‘I have a bomb shelter,’ said I to my British friend when he expressed concern about my 1,340-km long shared border with Russia. ‘But you’re only 300 km away from St. Petersburg?’ ‘Putin will be less likely to nuke us then,’ I reasoned. Strange, the things a person will say to comfort a close friend not living in Helsinki. ‘Anyway, if I do survive a nuclear detonation, there’ll be no need for the bomb shelter. The Finnish government has a solid nuclear-fallout plan: stay inside with doors, windows and ventilation closed. Easy, right? Then all you need to do is watch TV for updates and have a handy stock of iodine tablets. I’ll be fine.’
I hung up and wondered. How could Putin and his nukes have been living next door for 25 years, anyway? This guy is like that techno-playing neighbour who lives underneath you: your recorder doesn’t pick up the vibrations, so you can’t report him. It’s akin to Russian tub-thumping; a baseline in the background that elevates my blood pressure.
And there’s another thump—sorry, Trump—across the street who has launched his own particular brand of threat. There are rumblings in the neighbourhood that he is demanding NATO members increase defence spending to 5% of GDP. ‘I’m going to pull the US from NATO, and you’ll lose the two thirds (€930 billion) we used to contribute,’ he scoffs as you ask him for your child's ball back after it goes over his fence. I was about to do the math, but the kettle boiled. Then so did I. Why the hell did Finland join NATO in the first place? It feels like a protection racket led by the neighbourhood bully. ‘You’re in our gang now. We’ll stop the Russians. But only if you pay up!’
I frowned and sipped my tea. Did alarmist NATO rhetoric prompt us to sign up as if the EU Mutual Defence Treaty didn’t exist? A booming jet zooming overhead is upsetting the seagulls that are defecating on my balcony. What happens now that my new presidential neighbour has no compunction to help me scrape up the mess? Your balcony, your seagulls, your problem.
There is, however, hope from the Pope (@Pontifex): "Let us pray together for the families who are suffering because of wars—in tormented Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Myanmar, Sudan and North Kivu. Let us pray for all these families caught up in war." And prayer works—no matter the religion.
So love thy neighbour, right? But love them even more once they move out. The fall of the Assad regime in Syria shows how swiftly a dictatorship can be evicted. And since I’m going nowhere, Putin needs to start packing.
