Part two:

http://helvetinpastori.blogspot.fi/2017/11/absurdity-of-finnish-conscription_13.html?m=1

Part three: http://helvetinpastori.blogspot.fi/2017/11/finnish-conscription-pt3-militarization.html

Part four: http://helvetinpastori.blogspot.fi/2017/12/finnish-conscription-pt4-how-reserve.html

Considering that my top two posts in terms of visitors are about Finnish conscription, you probably are already aware that I've made four posts on the topic(links at the end of this one as always). In these posts I've gone through the systems problems, including the human rights violations and the way Finnish lawmakers are blatantly ignoring them, the unnecessarily large number of trained reservists and gone through some of the ideas thrown around by politicians to try and "fix" perceived problems, which would actually make the system even worse. I've also talked about the general hostility towards people like me who advocate for abolishing this system, and mentioned my personal experiences of being a target of personal attacks because of my comments on news articles on the topic and getting blocked on Twitter by our current minister of defense after I questioned his statements on the issue. Even though I've already spent a lot of time talking about this, the upcoming presidential election is a good reason to talk more specifically about the actual discussion as comments made by the candidates have been interesting to say the least.Even though conscription has a lot of support, there are groups campaigning to abolish it. Good example of this is the Ohi on-campaign that started in 2013. The campaign is supported by 11 organization, which include anti-war groups like the Union of Conscientious Objection and Committee of 100 and political groups including the Finnish Pirate Party and member organizations of the Green League, the Finnish green party. The campaign was originally aimed at getting the 50 000 signatures needed to a citizen's initiative to abolish conscription. If you're wondering what an citizen's initiative is, they are essentially bills proposed by citizens or organizations that have to be addressed by the parliament if they get 50 000 signatures in six months. This particular initiative failed to collect the number of signatures needed, but it did fuel discussion. Though the initiative failed, the campaign is still trying to raise awareness on this issue by sharing and commenting on news stories and writing related to the issue or directly engaging with people online as they've done with politicians and reserve activists. They've actually shared some of my writing on their social media accounts. There's also some discussion about starting a new citizen's initiative in an effort to fuel discussion even more.Individual groups are also campaigning abolishing the system. I've talked before about the Union of Conscientious Objection and their campaign of filing complaints to international human rights bodies about the treatment of total objectors, the aim of which is to raise awareness about the various human rights violations of the system. From political parties, the Green League has made replacing the current mandatory system with a voluntary one an official part of the party's agenda. Similar statements have been given by the Left Alliance. The point is, even though support is still fairly low, there are groups campaigning for this. Now we can get to the point of this post.All eight candidates have said they support the current system. This includes Pekka Haavisto, the candidate for the Green League and Merja Kyllönen from the Left Alliance, both representing parties that officially are for the abolishing of this system. On the other hand, the support for expanding the draft to include women doesn't get support from the candidates as only one of them has expressed support for this. The idea of having some kind of a "national service" for women is not popuplar as only two candidates have expressed support. Now, as I've said in my previous posts, the idea of expanding the draft to women doesn't make any sense, meaning this is a good thing, right? Well, not necessarily as the arguments they used don't make any sense. The two candidates we should really talk about here are the incumbent Sauli Niinistö, who's running as an independent and Tuula Haatainen from the Social Democrats as theirs were some of the worst I've ever heard.Niinistö is opposed to the idea of expanding the draft to include women. When talking about a form of national service for women, he's not completely against the idea but expressed concerns on the effects it would have for women regarding their careers. Since any time spent in service could delay the start of studies and thus have a potentially negative effect on the length of their time in the workforce and because of this, we should examine potential benefits this system would have before going forward with it. Now, this seems like a reasonable concern, until you realize that the same potential negative effects are ALREADY AFFECTING MEN. Is it just me, or is there a bit of double standard in his statement? While he's so deeply concerned about the effect this "national service" could potentially have for women, he's forgetting that these effects already are reality for over 20 000 men every year. Also, if you remember, in my previous posts I wrote that the most popular idea for this "national service" would be some kind of a training period, where they would learn skills that are useful in case of a crisis. Proposals on the length have been anywhere from a few days to few weeks and I've even seen people proposing an online course. At the same time, conscription for men can take anywhere from six moths to a year, depending on your choice of service or training. A few week course, versus a year of cheap labor. Doesn't seem equivalent to me.Tuula Haatainen on the other hand describes herself as a feminist and in an interview said that for her, feminism means equality for both men and women. The interviewer then asked her about her views on conscription only affecting men and... Well, she didn't answer the question. Instead, she talked about how women's knowledge about national defense and ability to act during times of crisis should be increased. She has given statements in support of "national service" for women in the past. The interviewer then asked her, whether or not she saw conscription as an issue of equality. Again, she didn't really answer the question, instead, simply stating that she would not expand the draft to include women. In another interview, she basically defended her position with the fact that women give birth and are generally physically weaker than men. Again, this isn't a good argument. Unlike conscription for men, childbirth is ultimately all about the woman. It's her choice whether or not have kids. Meanwhile, if a man decides that he doesn't want to serve, he goes to jail. If childbirth was mandatory for every woman, then I might accept this argument. But since it isn't and nobody is advocating for it, you really can't use this argument. And regarding the physical weakness argument, there already are countries that have conscription for women so that argument doesn't really work either. I still don't think expanding the draft would be a good idea but for a bit different reason.Another example of idiotic arguments regarding conscription came from Eva Biaudet, who was the presidential candidate for the Swedish National Party in 2012. During her campaign she talked about the problems with the system, but when confronted by a conscripted man who was about to start his service, she said that there was no need to expand the draft to women. Her argument was based on the low numbers of women who volunteered for service. According to her, since there was so little interest for military service among women, there was no reason to expand it. Again, considering the fact that men have no say in the matter, this argument doesn't work. If we don't care about men's interest, why should we care about women's?This is just another reason why Finnish conscription doesn't make sense. People who defend it use very bad arguments for their case. On the other hand, this is also a pretty good indication that the status quo will remain for the foreseeable future. Neither abolishing the system or expanding it to women have support, so there really is no reason for Finnish politicians to change it. I'm still hopeful that we'll see change for the better.Until my next post. If you're interested, you can also follow me on Twitter. Links to my previous posts on this topic:Part one: http://helvetinpastori.blogspot.fi/2017/11/absurdity-of-finnish-conscription.html