The Alands and the Falklands

Reference: “Cultures and Organizations—Software of the Mind” by Geert Hofsteede; ISBN: 0-07-029307-4

The Aland islands are a small archipelago halfway between Sweden and Finland; as part of Finland they belonged to the Tsarist Russian empire. When Finland declared itself independent from Russia n 1917 the majority of the 30,000 inhabitants of the islands wanted to join Sweden, which had ruled them before 1809. The Finns then arrested the leaders of the pro-Swedish movement. After emotional negotiations in which the newly created League of Nations participated, all parties, in 1912, agreed to a solution in which the islands remained Finnish but with a large amount of regional autonomy.

The Falkland islands are also a small archipelago disputed by two nations: the United Kingdom which has colonized the islands since 1833 and nearby Argentina which claims rights on them since 1767 and has tried to get the United Nations to support its claim. The Falklands are about 8 times as large as the Alands but with less than 1/15 of the Alands number of inhabitants: about 1800 poor sheep farmers. The Argentinean military occupied the islands in April 1982 whereupon the British sent an expeditionary force, which chased off the occupiers, at the cost of (officially) 725 Argentinean and 225 British lives and enormous financial expense. Besides, the economy of the islands has been further damaged because it cannot develop without trade relations with the Argentinean hinterland.

Today, the Falklands remain a disputed territory needing constant British subsidies and military presence; the Alands have become a prosperous part of Finland, attracting many Swedish tourists.