SOCIETY AND POWER - 08/05/2021Thoughts about civil resistance and sisu.
Sisu means courage and is one of the few short and easy pronounced words of the Finnish language. Suomi, or Finland as we call this Nordic country, has a fascinating history of persistence.
1859, the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant went to visit wounded soldiers after the Battle of Solferino. He was shocked by the conditions of these soldiers. As a result, he published his book, “A Memory of Solferino”, a report about the horrors of war and the post effects. His wartime experiences inspired him to make a proposal, suggesting the creation of a permanent relief agency for humanitarian aid in times of war, with neutral status and allowance to provide aid in a war zone. The Red Cross in Geneva was created.
More conventions were created at the late half of the 19th century. The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 were the first multilateral treaties that addressed the conduct of warfare. It was based on the Lieber Code, signed in the United States on 24 April 1863, during the American Civil War. The Lieber Code was the first official comprehensive codified law that set out regulations for behavior in times of martial law; protection of civilians and civilian property and punishment of transgression; deserters, prisoners of war, hostages, and pillaging; partisans; spies; truces and prisoner exchange; parole of former rebel troops; the conditions of any armistice, and respect for human life; assassination and murder of soldiers or citizens in hostile territory; and the status of individuals engaged in a state of civil war against the government.
30th of November 1939, three months after the outbreak of World War II, a Soviet invasion was launched on Finland. The conflict ended three and a half months later with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13th of March 1940. Despite superior military strength, the Soviet Union suffered severe losses and initially made little headway. The sudden expansion westwards and the attack on a neutral country made the Germans analyze what could be the next move by the Communist Internationalism? Sweden? Estonia? Or why not East Prussia, Germany? The potential threat and the poor performance of the Red Army encouraged the Germany to believe that an attack on the Soviet Union would not only be necessary, but also successful.
The both conventions from Hague and Genève, clear in attempt to protect civilians and civilian property, were as usual not respected in this war too, which ended up in grand finale of extermination of civil victims, in big part meticulous designed by allied computer aided projects of bomb raids.
Felling bombs from Air Force, after careful planning and calculation, over any target which contains civil life must be a first-degree murder. Serious aggravating circumstances for such crime is of course the calculated, cold blooded design and strategy to perform this kind of killing.
The definition of first-degree according to U.S. Federal law is: “Any intentional murder that is willful, planned and premeditated, with malice aforethought.” Seems to make sense use the judicial definition of the nation which in World history has killed or ordered the murder of most civilians, globally.
Rarely the civils can be granted protection from an enemy, whatever is written in any convention or international law.
In recent wars, the civils became more and more targeted. This covard warfare is depressing and the few times the civil population manage to defend themselves against trained and heavily armoured militars is real stimulating. Just remember the Vietnam War how peasants fought back the American slaughters. To have any fair chance, the civils has to try to defend themselves with own and maybe brutal methods. Like this, on Hangö, Finland, 1940, testified by a Swedish fireman, voluntary sent to war to aid Finnish civils against the Communist designed Soviet bombings over Finnish cities.
“An aircraft, tag with red stars, approached the restaurant of the sailing pavilion of Hangö Marina. No one believed the crew went down for having a lunch.
The aircraft made a shaky emergency landing just outside the beach which in summer could be a beautiful, warm and nice destination. Now the ice law there, cold and thick. A big mob had started to move out on the ice. They surrounded the plane and waited quietly and patiently, totally in silence, until the Soviet crew climbed down to the ice.
The pilots naturally realized their disadvantage, so they left their weapons in the plane.
The soldiers and firefighters who followed the drama from the sailing pavilion did not see what was happening at first. The crowd around the plane was dense and quiet like a Finnish forest. Then something sounded like a chainsaw, roaring for a long time. Suddenly the spectators on the ice backed away and the ring around the plane widened. The lunch guests in the sailing pavilion realized how the plane slowly disappeared, it was sinking downward. The people on the ice stood immobile for a while.
Then everyone turned around as if on a command and returned to land. Where the plane had appeared, a large hole was gaping in the ice. Nothing was seen of the pilots.”
Three smiths in Helsinki
Finland in winter season
