C(h)ristian’s Blog

Finnish Masculinity and Its (In)securities: Another Tragic Shooting in Finland

It appears that the first decade of the third millennium, now nearing its end, was not under the most positive auspices for Finland. Especially with regard to public violence perpetrated by men in Finland, be them Finnish natives or “new” Finns, on other innocent citizens. To mention just those events that received a lot of media attention:

- Myyrmanni bombing in October 2002 in a shopping center located in Vantaa/Vanda, neighboring commune to the capital Helsinki/Helsingfors. The bomb killed 7 people and injured a total of 166.

- The school shootings in Jokela in November 2007, 9 were killed and 12 were injured. Less than a year later  another school shooting shook Finland. In Kauhajoki in September 2008, 11 people were shot to death and 3 more were severely injured*.

- Today, 31 December 2009, just a few hours before the end of the year, a man shot and killed 5 innocent people. The gruesome event occurred in in Sello, one of the largest shopping malls in Finland, located in Espoo/Esbo, a commune neighboring the Finnish capital to the west. 4 people were executed at Prisma shop in Sello, while the other victim was shot in her home. From early police reports released by Finnish Public Broadcaster  YLE (tässä/här/here), it seems that the gunman is of Kosovo Albanian origin and have resided in Finland for a long time.

A first thought that comes to mind is that the Finnish ideal of masculinity is undergoing a very unsettling stage. The constant pressure to comply with and fulfill the ideals of a heroic heteropatriachal masculinity, coupled by a tradition of gun ownership- not seriously kept in check by a rather lax gun law- intrinsically connect violence and Finnish masculinity in a deadly symbiosis.

A second comment pertains to the symbolical nature of these events that resemble strongly public executions. Innocent people, oftentimes mainly women, are targeted in cold blood, in what can be regarded as a public reassertion of the perpetrator’s masculinity. In other words, this very extreme manifestation of Finnish masculinity requires to be enacted, performed in front of terrified others and demands the irrational sacrifice of innocent bystanders. In this vein, the perpetrators’ last act is their own suicide, performed less publicly and more hurriedly, and thus ensuring they do have the last word.

A third, and necessary reflection comes up somewhat later. It was recently revealed that the author of the shooting in Sello is of a foreign background, namely of Kosovo Albanian origin (identified as Ibrahim Shkupolli). Will this be turned into a renewed interrogation of “irrational” Balcanic masculinity, and avoid the pressing need for reassessing the hegemonic Finnish masculinity? In the case of Myyrmanni, the perpetrator was an “unbalanced man”, in the case of Jokela, and especially Kauhajoki, the gunmen were labeled unstable mentally and “misfits” of the masculine norm. It seems that time and again, series of explanations and othered scapegoats are found and the main question is yet to be posed: What is the dominating ideal of Finnish masculinity and why is it umbilically connected to violence?

To conclude in a more interrogative tone, perhaps the decade to be inaugurated soon should be one to critically assess how traditional ideals of Finnish masculinity can enter a new phase, in which manly ideals are not underpinned by implicit reference to violence. Is Finland still haunted by its horrific experience of the WWII, or is this just an expedient explanation for much deeper and more serious traumas that are manifest in the Finnish culture in general?

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* The issue of school shootings in Finland has received increased scholar attention. Among others, I have presented a paper titled “Violent masculinities and school shootings in Finland” (written together with Prof. Johanna Kantola and Ph.D. Student Jemima Repo) – presented at Foranderlige Mænd og Maskuliniteter i Ligestillede Samfund/ Changing Men and Masculinities in Gender Equal Societies conference, within Theme H: Uddannelse og opdragelse af drenge og piger: normalisering og formning af genus/ The education and upbringing of boys and the formation of masculinities (28.01-30.01.2009), Roskilde University, Denmark.

Tags: Esbo, Espoo, Finland, Finnish culture, Finnish masculinity, firearms, gun law, heteropatriarchy, Myyrmanni, Other, Sello, Shkupolli, shooting, shopping center