HS interview Controversial Eero Paloheimo influenced Sauli Niinistö’s summit initiative – now Professor Emeritus talks about human responsibilities and claims that “democracy should be abandoned in big things”

Phone soi, and Professor Emeritus Eero Paloheimo (b. 1936) introduces himself.

“President Sauli Niinistö called and hoped – and has hoped in the past – that I would reveal my concept of human duty when he is in a hurry. ”

This is interesting! The president has told a controversial intellectual effect Helsinki 2025 summit initiative, which is being considered by foreign experts In an interview with HS last week.

The initiative has changed a bit. Sending the President to the HS In the guest pen writing In March 2021, the emphasis was on the Arctic dimension and the restoration of the spirit of Helsinki 50 years after the 1975 OSCE Summit.

Niinistö reiterated his summit initiative In an article published by Foreign Police July 8, 2021. It did not mention the Arctic, but highlighted “human responsibilities”.

The background to the change was Eero Paloheimo.

Paloheimo opens the door of his home on the shores of Lake Tuusulanjärvi, and we go about it. How did the connection to Niinistö come about?

“We were in Parliament at the same time. My own period was 1987-1995, and then we felt pretty good. ”

The connection became closer when Niinistö had watched a series designed by Paloheimo on the Alfatv channel Saving the world.

“We talked Kari Enqvistin and Esko Valtaojan with my idea of ​​human duty. The president called after seeing the episode, and we started communicating. ”

Niinistö later told Iltalehti that “since ancient times there is a reflection on human duties,” and the term has often been used for obligations to other people. However, Niinistö’s human responsibilities also include combating climate change, being able to respond to pandemics, and issues of war and peace, and upholding human rights.

To this he said he had received “encouragement” from Paloheimo. And now he had just asked Paloheimo to open his mind of human duty.

Let’s listen.

“The human race has increased so much on the planet now that it is very dictatorial able to guide the future of the entire planet, ”Paloheimo begins.

“The human race should understand its responsibilities. It was previously said that nobility obliges. Today, it must be said that humanity oblige.”

In Paloheimo’s thinking, human duty means that the human species must take care not only of itself but also of the entire organism, the atmosphere, the oceans and the soil.

“Human responsibilities as a superconcept that includes human rights, in turn, is Niinistö’s idea, which I immediately accepted.”

HS: n Chinese professors interviewed Xuewu Gu estimates that different countries have different responsibilities for human responsibilities. This can lead to a “big contradiction”. He proposes world peace as the theme of the summit.

“I agree that wars cannot be afforded. That is one of the prerequisites for fulfilling human responsibilities, ”says Paloheimo.

Professor Robert van Voren fears that authoritarian leaders will begin to emphasize responsibilities at the expense of human rights.

“When human rights are understood as the rights of the individual, for example against the arbitrariness of dictators, and human responsibilities as the responsibilities of our entire human race, I believe that these professors agree,” Paloheimo explains.

Paloheimon such as tackling climate change and over-consumption of natural resources are foreign and security policy reporting and government program.

Why a separate term for human responsibilities?

“It’s a unifying word, and I hope it’s taken for granted, as human rights are accepted almost everywhere.”

Paloheimo was a designer and co-owner of an engineering firm he founded from 1965 to 1994. He was a professor of wood construction at the Helsinki University of Technology from 1995 to 2000.

He was active in the Greens early on but in 1988 founded a separate Green rp party. It was called a “centrifuge”.

“Pena [Pentti Linkola] is one of the most significant Finns who have ever lived. But I don’t condemn technology and I don’t support violence like he does. ”

The fire tribe finally broke away from the Greens in 2010. The reason he said was that the party supported “oversized immigration,” which “resembles the world’s multicultural mosaic” and causes a “monoculture of equal thickness”.

He rejoiced in this part of basic Finns.

“Basic Finns are kind to me. I like Jussi Halla-ahoa as a very smart man. I appreciated, for example, the fact that he just left the chair. Nor did Saul Niinistö leave for every place that was open to him. ”

But there are differences between them. Basic Finns oppose humanitarian immigration and the refugee quota. Niinistö estimates in New Year’s Eve in 2019that if the EU succeeds in managing migration, “many countries, certainly Finland, would be prepared to increase the number of quota refugees”.

Niinistö also said that “we need immigrants”. Doesn’t our dependency need to increase labor migration as well Confederation of Finnish Industries and Research Institute of the Finnish Economy have presented?

“Selective immigration is normal and acceptable, just as helping people in an immediate emergency is humanly acceptable. It is foolish to take in a group blindly without a clear screen for their motives. ”

Influenced also flows from Niinistö to Paloheimo. The President proposed at the beginning of the pandemic “corona fist“That is, a crisis group that“ gathers public and private expertise and then presents a snapshot to the country’s government and proposes measures ”.

Paloheimo, on the other hand, presented in Kanava magazine 8/21 Ethical pitfalls of democracies in his article “The Fists of the Wise” representing the whole world. It would “shamelessly tell the real situation and the means and timetables for curing the disease itself”.

“I referred to the word Niinistö’s coronary fist,” he admits.

But the Fire Tribe was more controversial. He also wrote that “democracy must be abandoned in big things”.

“Those big things are the world’s population and the most basic land use on earth, by which I mean nature reserves in particular. For everything else, democracy may well be in place, it will not do much harm. ”

Paloheimon The “fist of the wise” could be reminiscent Platonic thinking in which philosophers lead the people.

However, one sentence in the Channel article is likely to make the fist of the wise compatible with democracy: the “power of the fist of the wise would be just prestige” just as if Niinistö’s coronary fist had only “proposed” measures.

Could the fist of the wise be accepted by democratic decision-making?

“Of course. It could be a global entity elected by tiered indirect elections or a UN proposal. Yes, the UN could assemble such an informal group. ”

Population growth is, according to Paloheimo, an “actual disease” and, for example, a pandemic and climate change as its symptoms.

According to Paloheimo, the response to population growth in democracies has been too slow.

“Instead, China’s one-child policy is the most significant environmental act in the world.”

According to current forecasts, the population will grow from about eight billion even 11 billion by 2100 and then begin to decline.

“But if that decline happens with a humane two-child policy, a sustainable level of the planet’s carrying capacity will not be reached for centuries,” Paloheimo calculates.

Is even more comforting calculations. Still, our ecological footprint is already on In the calculations of the World Wide Fund for Nature well above the carrying capacity of the earth.

“I emphasize the population more than the president,” Paloheimo admits.

That doesn’t stop Paloheimo from supporting the summit initiative, the theme of which he contributed to human responsibilities.

“We must give our full support to Niinistö’s idea that a summit be held in Finland to talk about the future of the whole world. That is an extremely respectable idea. ”

Read more: Is Niinistö’s initiative a “recipe for destruction” or a “step forward” – HS asked foreign experts what the world’s plan for the presidency is about

Read more: President Niinistö paints a picture of the Helsinki Summit in 2025 in the US newspaper – the President wants to revive the “spirit of Helsinki”

Read more: President Niinistö holds behind-the-scenes talks that will determine his legacy – and may bring Finnish history into the spotlight

Read more: Population explosion canceled? The end of population growth is also in sight in those parts of the world that are used to connecting with large families

Read more: Arctic coolness and the spirit of Helsinki (Sauli Niinistö’s guest pen writing in Helsingin Sanomat on March 28, 2021)