I moved to Finland believing it was a progressive dream. It hasn't turned out that way | Mike Watson

Long hospital waiting lists, extortionate food bills and rising homelessness. Welcome to life under the most rightwing Finnish government in generations

Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.

In 2018, moving to Finland seemed like a no-brainer. One year earlier I had met my Finnish partner while working away in Oulu. My adopted home of Italy, where I had lived for 10 years, had recently elected a coalition government with the far-right Matteo Salvini as interior minister, while my native UK had voted for Brexit. Given Finland’s status as a beacon of progressive values, I boarded a plane, leaving my lecturing job and friends behind.

Mike Watson is a media and art theorist and educator born in the UK and based in Finland. His latest book is Hungry Ghosts in the Machine: Digital Capitalism and the Search for Self

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I moved to Finland believing it was a progressive dream. It hasn't turned out that way | Mike Watson

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