Warm Hearts in Tough Debates
Novelist Elina Hirvonen stepped in to de-escalate a conflict between an openly racist group and protesters at Helsinki’s Central Library Oodi. What can we learn from her?
Last Friday, December 6, was the 107th Independence Day of the Republic of Finland. Finland’s independence day is traditionally a fairly solemn affair, commemorating the bravery and sacrifices of Finnish men and women during WW II. Finland has more than 800 miles of land border with Russia and the ongoing attack on Ukraine has made it even more real that a small country cannot take its independence and democracy for granted. Finnish people are and have always been fairly patriotic. I am too.
Sadly, over the last couple of years, Finland and especially its capital Helsinki has seen repeated efforts by far right, xenophobic and fascist movements to reclaim the idea of Finnishness, Independence Day and the Finnish flag for their openly exclusionary and racist messaging.
One of the most prominent political groups in what they call ethnonationalism is the Blue-and-Black Movement. The movement wishes to define Finnishness as an ethnic, white identity. They advocate for the removal of approximately half a million residents from Finland. Some of the leaders proudly embrace the identity of a racist. The party states on its website that it wants to “rid our homeland and society of globalism and other modern values that erode our country”. The party’s language mostly stays within the limits of Finnish legislation while intentionally dogwhistling with phrases that have associations to the Third Reich.
The Blue-and-Black Movement uses public space interventions to provoke reactions and gain visibility. Prior to the Independence Day, they announced that they would be holding a book club on the third floor of Helsinki’s Central Library Oodi on Independence Day.
I love Oodi and so do nearly all Helsinkians. Oodi is like a gas station for hope. It reminds us of what we are at our best and what we can achieve by sharing space and resources. It is centrally located and one of the most diverse public spaces in Helsinki. It is right opposite to the Parliament of Finland and next to the the editorial offices of the largest newspapers in the country.
When announcing their book club, the Blue-and-Black Movement did not book a meeting room but said that they would be holding their convening on the library floor, knowing that political events without a representation of at least three political groups are banned from the public areas of the library.
Their actions led to a strong and probably desired reaction. Leading politicians condemned the plan. Helsinki’s Deputy Mayor Paavo Arhinmäki called for residents to fill the library to show their disapproval of fascism. As you can see from the clip below, the event turned into a spectacle. The small group of men was surrounded by guards, police officers, city executives, television cameras and hundreds of protesters. Some of the protesters came with banners, others shouted in aggressively for the book club to leave the library. Some danced. Many chanted: “No Nazis in Helsinki”.
The Blue-and-Black Movement livestreamed the event with three cameras. On the stream, the leaders of the movement acknowledged that the attention was exactly what they were looking for, expressing pride for getting on mainstream media with a shoestring budget.
As I read the coverage, there was a photo that caught my attention - and gave me hope. It was the award-winning journalist, novelist and documentarist Elina Hirvonen sitting at the table with the Blue-and-Black Movement leaders, engaged in conversation.
Elina is not new to these situations. She has covered questions of polarization and diversity in her journalism, novels, non-fiction writing and documentaries - like in her documentary Boiling Point on polarization (see trailer below). In the photo she is surrounded by Oodi’s Director Anna-Maria Soininvaara, Helsinki’s Executive Director for Culture and Leisure Juha Ahonen, writer Kaarina Hazard, professors and journalists and several guards holding back the crowd.
As someone working on friction in public spaces, I felt that she was demonstrating the skills of convivencia. I reached out to her to understand her motivation to show up, her strategy for engagement and her overall experience.
Elina Hirvonen: “While I fully disagree with their positions, I have nothing against them as people.”
Tommi: Thanks for agreeing to talk to me. Could we start from your reasons for showing up?
Elina: My primary motivation was Oodi. It is a really dear place for me. I love public libraries. Oodi is a place where I meet my friends. I work with women from Afghanistan and we do a lot of our meetings at Oodi. I hated the idea that on this important day there would be a group promoting an idea in this beloved space that many of my friends should be erased. That these friends of mine would not feel safe going to the library on Independence Day.
The other reason is that I know these groups. I spent time with them and filmed them when I was working on my documentary film on polarization (Kiehumispiste / Boiling Point). I have spent a lot of time with them while being very explicit that I am fully against their beliefs. For instance, I have spent four hours in a bar drinking cava and debating ethnonationalism with Tuukka, their leader.
I was not looking to humiliate anyone. I did not have a hidden agenda. I genuinely wanted to understand.
Tommi: What do you think about the argument that if this group would have booked a meeting room, they could have held their meeting? That the main problem was that they took the meeting to the public space.
Elina: This demonstrates the complexity of this issue. [Deputy Mayor] Paavo Arhinmäki said in advance that the City of Helsinki has a policy that you cannot use the city’s facilities for an event promoting ideas that are in contradiction with the UN Declaration on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. If you follow that logic, it would not matter even if they would have held their event in Oodi’s toilets. They are promoting an idea of removing non-white people from Finland.
But this issue is difficult as we do not ban them as people from using the library and the leaders of this group are extremely skilled in balancing the tightrope in their language.
It is worth noting that their explicit goal is to create fear by reclaiming public spaces, like the library. Their goal is exactly that: that people with a minority background have to think whether they dare to come to the library.
Tommi: How did you prepare for the event?
Elina: I was aware of the risk that by showing up, I might be validating them or contributing to their attention seeking aspirations. When I did my preparation, I understood quickly that this was not an event for their young members but for their leaders. This made the nature of my engagement different. I spent time reading briefs of their pamphlet and their party program. Because reading is what you do when you prepare for a book club. I stuck to summaries as I did not want to finance them by buying the pamphlet.
My goal was to de-escalate the situation. Escalation was exactly what this group was looking for. They wanted to get video material of people attacking them or them being forcefully removed from the space.
I talked to my friend Miriam Attias who is incredibly experienced in mediation and de-escalation. Miriam knows many of these people and has done extensive mediation in neighborhoods between far-right and immigrant residents.
I made a Facebook post that I would be going to the book club as it was an open event.My post was then picked up by the Helsingin Sanomat (Finland’s leading daily). My friend saw on X that Tuukka, the leader of the group, had noticed the article and welcomed me to join.
Tommi: What happened when you showed up?
Elina: Before the event started, I went to visit the tent outside where they were handing out information and grilling sausages. I wanted to talk to them and meet some of the young people there. I also wanted to build trust and be clear that I was not coming with a hidden agenda. My sincere goal was to participate. This movement feeds from an Us vs Them mentality and I wanted to avoid that. I wanted to be clear that while I fully disagree with their positions, I have nothing against them as people.
When I got inside Oodi, it was totally packed. You had groups demonstrating, police, silent book clubs and a lot of media. When I got to the table, it became apparent that the main audience for this event were the people watching the livestream. The Blue-and-Black Movement was filming with three cameras.No one at Oodi could hear a thing of the conversation.
As an act of building a bridge, I brought a box of gingerbread cookies. Book clubs always have something to eat. And it is Christmas time. I also figured that the gingerbread cookies could be used in moments that got very heated.
Tommi: What was your engagement strategy?
Elina: I focused on being warm and kind as a person. Even warmer than I would naturally be. I wanted to be as disarming as a person as possible to avoid escalation. Simultaneously, I focused on being very clear and firm in my arguments. I knew some of them are very intelligent.
Tommi: I watched the recording of the exchange. I heard you saying repeatedly that you are nice guys and that you’d be open to going for a beer. Why did you do that?
Elina: Emphasizing that I have nothing against them as people is even more important when the ideological divide is steep. And here the divide was not just steep but completely opposite. I think that to be able to communicate, we need to be able to separate the ideology and the person and reiterate that difference. I wanted to be clear that this conflict is not about us as people. I genuinely think that. I also thought that this message created safety for me. When you enter a situation unarmed, there is some potential for bridging.
There were moments when there was a real risk of the situation getting out of hand. This was especially after an hour when Oodi’s Director Anna-Maria Soininvaara asked them to finish the event and leave. They refused. Some of the participants started verbally abusing her. They called Soininvaara a dictator. Tuukka and other leaders remained respectful. I decided to look Tuukka in the eye, stick around and advocate for respecting the importance of this special day for Finland. I talked about my mother. And eventually they agreed to be escorted out.
Tommi: What do you think we can learn from this situation?
Elina: One thing that comes to mind is how we react to far-right groups instilling fear. We keep saying that we cannot give in to fear every time there is an Islamist terrorist attack in Europe. But maybe we should emphasize that message a lot more with far-right groups. We are dealing with groups, which want to weaken an open and democratic society grounded in human rights.
I want to be clear that it is completely justified and understandable to stand back if you belong to the minorities these groups want to eradicate. But most of us cannot give in. To be honest, I am a bit surprised why white people in the majority are so afraid of meeting these groups. Those of us who do not need to fear for our identities or bodies could take a bigger role in defending others and our values.
The other thing I would mention is how we could build our skills for warm hearts and tough arguments. It seems that in our society we are going exactly the opposite direction. We are tearing each other apart. We should build resilience for respecting each other as humans to a radical level but still uphold tough debate when it comes to ideologies and opinions.
Tommi: The British researchers Shamser Sinha and Les Back talk about the skills of conviviality. One of them is the aversion to the pleasures of hating. It’s recognizing how tempting hate is when we feel threatened or scared. In many ways that is exactly what you are talking about: warm hearts and tough arguments.
Elina: It got really heated at Oodi. There were tons of people, protesting the book club, who did not understand that I was not one of the Blue-and-Black Movement members. That is understandable as it was so loud that no one could really hear a thing. After the exchange I had some of the protesters coming to me with fairly aggressive looks and pushing liberal literature to me. My friends tried to say that I was defending a liberal society but they did not want to hear it.
How do you feel now, four days after the event?
It was a lot, a full-body experience. In the last minutes of the exchange it all really hit me. My friend Kaarina was next to me. I took her hand and whispered to her that I am about to cry. She said that she understands but now we just have to hold it for a while. I cried practically the entire following day. I am still processing it. It’s a mix of the intensity of the situation and grief over authoritarian movements around the world, and the fact that this is happening in Finland and at the library, in the space I love so much.
In conclusion: 15 Actions for Warm Hearts and Tough Debates
Elina demonstrated exceptional civic courage in the situation. She was largely responsible for de-escalating a potentially dangerous situation. Looking at her activism through the lens of convivencia, here are the acts of convivencia I identify from our conversation:
Read the opposing side’s materials.
Get training and support on mediation and de-escalation.
Ask for a permission to join the table.
Stay positive and warm even when you might be boiling inside.
Speak from your experience. Seek common ground.
Emphasize the difference between opinions and people, even when others would not be doing that.
Name abusive language and ask people to stay respectful.
Repeat several times that you have nothing against them as people.
Don’t put words in the mouths of others. Point out if others are doing that to you.
Stay firm in your opinions. Express your commitment to democracy and human rights. Don’t be afraid to say that you disagree.
Ask questions.
Bring something, like cookies, water or fruit, to de-escalate a potentially boiling moment with an act of generosity and shared humanity.
Check that you have understood correctly what others are saying.
Keep eye contact.
Give yourself the permission and space to recover.