I morse tog Ålands lagting emot diplomater från 34 ambassader för ett så kallat Official Call. De länder som fanns representerade i plenisalen har tillsammans drygt fyra miljarder invånare. Halva jordens befolkning, ungefär.
Jag inledde tillsammans med lantrådet Katrin Sjögren. Hon berättade om dagens Åland medan jag talade om varför Åland ser ut som det gör och varför vår lösning har betydelse för många fler än för oss som bor här.
Åland är ett bevis på att överenskommelser har betydelse när tiderna förändras, intressen förskjuts och säkerhetsläget kärvt. För oss betyder internationell rätt skydd och trygghet. Och vi har stöd i historien.
Efter första världskriget var världen sargad, misstänksam och farlig. Nationernas förbund lyckades absolut inte med allt. Men om vi bara minns misslyckandena drar vi fel slutsatser.
För Östersjöns vidkommande stoppade Nationernas förbund en konflikt mellan Finland och Sverige, över Åland. Det var ett bråk över land som kunde vuxit fast och förgiftat generationer framåt. Åland sattes under finländsk suveränitet och fick sin självstyrelse samt garantier för det svenska språket, kulturen och de lokala sedvänjorna. Demilitariseringen bekräftades och kompletterades med neutraliseringen. Ingen fick allt i detta djärva beslut som gick emot den åländska folkviljan. Ändå vann freden.
Jag fick under gårdagskvällens middag med diplomaterna frågan hur ålänningarna ser på saken i dag, med tanke på att en överväldigande majoritet ville tillhöra Sverige för drygt hundra år sedan. Min bedömning är att mycket få ålänningar i dag önskar någon annan lösning än den vi har. Med det sagt vill vi att självstyrelsen ska fortsätta utvecklas. Det var också en del av åtagandet från början och är en förutsättning för att systemet ska hållas levande.
På den politiska nivån och hos republikens president möter vi ett starkt stöd för utveckling. När orden sedan ska bli lagstiftning och verkliga reformer händer det ändå alltför ofta att det administrativa maskineriet i Helsingfors trampar på bromsen.
Åland behöver ingen förmyndare, sade jag, när det gäller att sköta våra egna vardagsfrågor. Vi behöver en partner. Självstyrelsen är ett löfte Finland har gett och en framgång som hela landet borde känna stolthet över att utveckla tillsammans med oss.
Vi talade förstås också om säkerheten. Östersjöområdet har förändrats dramatiskt och frågan ställs därför ibland om också Ålands status borde ändras.
Mitt svar är nej, det är inte genom sådana förändringar vi bygger framtid.
När spänningarna ökar prövas överenskommelserna, då behövs de som mest
Demilitarisering får aldrig förväxlas med sårbarhet eller bristande beredskap. Åland är ett tryggt samhälle med myndigheter, räddningstjänst, näringsliv, frivilligorganisationer och invånare som bildar ett starkt civilsamhälle.
Efter mig och Katrin fortsatte landshövding Marine Holm-Johansson, polismästare Johan Pawli och biträdande sjöbevakningschef Juri Jalava informera om sina områden. Frågorna var många, nyfikna och insatta. Det är tydligt att våra gäster verkligen vill förstå hur Åland fungerar, vad vår status innebär och hur vi själva ser på vår plats i Finland, Norden och världen.
Under eftermiddagen fortsatte besöket till Bomarsunds Besökscenter, Smakbyn - Åland och Öfvergårds äppelgård innan färden gick vidare till HavsVidden och kvällsflyget till Helsingfors. Flera av gästerna har dessutom valt att stanna kvar några dagar för att upptäcka mer av Åland på egen hand. Det känns som ett gott betyg.
Som talman är jag oerhört stolt över det arbete som utrikesministeriet och personalen vid Ålands lagting har lagt ner under dessa två dagar. Bakom ett lyckat besök finns kämpar som planerat, flyttat stolar, hållit reda på tider, löst problem och sett till att allt fungerar. Ett stort och varmt tack till er alla.
Tillsammans har vi gjort Åland och vår självstyrelse tydligare hos representanter för 34 av världens nationer. Vi ska inte inbilla oss att den åländska lösningen går att kopiera rakt av på dagens konflikter, verkligheten är mer komplicerad än så. Den visar att det går att välja en annan väg innan människor börjar ha ihjäl varandra. Den visar också att tålamod och diplomatiskt grovarbete kan skapa lösningar som håller i generationer.
Det är lätt att tro att historien upprepar sina dåliga sidor, det säger vi ofta. Så behöver det inte vara. Också de goda lösningarna kan inspirera, om vi berättar om dem och tror på deras betydelse.
Åland är litet. Vår historia är det inte och inte heller vårt ansvar.
Tack och trevlig helg.
Så här löd hela hälsningen:
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you had a good night’s sleep and are ready for another day on our never-ending journey, building a better world. Unfortunately, you will have to endure another bit of small talk from me. I can not let you leave our islands without a few more insights into who we are. But fear not: in a short while, you will hear more about Åland today from our Head of Government, Katrin Sjögren.
Yesterday evening, sailing ship Pommern set the frames. This morning, I would like to speak about the chart which is formed in the room, in the Parliament, where the magic happens, if you will.
Åland is not a charming historical exception. Åland is a test of whether the word of states still carries weight when circumstances change and interests shift. For us, international law is not decoration. It is protection.
After the First World War, the world was exhausted, wounded and dangerous. Borders were disputed, empires collapsed and nationalism was running hot. The League of Nations, the OG you remember, was created by the initiative of president Woodrow Wilson in USA, in response to that wreckage. It was an audacious attempt to bring order to the world.
With hindsight, it is easy to list what the League failed to prevent. We should. But if we remember only its failures, we learn the wrong lesson. Here in the Baltic Sea, the League helped prevent a territorial dispute between two states from hardening into permanent hostility.
No slogan produced the solution. It came from reports, hearings, legal analysis, translation, drafting, travel, compromises and persistence. Diplomatic spadework, the heavy, unglamorous job that rarely receives applause because, when it succeeds, the catastrophe never happens. Diplomacy is described as soft power. Nothing about persuading opposing parties to live under the same text was soft. The result was carefully constructed.
The demilitarisation of Åland dated from the Paris settlement after the Crimean War. In 1921, the League of Nations decided that sovereignty would remain with Finland, while Finland undertook to protect the Swedish language, culture, local customs and self-government of the Ålanders. Thats was the price Finland paid to have Åland, including the promise to never settle with a stand still, to drive development in order to strengthen the Autonomy, together with the young republic of Finland. The demilitarisation was confirmed, and the Convention signed in Geneva on 20 October 1921 added neutralisation. On 9 June 1922, the Parliament of Åland convened for the first time. Those are days we still celebrate: 20 October and June 9.
Autonomy, demilitarisation and neutralisation are not the same thing and yet they are.
Autonomy answers how we govern our daily affairs. Demilitarisation determines what may not be permanently placed here. Neutralisation states that the islands are to be kept outside hostilities in time of war. Different instruments. Different purposes. One coherent settlement.
Together, they transformed Åland from an object over which others quarrelled into a community with institutions, responsibility and a voice of its own. We became a subject. Finland gained internationally recognised sovereignty. Sweden gained stability in its immediate neighbourhood. The Ålanders gained the right, and the duty, to build a society in their own language and on their own terms. No one won everything. Peace won enough. I got a question last night hence the fact that the Ålanders almost unanimosely wanted to become swedes back in the days. Whats the situation today? My educated guess is that very few in Åland today would like to have it any other way than the presence.
The settlement has survived world war, the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, Finland’s membership of the European Union and, now, Finland and Sweden’s membership of NATO. The demilitarised status itself has endured for 170 years.
Having said that, we are very much aware that things have changed, again. That will inevitably raise the question: should we also change? The answer is no. A radically changed security situation does not make the agreement less relevant; it is precisely when tensions rise that agreed limits are tested and matter most. Åland is a safe society, and demilitarisation must never be confused with vulnerability or a lack of preparedness. Our authorities, emergency services, businesses, voluntary organisations and citizens form a resilient civil society, ready to face every conceivable civilian crisis with competence, cooperation and calm.
This does not prove that agreements enforce themselves. They do not. Law without political will is paper. It proves something more demanding: agreements can survive profound change when states continue to regard restraint, predictability and credibility as interests in their own right.
Rule of Law is easiest to praise when it costs us nothing. Its real value appears when law restrains the strong, protects the small and continues to apply on the difficult day, not only on the convenient one. And that brings us to where we are today, when we are trying, literally as we speak, to develop a fourth, larger revision of the Autonomy Act. We are living our lives with the support of two legislations; the Finnish one, the blue, and the Åland Autonomy Act, the red.
The League of Nations decided that sovereignty over Åland should remain with Finland. That decision was not a blank cheque. The price, or rather the solemn condition, was Åland’s autonomy and firm guarantees for our Swedish language, culture and local traditions. That commitment has no expiry date.
At the political and presidential level, we continue to encounter genuine support and goodwill from our friends in Helsinki. Yet when those words are being translated into legislation, powers and meaningful reforms, the machinery of central government quite often applies the brakes. Sometimes it feels like Åland is treated less like a trusted partner and more like a ward under supervision.
Åland does not need a guardian when it comes to handling our own daily lives. We need a partner. Autonomy is not an administrative inconvenience for Finland to manage. It is a promise Finland made, and a success Finland should take pride in developing together with Åland.
We are living through rough waters. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shown, brutally, what happens when power claims the right to rewrite borders and disregard binding commitments. It has also reminded every small state and community that the rule-based international order is not an academic phrase. It is a matter of security, freedom and survival.
Defence is necessary. Readiness is necessary. So is diplomacy. If we invest only in the instruments needed after dialogue has failed, we prepare for failure at a very high price.
This year, Finland and Switzerland mark one hundred years of diplomatic relations. A century ago, Geneva gave the parties a place to step back from the edge. It gave diplomacy time to work. High on our wishlist is therefore that today's conflicts could find inspiration in the solutions we used yesterday. It cannot only be the bad sides of humanity that repeats itself.
Switzerland and Finland know that small states need a world in which law has weight. But this is not only a concern for small states. When treaties become disposable and institutions are reduced to stages for national performance, every state eventually becomes less secure.
You who serve as ambassadors know all this better than most. You know that the decisive conversation is often the one no one sees. You know trust accumulates slowly, sometimes sentence by sentence, and can be squandered in an afternoon. You know that keeping a channel open is not weakness. It is work. Your profession does not often leave monuments. On Åland, it did.
The monument is not made of stone. It is a parliament of thirty elected members. It is a Swedish-speaking society under Finnish sovereignty. It is children going to school, businesses making long-term investments, ships moving through peaceful waters and almost 31.000 people living ordinary lives in a place that once stood in the path of empires.
That is what diplomatic success looks like when it is allowed to mature and before I stop. Alongside security, prosperity and stability, we must dare to name one more goal: hope. Hope must never be confused with wishful thinking; it is disciplined work, the stubborn decision to believe in a better tomorrow and then accept responsibility for building it. To be human is to refuse to surrender that possibility, even when history gives us every reason to do so. Åland is proof that hope can be written into law, entrusted to people and sustained across generations. Everything good humanity has ever created began with hope and that is why hope is everything, and why it is worth fighting for.
So I hope you will carry a few thoughts with you from Åland: agreements can outlive fear, if states defend them. Small communities can place their trust in law, if larger states respect it. And peace can be built, if someone is prepared to do the hard work before the killing starts.
In 1921, someone did. We live inside the result. Our task now is to be as serious about the next peace as they were about ours.
Thank you and once again, welcome to the Parliament of Åland, the Islands of Peace.
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