The oaks of Sweden-Finland: bikepacking to Porkkala, west of Helsinki.

 

This is a nice video you can also see on the Visit Finland cycling pages, that good give a good impression of some of the areas I write about below.

An old colleague and friend, who masqueraded as an international relations analyst but I always felt was really old-school liberal historian at heart, taught me a lot about how to see Finland. When I was studying how Finnish security policy has changed since the end of the Cold War, he was always telling me to really understand it I had to look backwards.

Disaster strike early! My rack breaking - but necessity is the mother of invention, the rack was binned and my dry bag strapped reasonably well to my saddle.

There's nothing radical in that of course, and I was always fascinated by the unique and often uncomfortable position Finland found itself in after WWII. But my friend kept telling me to look far earlier than that: before independence, before Finland's time as a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, to when it was part of what he always called “Sweden-Finland”.

Your correspondent, proud in his unique "Duckboards are evil" bike cap.

Packed up for the second day of riding.

Great riding on forest paths in Porkkala.

Nationalism is a modern phenomenon, we tend to see history through that prism but it is invariably inaccurate to do so. Just like most countries, there is very little natural about “Finland” as a socio-political entity despite what the nationalists would have you believe. “Finland” as an idea is a product of writers, poets, artists and philosophers. The idea was built in response to Russian rule over these lands in the 19th Century, using the intellectual tools provided by the concepts of nationalism that swept through Europe – at the time a radical and often progressive idea that emancipated people from old feudal bonds to kings, princes and clerics.

Of course evidence of Sweden-Finland is on most signs still in Finland.

Espoo Cathedral, an obvious way point on the King's Road.

What came after "Sweden-Finland".

My colleague's point was always that it was wrong to think of Finland before Russian-rule as simply being under Swedish rule; there was no Finland then as we think of it now, it was an integral and important part of the Swedish kingdom, hence “Sweden-Finland”. Arwidsson's now famous saying of “Swedes we are no longer, Russians we do not want to become, let us therefore be Finns!” will be linked forever with the rise of Finnish nationalism, but it is perhaps a more plaintive cry than it might at first sound. Russian rule ripped people away from their past relationship to the Swedish crown. A near-century of Russian rule, and the urgent need to create Finland as an independent entity in response, means the past of Sweden-Finland retreats into the distance, often lost in the nationalist gaze. But it is still there if you look and here we finally get to the bikepacking.

Simple supper for a lightweight ride.

Last week I went out for an overnight ride with the aim of reaching the nature reserve and camping areas at the Porkkala, the peninsular jutting out into the sea west of Helsinki. Porkkala's history is interesting in its own right – the Soviet Union demanded it as part of the peace treaty to end it war with Finland during WWII, so from 1944 to 1955 it was under Soviet control. Finns who lived and farmed the area given to the USSR were evacuated.

Camp for the night.

 But before getting to the peninsular, my ride took me through other areas. First I skirted north west of the Greater Helsinki sprawl, riding mainly on forest recreation tracks and back roads, ending up in Nuuksio national park. Coming out of Nuukiso's southeast corner there was no more obvious off-road route to take to get me down towards Porkkala.

 
A massive flock of some water birds I couldn't identify, but quite a sight, near the end of the Porkkala peninsular

Instead I started following the King's Road, through the fringes of Espoo (really just a series of suburbs to Helsinki but due to the idiosyncrasy of Finnish municipal politics, it gets to call itself “Finland's second city”) and back out into the countryside towards Kirkkonummi. From here it was more empty country roads all the way down to the beautiful nature reserves and recreation areas at the end of Porkkala where I camped for the night. The next day it would have been nice to carry on westwards on the King's Road towards ultimately Turku/Åbo – the capital of the Finnish realms during the time of Sweden-Finland – but that will have to wait for another trip. Rather, I had to turn back north taking roughly the same route back again, although skipping some of the forest riding closer to my home in favour of some less interesting urban bike paths to save time and make it to an event at my kids' school I had promised to attend.

But what of the oaks and of Sweden-Finland? Well, as some might have guessed by now the king of the “King's Road” was the king of Sweden. The road ran from the eastern fringes of the Swedish medieval kingdom, roughly the current Finnish-Russian border, all along the southern shores of Finland to Turku, over the sea and Åland Islands, to Stockholm and on westwards to the Atlantic in what is now Norway. Now set up for tourists, particularly cycle tourists, the King's Road west of Helsinki shows that half forgotten Sweden-Finland past. Helsinki is mainly a city built in the Russian era and after during independence, but just a few miles to its west, out in the countryside, there is much to remind you of the links to Sweden and for me the oak trees are central to this.

The total for a 24 hr, one night trip.

Go north into the Finnish interior and there are few deciduous trees beyond the ever present birches. But along the south coast of the country, often clearly planted centuries ago, lining old roads and driveways to manor house for example, you find oaks much like I've seen in the areas outside of Stockholm. Buildings like the manor houses and churches – Kirkkonummi church for example – are also clear indicators of those earlier times, but I love the long rows of oaks. Like the English countryside of my childhood, they are both beautiful parts of the natural world and also constant reminders of how people have for millennia managed and shaped that natural world. The oaks of “Sweden-Finland” are both beautiful trees, on the very geographical limits of where they naturally can grow, but also texts in which to read our social history.

Historical quote for the day

'As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes" When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].'

Abraham Lincoln, letter to Joshua Speed, August 24 1855

Now that's a quote. 

It's 150 years since the start of the Civil War so the American media is bursting with some really good historical discussion on the Civil War. I hadn't heard this quote before so thanks to Prof. Adam Goodheart of Washington College, on a recent Diane Rehm Show from NPR.

Ghosts in the machine

I was for various reasons (one of which was this brilliant piece of radio from Radiolab) googling a friend who died a few years ago. He's still there, in google, but he's fading. Other people have his name now and they are doing things that Google notes. Vesa is, being dead, at a distinct disadvantage in the rankings because despite doing lots of things noteworthy in his unfortunately too brief life - they are now all in the past. He never got chance to start a Facebook page, so someone else with his name has got that one. He went too early to see the explosion in the popularity of blogging. But his name is still there - it's not gone completely, a ghost in the machine, and some of us still remember him as well in our more organic memories.

The picture above is of me, but it was taken by Vesa - back when photos were on film and had to be scanned. He made the webpage for the climbing club and for some reason I ended up on the front page; I wasn't really even a member, I just went out climbing with them because they were nice guys. I had completely forgotten about it, and it was googling his name that led me to it, the entry tunnel to a now defunct website, but which lives on lurking forgotten on some server. I too am also a ghost in the machine.

Vesa - you are getting a climb named in your honour mate! It's not a very good one, but hey - neither of us were ever really very good climbers were we? ;-) Rest easy now.

Book review: "God's Terrorists" by Charles Allen

It was the subtitle of this book that made me buy it - "The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of the Modern Jihad". I've been trying to understand more about modern Saudi political history, and how the official Wahhabi form of Islam in Saudi Arabia has produced both a very politically conservative form that is absolutely supportive of the Saudi monarchy and the Salafi-Jihadis who want the violent overthrow of the same royal family, and thought the book might have something to say on the background of this. I was to be disappointed.

"God's Terrorists" isn't a bad book, it's just 90% a different book to the one suggested by the cover. See the camels in the picture? And the head scarves? Doesn't that sort of suggest Arabia? But oddly this is a book about Imperial India. Allen is a respected historian of the Raj, and perhaps that should have been a clue, but I would say both the front cover and back cover blurb deliberately set out to suggest this is book about the roots of modern jihadi terrorism and not about Empire-era India. What the meat of the book is about is Muslim radicalism within British-India, generally known at the time as the "Hindustani Fanatics". This is a fascinating story in itself: the origins of this group were Indian Muslims who in the early 19th century had gone to Saudi Arabia and had been inspired by Wahhabi puritanicalism and brought their zeal back with them. They were somewhat involved in the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, but this was not a Muslim thing in particular with Hindu regiments mutinying as well. They fled India to hide out in the mountains of the North West frontier, bringing British and Indian-native forces into various skirmishes and minor wars with Pashtun tribes of the India/Afghanistan border regions. The Pashtuns didn't think much of the British invading their lands, but they didn't think much of the Wahhabis either, with the Imperial forces sometimes doing deals with them to drive the fanatics out - much like the current Pakistani government at times tries to do, co-opting the tribes against various foreign al-Qaeda groups.

This is all very interesting but really didn't have much to do with what was happening in Saudi Arabia at the time. In fact Allen notes that the Deobandi school of Islam, the specifically South Asian school that began in India in 1866, was set up in opposition to the Wahhabi inspired Hindustani fanatics (p.206-7). The Deobandi school has an important role to play in the development of Pakistani Islamism, and more globally because of the influence of Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi, who along with Sayyid Qutb, was central to the development of modern Islamism. The Taliban are also described as Deobandi, although some say the claim is problematic.

There are some chapters that deal with Saudi Arabia, both the beginnings of the Wahhabi sect in 18th century and its more modern history, but they aren't anything I haven't read elsewhere and feel like a basic review of the known history, rather than an a fresh delve into primary sources - diaries, reports, statistical data - that Allen clearly has mastery of in the case of Raj-era India. Perfunctory would be the word. His descriptions of minor battles and skirmishes between the British and Indian Armies and the Pashtun tribesmen at the fag-end of the 19th century are well written military history. This is obviously Allen's 'thing', not Saudi Arabia. I'm pretty certain Allen had a book pretty much written just on Muslim radicalism during the Raj, but then his publishers suggested that if he gets the words al-Qaeda and Taliban in there a few times, and they put the word "terrorist" in the title, it would sell 20 times the amount that a military history of British Army skirmishes in the Hindu Kush a century ago. I bought it, so they were probably right. More fool me.

You will learn lots of things if you read this book. Just not what you expected.

Stasi-baiting in the DDR

I've just heard a fascinating radio programme called the "The Brixmis Story" on Radio 4. At the end of the Second World War the British and Soviet armies did a deal allowing their respective militaries access to the other occupied zone, this rapidly meant that the western allies had a legal method of conducting surveillance inside East Germany and the Soviets, in West Germany. I was vaguely aware of the Brixmis story, I remember flicking through a book on it in a book shop some years ago having never heard about it before. Car chases with Stasi agents through East Germany all sounded like gripping boys-own stuff, but for some reason - probably because as a student I was skint - I never bought the book.

Anyway, the BBC has made a great little documentary on the subject. You can download it as an MP3 file from this website or probably find it on iTunes under "Radio 4 Choice". Because the missions involved NCOs and enlisted men, not just officers, the voices and accents you here range far more across British society than the public school/Oxbridge types you hear interviewed from the civilian intelligence agencies of that time. Normal blokes doing very extraordinary things such as discovering that Soviet troops weren't issued with toilet paper so they tended to use their signals pad, and therefore if you arrived quickly at a spot from where Ivan had recently departed you could find some amazing intelligence by putting "a clothes peg on your nose" and being willing to "get stuck in".

And how do you bait a Stasi officer? Well, the Brixmis teams were often tailed by up to five Stasi vehicles, the occupants of whom weren't keen on being identified as Stasi to the wider public. So on days where there isn't much else to do you stop your vehicle in the middle of a small village, hence blocking the road, jump out and point at your tails whilst yelling "Stasi! Stasi!" As one former Brixmis officer said, this was somewhat "infantile", yet his tone of voice suggests also lots of fun.

More on Wikipedia about Brixmis here.