New Dawn

Finally I have been able to find concrete way to start fulfilling my mission to build strong network of trust between Russia and Finland. I have been fortunate enough to be offered some responsibilities in my work place related to business in St. Petersburg and since then I have been traveling to this wonderful city weekly bases. How happy I am!

I have started to realize the fact that the biggest burden to create friendly ties between Fins and Russians is not at all in the Russian side. The problem is the completely unnecessary negative attitude and almost hostility of Fins towards Russian people. And absolutely without any reason. I have been able to create more close and warm friendship in one month with Russian people than I do in two years in Finland. Russian people are really warm hearted, friendly and generous people.

But now, I am in the very beginning of my new journey. Please do join it with me! I will keep you updated about it!

Tragedy in Jokela Highs school

Today happened something that nobody in Finland could ever believe. An 18 year old young man took a gun to his high school and started shooting randomly towards people and finally killed himself. The dreadful result was that 9 people where killed, 8 youth and one adult.

My first reaction on the news was agony when I thought the families and friends of the victims. It must also be painful for all the school children to return to the school which had changed into a place of a massacre.

We need to give a lot of time and space for grief. We should let all the feelings of distress, agony and bitterness to come out and not to let them adhere to our hearts.

Great French writer Victor Hugo has stated: “In adversity, it is necessary to cry out, ‘Hope! Hope! And yet again hope!’”. Even in front of these unjust and horrific events we need to see the potential for change to better. No, it's not enough to see it. We need to determine that no matter what we ourselves will change and grow and make sure that these events never happen again in the soil of our country. Yesterday evening I made a vow to do my utmost during my lifetime in order to prevent it to happen again.

In a Turkish Sauna

I had a great discussion in a hamam, a Turkish sauna in my holiday in Tekirova, Southern Turkey. It seems that Turkish hotels are filled with Russian tourists. I asked a man sitting next to me in the hamam where he lives and he told me he is from Kiev, Ukraine. My narrow understanding about Ukrainians is that they are Russians but I learned from him that it is not the case. Ukrainian people are different from Russians like water and fire. Russians are more extroverts whereas Ukrainians are introverts.

Ukraine is divided into two parts. On the eastern side of Ukraine majority of the people are Russians whereas on the western side lives the Ukrainians. Then I asked my new friend what is the stance of the Ukrainian president, Mr. Yushchenko. He answered that Yushchenko is like a soft material between two objects. He can lead the country taking care of opinions of both groups. If he would be traditional leader with strong and stubborn mind he would only drive the country into chaos. My friend believed that this kind of soft power is the only way for Ukraine to survive. I totally agreed with him. In fact this is the type of leadership that is a today's requirement for a genuine leader everywhere in the world. People cannot be lead violent way anymore using threats and fear.

It started to become hot in the sauna but our dialog became more and more interesting. I asserted that this type of leadership model is closely connected with eastern philosophies. My friend agreed and said that in western countries we rely too much on rational thinking and dualistic mindset separating good and evil whereas in the east the thinking is more comprehensive covering both rational thinking and instincts, mind and body, self and environment. This oneness of everything is indeed the requirement for the survival of the whole mankind. Oneness is the keyword he concluded.

I was amazed to realize how deep and important dialogs can emerge anytime. Dialog is the means to change the world. Through dialog we spread hope for better future and build bonds of trust between people. Even in a Turkish sauna.

Peace in our Daily life

Most people think that peace is very abstract thing. Furthermore peace is regarded simple as an opposite of the state of war and because we don't have the state of war around us in Europe why should we bother about it? Why should we do something about an issue that we have already achieved?

Well, this definition for peace is not correct. Peace is something we need to actively work for every day. How should we do it? I think the answer is twofold: Firstly we need to contemplate our own behavior and attitude towards others and transform our arrogance, greed and ignorance into valuable action. Secondly we need to engage ourselves in dialog with others to try to understand the heart of the other person in order to convey our own thoughts correctly to the other person. The aim of this kind of dialog is to elevate the life state of the other person and speak out for justice. Our determined and respectful words can touch the other person's heart deeply and change the course of his or her day or even the whole life.

"Be the change you wish to see"

This blog is about activities for peace but I haven't yet written anything about the concept of peace. What is it? Many people have become skeptical saying that the tendency to use violence just simply is part of human nature and there is nothing we can do about it. We have also seen many ideologies promoting peace strongly but turned out to be just empty rhetoric or even manipulation towards selfish aims. Some countries have adopted the thinking that maintaining peace actually requires strong military force.

My approach to peace is based on the model of the three great men dedicated to peace: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Daisaku Ikeda. It is remarkable that their religious and cultural backgrounds are completely different but they all share the same practical ideology of non-violence and dignity of humanity. Since also negative tendencies are inherent part of human nature the activities for peace always starts from within. Too often we see the cause for conflict outside ourselves and forget to win over our innate negativity. All activities for peace starts with our own internal transformation or "human revolution". Gandhi has summarized it with the words: "Be the change you wish to see."

See the Gandhi, King, Ikeda video:

Peace Union of Finland 100th anniversary

Today was the 100th anniversary concert of the Peace Union of Finland in the old Opera house in Helsinki. The program contained great performances by some well know Finnish artists like Maarit Hurmerinta, Tommy Taberman and Samuli Putro.
It was a warm hearted event but why is it that the house was less than half full? It seems that most people are less and less interested in contributing for peace and more and more interested only in themselves and their close surroundings. But that's all. And yet we know from the history that this kind of ignorance invites conflict and violence for sure.

I know however, that complaining helps nobody. It is our shared responsibility to open up to people. We ourselves have to change! I myself have to change! We have to show through our own determined and brave actions that promoting peace is not for nothing, it is an urgent issue and it is even trendy. We also have to learn to promote peace more effectively and organized manner. It has been said that evil is very good at organizing itself. The peace movement have to learn to be even more organized!

My Pledge

It all started with a vow, a pledge. I was 18 years old and it was time to decide whether to choose military service or non-military service since every young man in Finland have to go through this training period. The obvious patriotic choice would have been military service since my late grand father (whom I deeply respect) fought in the famous Winter war and was fully behind the common thought in Finland that we definitely need a strong military force in order to maintain our status of an independent nation.

Well.. What was my conclusion? I had just finished reeding a book written by Mr. Daisaku Ikeda where he referred to his mentor's, Josei Toda's words about the security of a nation: "In order to secure peace between two nations political and diplomatic ties are important but far more important is the friendship between individual citizens which will create a strong network of trust." This statement was decisive. I decided to choose non-military service and furthermore to dedicate my life to build this network of friendship in the area of the Gulf of Finland where Russian, Estonian and Finnish people trust each other, have intensive co-operation in all fields of society like culture, science, business and education. It's up to us, individual citizens to make it happen. And it's up to me.