School Massacre ‘a very Finnish affair’
The article, by Robert Boyes, argues that the high school shooting - in which seven students, the school’s headmistress and the gunman were killed – claims that the tragedy is ‘a very Finnish affair’ and goes on to give what many Finns have claimed is a distorted and inaccurate view of Finland.

Mr Boyes, who The Times has sent to Tuusala (near Jokela) to cover the tragedy, has been responsible for most of the The Times’ objective coverage of the events.

His opinion piece begins by arguing that the massacre occurred because Finland is a sparsely populated land where ‘Lakes often separate farm-steads’ and it is so dark most of the time that ‘friendship is a summer luxury’ in Finland and lots of people kill themselves.

He also claims that almost all socialising in Finland is conducted through ‘technology’ and even ‘six year-olds take mobiles to school.’ Finally he implies that the murderer, Pekka-Erik Auvinen, may have committed the shooting because of the supposed importance of ‘Ukko the mythic God of sky and thunder’ in Finnish culture. He begins the whole article with the lines, ‘In the old days Finns used to believe in Tuonela, the land of the virtual dead. Now they believe in YouTube the land of the virtual living.’

Auvinen posted a video on YouTube – the video-sharing website – on the morning of the shooting which heavily implied that the shooting would happen and ended with a sinister image of a young man holding a gun.

‘Ignorance of our culture’
The article, published two days after the shooting, has evoked a furious response from Finnish readers, most of them writing from Finland and quite a few from Oulu. Ellie from Kokkola wrote to Mr Boyes that, ‘You obviously have no idea what you are talking about’ and many others agree.

Some Finns have advised Mr. Boyes to ‘visit our country’ so that he won’t write another article that is ‘just plain wrong.’ Markku from Helsinki claimed that Boyes had ‘been isolated on (his) little island for too long’ while Jarna from Helsinki wonders ‘if Mr. Boyes has ever met a Finnish person or visited our beautiful country. His opinions portrait (sic) total ignorance of our culture.’
 
Matti from Joensuu simply wrote ‘Shame on you’ while a number of British readers felt that they should apologise for the article on behalf of their country.

‘Sorry Finns for this lazy piece of journalism’ wrote ‘Matt’ originally from Nottingham in the middle of England.

Some of the Finnish readers used their comment section to compare Finland to Britain such as a reader for Tuusala who wrote, ‘Let’s see, Shipman, Crippen, King, Christie . . . shall I go on?’ referring to infamous British murderers and mass-murderers as a counter to the claim that the massacre was ‘a very Finnish affair.’

‘I’ve never felt prouder to be a Finn!’
Ismo from Helsinki pointed out that Boyes was stereotyping saying, ‘It doesn’t always rain in England nor are Mr Boyes’ descriptions real.’

One reader simply asked why he needed to ‘analyse our culture like that.’ And another Finnish woman was so impressed by the way that so many Finns were criticising the article that she wrote, ‘I’ve never felt prouder to be a Finn!’

Many comments defended ‘we Finns’ and claimed that Boyes’ article was ‘insensitive,’ badly timed and making light of a tragedy. One woman wrote, ‘At least we Finns know how to GOOGLE!’ as she felt that merely ‘googling’ the word ‘Finland’ would have allowed Boyes not to generalise and make so many mistakes.

A number of Oulu residents have weighed in with ‘Maria’ ‘curious’ about ‘where this writer got his ideas from,’ Eeva insisting that England is far more dangerous than Finland, somebody calling themselves ‘Perkele’ (Devil) from Raahe (near Oulu) accusing Boyes of ‘spreading lies’ about Finland, and Pekka insisting that ‘I don’t see anything typical Finnish (sic) in (the shooting)’.

A small number of Finnish writers agreed with Boyes that something in ‘Finnish culture’ – such as supposedly not dealing with emotions or openly discussing problems – may have influenced events. But Boyes was accused of numerous inaccuracies.

Readers pointed out that southern Finland is not dark for most of the year, most Finns live in towns, they do have social lives in winter, most suicides actually occur in the summer, Finland is statistically happier than England, the references to mythology are out of context, lakes do not generally separate cottages and children don’t go to school until they are seven.

Record Readership
By the following day (9th November), Boyes’ article had become one of the most read articles in the whole history of The Times Online. Boyes wrote a response which, for many Finns, made things even worse.

‘It’s a good to see the Finns with a bit of fire in their stomachs’ he began in remark that was accused of being patronising.

He accused Finns of not wanting to discuss problems with their society so that they can believe that Finland is an ‘oasis’ but also claimed that Finland is not paradise ‘if you’re a polar bear’ and only quoted, at the end, the most facetious comments he’d received about the previous article.

This led to a more balanced though still largely negative response with 102 comments so far.

Martti from Lahti said that he agreed with the article and felt that Finns do not like taking responsibility for negative events that happen in the country.

Somebody from Turku who wrote, ‘Historically, we Finns have been very sensitive when it has come to our national image. Even today we desperately need other countries' acceptance and approval - perhaps this a leftover from the time we had to be Russia’s yes-man.’

A Tampere reader wrote, ‘You simply hit a nerve, which is not a good thing if the target collectively has relatively low self-esteem as an imagined community. It is not acceptable to say those things you said because you are a foreigner - what you think means a great deal to us Finns.’

However, Noona from Oulu wrote that Finns welcome questioning of their country ‘but only if questioning is grounded and well informed and not based on fairly (sic) tales and myths.’ Mikko from Oulu insisted, ‘There are no polar bears in Finland’ while Mikko from Turku accused Boyes of not understanding Finnish people.

Upsetting the Whole Nation
But for many Boyes’ second article was adding insult to injury. Mikko from Tuusala wrote, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you are still writing this stuff. Do you have any idea how patronizing you sound, and how insulting that feels to a country in grief?’ while Phil from Dundee in Scotland wrote ‘Roger! When you’re in a hole stop digging!’

‘We are stunned, devastated. If it was a "typical Finnish thing", we wouldn't, would we? You should’ve waited for a few days for us to get over this before writing what you wrote’ said another Finn.

Maria from Helsinki posted the most recent comment saying, ‘And I have to say I don't know any other country pulling so hard together, when they consider they are being insulted or attacked.  Congratulations by the way, you managed to upset the whole nation. Your timing was anything but good for your “analysis, you can not wonder why we are so upset.’

Various comments demanded an apology and some – such as one that implicitly threatened Mr Boyes should he ever visit Finland (where he currently is) – appear to have been posted and then later taken down leading one reader to ask, ‘Where are some of these comments going?’

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article2828084.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2841038.ece