I have always been interested in how Facism flourished
Notwithstanding racism, many intellectuals were seduced. My NY friend Hilda belonged to a Nobel prizewinning family by marriage. As Hitler was coming to power her highly prominent mother-in-law was holding Sunday soirées with the European intelligensia. At the time John Reed, the American journalist who found him self in Moscow as the revolution was occurring, was a regular attendee. The discussion among the Germans was the THREAT that Communism would spread and Fascism was seen as the lesser of two evils
As Jews this changed drastically and in fewer than 2 years they had all emigrated to America
Turns out the same thing was happening in Finland
The Finns were virulently anti-Russian so that made them anti-Communist and many joined the Nazi party. Finland had become a class society after the previous Duke a puppet of the Czar, created a nobility. Their customs mirrored the Louis XVIV and we know what happened to him.
After the first WW Finland gained its independence and unlike its neighbors it didn’t get swallowed up by the USSR. Remember the Finns defeated the Russian poweŕ grab. They finally capitulated but only due to sheer numbers. While outmanmed 5 to 1 they still killed or injured 500 000 while only 70 000 of them were effected. Interesting history for a place that was under 6 miles of ice and didn’t even exist until the big melting 10 000 years ago .
The shamans practiced a kind of animism in those days like our Indians. They believed that all things and animals and people had souls. Everything was held up by the tree of life. The stars were souls peeping through the canopy of heaven.
These same folks made cave drawings which depicted religious rituals.
I LOVE cave paintings. I learned about this one from this tri-lingual MAGNETIC earphone. How cool is that.
I had the chance to study aborigines in Australia as I’ve said–a great honor. This also gave me a peek at their cave paintings which were not religions but were everyday life
The next year “89 I asked our safari guide to take us to Koa. There were no maps then but he found it was an 8 hour drive in the jeep. Since we were just only two clients he made the none too comfortable drive. We registered as foreigners in the village and since no one
Had done so for 30 years it was a sure bet that the village kids had never seen white people. They followed us everywhere as we tried to get a lead as to where the paintings might be. No one knew. Finally a machete-wielding ancient man led us up a rock cliff hacking at the brush the whole time. And there were eventually caves and they were full of the same style of cave paintings made by the same peoples thousands of years ago when Australia and Africa were one. If that weren’t enough to put me over the moon, there was a house there belonging to the famous anthropologists Richard and Mary Leakey. It had long been abandoned so I got to sleep in their bath tub
The museum goes on from prehistory to present. Do you remember the ceramic stove in Estonia? Here’s a nicer one but still not French enough.
So one more look at clean Green Helsinki. Note the NO MOTORD sign.
