Substance and Appearance: Finland, foreignaffairs.com

Max Jakobson

Vi återger här en artikel från 1980:

As history is written by the victors, so is the agenda of world politics dictated by the powerful. The themes and priorities of the international debate are set by a handful of politicians, officials, editors and scholars in half a dozen capitals: a form of cultural imperialism which is not rendered any less effective by its being unintended. The view of the world underlying influential analyses of international relations reflects primarily the interests and aspirations of the great powers. Smaller nations are treated as objects of policy, statistical units in categories of states classified in terms of their relationship to their respective protectors or oppressors, as ours and theirs-pawns to be gained or lost in the conflicts or deals between the great powers. […]

Obsessed as they usually are with one single aspect of the Finnish situation, relations with the Soviet Union, visitors from the West almost invariably produce a one-dimensional view of the country, corresponding to the current state of Western relations with the Soviet Union. Thus, in 1939-40, the Finns were idolized for their resistance against the Red Army; in 1941-44, ostracized for continuing to fight the Russians; at the end of the Second World War, castigated for their failure to heed Western advice to trust Moscow; in 1948, written off as lost for signing a treaty with the Soviet Union; and finally, at the present time, they are subjected to a kind of character assassination through the use of the term ”Finlandization” to denote supine submission to Soviet domination. Läs artikel