One of many lessons I’ve learned from long-distance travel is to seize any opportunity for stopovers, no matter how brief. They’re a chance for unique mini-adventures, like the 10-hour stop in Jordan and 24-hour stay in Malaysia that I’ve shared previously. Recent events remind me of another stopover, just three months after the trip to Washington described last month – an overnight in Finland’s capital. Ironically, both memories prompt reflections on Friday’s disgraceful episode in Washington and so (trigger warning) I feel compelled to continue a political theme raised last month.
The Happiest Country
A Finnair itinerary from Bangkok to Amsterdam required a 24-hour stopover in Helsinki, arriving just before suppertime and departing just before supper the next night. I arranged a place to stay, asked the young lady at the airport information desk where I could get a typical Finnish meal, caught a bus to the hotel and then went for an evening “walkabout“.
Her recommendation proved to be a cheery, unpretentious little restaurant where an English-speaking server recommended typical Finnish fare. While I was waiting for dessert, two young men and a woman at a neighbouring table asked if I’d like to join them for a glass of wine. They turned out to be ski instructors, in town for some sort of convention. The conversation led to another bottle of wine and then, it being Saturday night, an invitation to join them at a well-known nightclub. I don’t remember the name but can affirm that if you haven’t danced the wee small hours away at a Helsinki rave with a bunch of Finnish ski instructors, you’ve been missing something.
After a few hours of sleep I was out again. It was a quiet Sunday morning but there was a bustling market on the waterfront by the Baltic ferry terminals.
Passing Uspenski Cathedral I was drawn in by the lovely sonorous choral music which is such a hallmark of Orthodox liturgy, immersing myself in the rich decor, contemplative atmosphere and compelling chants. That still left time to explore parks, architecture and public art before heading for the airport. It had been a short stay, but I can easily imagine why Finland has topped the UN’s World Happiness Report for eight years running.
Ominous Portents
Three years later, Helsinki hosted a summit between America’s President Trump and Russia’s President Putin, a pariah among democracies after ordering the occupation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Russia’s economy was gravely weakened by sanctions so Trump was inviting him in from the cold.
Putin is a former intelligence officer. Trump was (and some might argue still is) a property developer and “reality” TV personality. As one well informed commentator wrote, “It does not take a trained intelligence officer to exploit Trump’s ego and ignorance. Trump’s vulnerabilities are on frequent public display. He is quick to anger, unable to control his impulses, loyal to no one, easy to flatter, easily influenced but loath to accept advice, a serial bluffer, and fully transparent about his vanity and congenital need for approbation … This is not a meeting of equals but a summit between a con-man and a man who is easily conned.”
He was right. Contrary to all norms, the two met privately without anyone present except the two interpreters. Afterwards Trump confiscated his interpreter’s notes so to this day no one, not even America’s highest officials, can be sure what their President discussed for more than two hours.
At the press conference afterwards, Trump was asked about evidence which American security officials had uncovered about Russian interference in his election. He replied that although his officials, including his own Director of Intelligence, “think it’s Russia”, Putin had assured him that it wasn’t. “I don’t see any reason why it would be” he concluded. Asked about strained relations between the US and Russia he said that both were responsible and both had “made some mistakes”. He didn’t mention that “mistakes” on the Russian side included seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea, the killing of a British woman during a botched assassination attempt using nerve agent, or the formal US indictment of Russians for election interference. The self-professed master of the “Art of the Deal” gave away everything, got nothing of benefit to his country in return, effectively deferring to America’s adversary while publicly throwing his own officials under the proverbial bus.
But wait, there’s more …
Seven years later, Trump has just presided over what appeared to be an orchestrated public and rancorous attack on Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy. The President who bravely refused an American offer to fly him into exile when Russia invaded again. The President who has led his democratic country through three devastating years battling a despot’s attempt to seize it. The President who Trump described bizarrely on 19 February as a “dictator”, disclaiming that a week later (“Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that. Next question,”) but a day afterward blatantly joining Russia’s campaign to undermine Zelenskyy’s legitimacy.
There’s a word for someone who betrays a cause, a trust or their country, but I lean toward the more charitable assessment that Trump’s flawed character is easily manipulated into being what Russians would call a polezni durak – a “useful idiot”. Perhaps Russia even has kompromat on him. But that’s something for the less gullible of our American friends to address.
Readjusting Democracy
For Canadians, it’s time to accept that, not unlike Ukraine, we border a hostile state whose increasingly authoritarian government publicly advocates absorbing our people and territory, threatening punishment unless we bend to its will. It’s time to consider the lesson of Czechoslovakia in 1938. It’s time for like-minded democracies to stand together and abandon any illusion that flattery or appeasement will work.
No matter what the cost in the coming years, we must all push back against reverting to 19th Century “spheres of influence”. We might well heed what Benjamin Franklin was reported to have said (when America actually was great), “We must all hang together or we will all hang separately”.
And no matter what, we must never give up.
The photos are mine. I can’t trace the source of the cartoon but it has been circulating widely online since at least 2008.