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.