Online debate: Finland vs. Romania

Our three 7th grade students debated about invasion with the Romanian counterparts. The topic, "Is invasion always a good/bad thing", wasn't easy. Every coin has two sides, so does this one. Here you can read the arguments our students made during the debate. The debate was held via flashmeeting on February 20, 2017.


Annika:
Invasion is often concidered a bad thing, that it creates violence and havoc. For centuries, invaders have shaped our world by spreading civilization, education, technical knowledge, culture, inventions and lots more, such as hospitals, schools and railroads. Through invasion, small and poor countries have become important and meaningful producers. A good example is Japan.
Invasion was needed to take continents and countries to a new level. If we stop and think of Africa, it was considered an invaluable black continent with ignorant tribes. Europeans soon discovered its material riches, such as gold and diamonds. Greed was most definitely a reason for European invasion in Africa, but as a result invaders educated the people, founded cities and brought industry to the continent. With invasion people in Europe learned more of the invaded areas and false information was corrected.

Jutta:
Many great invaders throughout history are well known. You've heard from the Roman empire and how far it spread. Your country, Romania, got its name after the Roman empire.
Genghis Khan is also familiar name, I'm sure. He invaded most of Asia and part of Europe. He granted religious freedom to his subjects, abolished torture, encouraged trade and created the first international postal system.
One of the most famous European invaders is Napoleon. He created a code of law that influenced the legal system in over 70 countries around the world. He organized the French school system, created branches of science, built Europe's first telegraph system, initiated mass vaccinations and sold Louisiana to USA, which led USA to eventually become a world power.
Invaders made many big changes at the time, which developed the world into what we have now.

Milla:
Finland has been under Swedish and Russian rule. During and as a result of the Russian rule, Finland got its own parliament. All adults could vote and run for parliament. Finnish women were the first in Europe with equal rights in politics. Finland got its own currency, Finnish mark.
During those years, Finland industrialized. Before that, Finland was a poor country far behind the other European countries. With industrialization, the standard of living got much better for all.
Finland also learned a lot from the its big invader. As a result Finland became country with strong willpower and pride.
Sweden has influenced Finland in two major ways. The Swedes brought christianity to Finland and even today, we still have a state church, the Lutheran church. Finnish language has lots of loan words from Swedish. Not only that, Swedish is still our second official language next to Finnish. It gives us all immaterial capital and wider education.