May Day Speech 2025

Hyvät kuulijat, bästa lyssnare, dear listeners

It is a great joy to get to spend May Day – a celebration of students, workers and spring – with you. Even though May Day means different things to different people, the thing I find the most valuable is that we are celebrating this joyous day together.

We live in turbulent times. We live in a time of war, genocide, accelerating climate change and increasing antagonism. Here in Finland, we live in a time of increasing inequality. We young people in particular carry the weight of the future on our shoulders. Due to the difficult financial situation and the hard-hitting cuts, this May Day is, for many of us, the first one when we might have decided not to buy a bottle of mead due to its price.

During such uncertain times, our greatest strength lies with days like May Day, when we get together to celebrate, look each other in the eyes and smile, perhaps even to total strangers. In the words of Pope Francis: unity does not mean thinking in the same way; it means wanting to listen to one another and accept one another the way we are. I want to encourage all of you to face new people today with an open mind or perhaps to call a loved one who you have not talked with for a long time.

A sense of togetherness does not arise from grand declarations but from small acts. It is created in the moments when we pause and ask how someone is doing, share our umbrella with someone or offer the last doughnut to the person who did not get one yet. 

When a sense of togetherness is combined with courage and shared objectives, we can achieve great things. Without a sense of togetherness and the cooperation of diverse people, we would not have an independent Finland, the Finnish welfare state or the achievements of the student and workers’ movements. Let us focus today on what unites us. 

I wish you all a happy May Day on behalf of the entire Student Union of the University of Helsinki. I also want to extend an especially warm welcome to everyone celebrating their first May Day, all international students and all first-year students. Let’s make this a celebration of joy and togetherness! Happy May Day!

Emil Aarnio
Vice chair of the board