Should People Commit Suicide When They Get Old?

Looking after the old and the infirm is one of the core values of almost all human societies. In many ”developed” welfare societies with a growing army of the aged, this responsibility and respect is fast being replaced by an attitude of seeing humans not involved in economic production as excesss burden to be got rid of.

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Changes in How Societies View the Care of the Aged

In some European countries and the US, the chronically ill were herded into large, impersonal and often abusive settings, out of sight. With improved economic conditions and the voice of women after the World Wars, the approach in health care for those unable to care for themselves started changing. But now, with the growing number of those who need care, most countries have to balance the strictures of costs as well as consider cultural and ethnic differences and traditions.

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The pressure of productivity is eroding core societal values also. The right to enjoy a meaningful, reasonably healthy and safe years of old age as long as one lives is fast being replaced by the refusal of the healthy and the younger to support the aged and infirm. The right to being cared for as long as one lives is fast being replaced by an attitude of ”Get rid of excess burden!”

Attitudes Towards Care of the Aged Have Hardened

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Do people in their working life feel that the increasing demands of staying productive and contributing to a production oriented way of life is sapping all their resources? Do they feel guilty that they have no energy and resources for taking care of the aged and infirm? Is there a hardening of attitudes, where people do not see their parents’ efforts at providing them a fair chances of making a good life as sacrifices?

One often hears from people (usually very unhappy themselves) that 

”I don’t think my parents made any sacrifices. It is their duty to provide material well-being to their children. I didn’t ask to be born. It is the responsibility of the state to take care of them. That’s why we pay so high taxes.”

In Finland, a wealthy and popular woman author, Kaari Utrio, recently caused terror in the hearts of the elderly by suggesting that citizens who are ’old’ should be given euthanasia sleeping pills so that they don’t linger in hospital beds as a burden for others. In the Finnish language discussion forums of the country’s most popular evening paper Ilta Sanomat, 62% of the 28 474 (retrieved on 12.9.2009 at 10:54) respondents accept the voluntary suicide of the infirm and aged.

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• 15% of people over 65 are in long-term care systems in the Nordic countries, while 
• 0,6% to 3% are the figures for Korea, Italy and Eastern Europe where state provided facilities do not exist.

Neglect Your Parents and Go to Prison in Some Countries

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In 1995, the wealthy state of Singapore passed the Maintenance of Parents Act to give parents above 60 years old, who could not support themselves, the legal means to claim maintenance from their children.

• About two out of three of parents who took their children to court were Chinese. 
• Indians made up at least 14 per cent, and Malays at least 9 per cent.

Maharashtra and 15 other states of India have the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, a central government legislation, which provides for imprisonment for neglecting parents and senior citizens.

• The number of cases has risen up from 79 cases in 2006 to 127 cases in 2008.

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Issues about Caring For the Elderly and Aging

No one can stay young and agile eternally. In the evening time of life, one begins to lose one’s nimbleness and agility, the capacity for hard physical work and the fuller use of sensory faculties are limited for some people. It is a time for reflection on the larger questions of life. No university teaches us how live life well and then prepare for what Shakespeare calls The undiscovered country.

• Does interaction with the aged produce a sense of continuity in the younger and transmit deeper cultural values? 

Not all old men are wise and neither are all old women gentle and kind. Only few of the aged manage to free themselves of regrets, guilt and unrealised expectations and fewer still can distill their life experience and communicate anything valuable to the younger generations.

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The concept of the right to die and Death with Dignity Act of the State of Orgeon in USA should not be confused with an attitude of selfishness and non-caring towards towards our elders. Euthanasia is an extremely complicated issue with deep moral undertones and social implications.

Though the new capitalism erodes a sustained sense of purpose and trust in other people, and fragments the integrity of the self, taking care of one’s aged and the infirm remains one of the core values of humankind. 

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Studies reveal that more than half of Britons would care for ageing partners, sick parents or friends at some point in their lives.

How is Citizenship for Babies Born on Airplanes Decided?

How is the citizenship of babies born mid-flight decided? 

Is it according to: 

• the parents' citizenship
• the territory/airspace over which the birth takes place in mid-air
• the nationality of the airline or where it is registered
• the destination of the flight
• the port of departure of the flight

Last week a Swedish pregnant woman, flying by Finnair from Bangkok to Helsinki gave birth to a baby over Kazakhstan.

Photo Credit: Aneta Blaszczyk


This has happened before on other airlines, but was a first for the Finnish airline. There were even two doctors and two nurses on board, among the passengers. She was in good hands and everything went really well for the mother and the baby.

Does the baby get Swedish citizenship, according to the mother, Kazakhstani citizenship because she arrived over Kazakhstani airspace, Thai citizenship according to the port of departure, Finnish citizenship according to the destination and because the airline was Finnish (mostly state owned airline)?

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Two Methods of Deciding Citizenship of Babies

There are basically two systems of deciding citizenship: jus solis or according to birthplace and jus sanguine, according to ethnicity, race, i.e., according to blood factors. Some countries also apply either principle but in a muted manner to suit political and social exigencies. 

India, for instance applies the mixed principle of jus sanguine and jus solis, but adjusts it to mean that children born on Indian soil on or after 3^rd December, 2004 is considered citizen of India by birth if both the parents are citizens of India or one of the parents is a citizen of India and the other is not an illegal migrant at the time of the child's birth.

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Countries with low birth rates who plan to increase their population bases usually apply the principle of jus solis to integrate everyone who was born in their territory. Sweden, like Finland thus applies the principles of jus solis. But many countries like the USA, Canada, Germany and Ireland have a practice of mixing jus sanguinis and jus soli. The United States grants citizenship to babies born in their airspace, even if the mother happens to be a Mexican citizen as in this case.

What would happen if the baby were born over international territory, above the seas? Would she then be a stateless person or a world citizen?

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Airlines are rather strict about requiring medical certificates for pregnant mothers beyond their 28th week of pregnancy. These are more relaxed for short domestic flights and even for flights within the Nordic countries. These mid-air childbirths are not happening in the hundreds every day. So, authorities deal with them on a case-by-case basis. Further, there is an international agreement called the UNHCR 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Finland ratified this agreement on 7^th August 2008 and Sweden in 1969. Kazakhstan has not signed this agreement, so the baby cannot be given Kazakhstani citizenship.

Considering the above, Kazakhstani citizenship is out of the question, unless the parents apply for it and the Kazakhstani government snatches a great PR opportunity and grants it. 

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Finnish citizenship is also possible, especially if the parents are permanently resident in Finland. What is left is the most logical and natural alternative – the baby is a Swedish citizen.

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Let us warmly welcome her to the world and wish her a good and happy life with lots of flying miles and frequent flyer rewards (whatever her citizenship turns out to be).

Are Finns Ethnocentric?

Recently on a visit to India, some people who regularly deal with Finns asked me to explain why Finns are ethnocentric. 

"You live in Finland and should be able to give us some insight" 

This question was put to me. This is tough! Now, having lived in Finland more than 25 years, I have no desire to badmouth Finland and still need to find an intelligent insight.

Historically small nations tend to be ethnocentric. But is ethnocentrism still valid in a modern context? The term ethnocentrism is often based on the premise of racial superiority over other races/ethnicities.

Are Finns Ethnocentric and Isolated?

In the old days, Finns mostly kept to themselves as you can expect from a people living on the edge of Europe in a mostly harsh climate. But today, Finland has become a rapidly evolving society embracing many diverse cultures and on the way to becoming global.

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The facts are a bit problematic in describing ethnic diversity. In 2010: 

• 2.7% of Finland's residents were foreign citizens (EU average 6.4%). 
• In Iceland, 7.6% of the population were born abroad. 
• The majority of foreign-born people come to Finland from neighbouring Estonia (18.6%), Russia (16.2%) and Sweden (4.6%). The Estonians are working in Finland and going back home while Russians settle in and get citizenship five times more often.

'Finnish ethnocentrism' is actually a misnomer and ethnocentrism is highly misleading in the context of Finns in these days. The choice of deciding to remain strictly on their own as a socio-economic-political policy has become a minority opinion in Finland. 

The majority of Finns have actually the opposite sentiment as they feel that they are tucked away in a tiny sparsely populated country far away from the centre stage of the world. There is a fervent desire to catch up and not be seen as a peripherial culture. Many a Finn would quip 

“We don’t have much culture, we just came out of the woods recently”.

Now this is not meant to be taken literally, but should be understood as self-irony, which characterises Finnish humour. 

A Finn and a Norwegian would joke that in spite of very different languages and cultures, they have at least one thing in common; a challenging neighbour to the east. 

You can actually discover people of Finnish origin almost anywhere on the globe. Whether they learn Hindi and Marathi and blend in downtown Mumbai or live in Patagonia, Argentina as sheep farmers, you can recognize them, if not from anything else, from their names at least. Typically Finns are also rather self-effacing and try to be modest yet friendly, but there are some exceptions. 

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One does run into an arrogant and high-nosed Finn occasionally, of both gender and among all age groups. 

In Finland, there is even a right-wing political party called Perussuomalaiset. This party is anti-immigration, anti-EU though they are not as extreme as the neo-Nazis. This party is probably going to get stronger over the years and become a decisive factor in politics one day.

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Finns are unique people because of their geography, history and challenging climate and especially how all these have shaped their character.

Challenges Foreigners Experience with Finns

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People having interactions with Finns report that the following are the challenges plaguing foreigners’ attempts to have smooth dealings or settle down to a “lived happily ever after” life in Finland.

• Scant communication, where silence is no embarrassment but a virtue
• Finns prefer to communicate by e-mail or sms messaging. People divorce and are even fired in Finland by sms messages
• Difficulty in making friends with Finns – it might take years as Finns are slow to warm up to new people and show emotions
• Seemingly linear way of thinking. Almost always you have agendas at meetings, start at the beginning with no chit chat at all and finish at the end
• Management by ‘Perkele’ – a very distinct and dogged no-nonsense result oriented management style which ruffles feathers easily
• Challenging climate for most of the year – excepting the short summer, either too wet or too cold and damp or getting a lot of what the British railways called “the wrong kind of snow” in 1991, to explain the occasional slight delays
• There is almost no communal ritual moaning at the workplace so vital and essentially British and also found in most other cultures. The ritual of going out with colleagues and engaging in boss-bashing tongue wagging with a beer is hardly practised in Finland. Finns make up for this at the once yearly Pikkujoulut or Christmas party where scandals to last the whole year might take place.
• Things tend to run quiet and smooth so restless foreigners either get bored or depressed feeling “Nothing ever happens here”. 

So, the answer is 'it depends!' - the Finns are ethnocentric in some contexts while being very global and eager to mix in other contexts.