I like living in Åland. November would prefer I prove it. The sun has reduced its involvement, my children have demolished their Halloween candy, and the weather has ruled out sending them outside to burn it off. Thirteen years after leaving America, I still miss the shared anticipation of Thanksgiving. I am grateful for the life I’ve made here. I simply have questions about how much gratitude can reasonably be expected under these lighting conditions.
A century ago, Åland’s future was settled through a promise: that peace could protect difference, and that power could be bound by obligations. People have built lives inside that promise. We still do. Its worth is measured in the language our children can live in, the rights we can rely on, and the dignity of being heard by those who govern us. In Eetu Isto’s The Attack, Finland defends her law book against an empire. The artwork accompanying this essay asks what happens when she finds herself on the other side of the struggle. From Helsinki to Mariehamn, we know what it means to ask power to keep its word. We must carry that knowledge with us when the power is ours.
