The Finns came in with quite a heavy hand over Åland after the near-unanimous referendum, with the new Finnish Governor equating separatism - at one stage, we have to remember, embraced by 96% of Ålanders present on the islands - with treason. As an Ålander remarked, more in resignation than in bitterness, long after the fact: "When twenty thousand people want to go their own way, you talk about separatism and treason. When three million people do it, you play Finlandia".

Even if the Åland question eventually got a very happy solution, and I am convinced that the Ålanders have a better situation than they would have had under Swedish rule, there might be some kind of, more or less unconscious, Finnish bad conscience over Finland's actions with respect to the Ålanders. After all, Finland _did_ deny the Ålanders the right of self-determination that it so eagerly cherished for itself, in a manner that might, if you are sensitive, be described as tending towards imperialism.

In order to deal with this in the collective subconscience, there might have been feelings of a need to justify this, rationalise it, as it were, by remembering the actions of _Sweden_ on the issue in slightly darker colours than is historically actually justified.

Jan Böhme

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