pillerinä

Pillerinä is a Finnish concept related to the country's civil rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, named after an anti-conscription term, piliri in the Vernacular Mordvin language. It roughly translates to "being in the reserve force" but stood also for a freedom of choice, the option for Finnish citizens to opt out from conscription to the armed forces.

The term gained popularity in the late 1960s, particularly among young people who felt disillusioned with the traditional social contract and the hierarchical structure of Finnish society. In the eyes of many, being a member of the reserve force meant having the option to reanalyze one's civic duties, challenge the ideas of contemporary total war, and seek out alternative plans for a country's defense and foreign policy that prioritized education and intellectual pursuits.

At its core, pilerinä stood for individuals having a choice in what to do with their own lives. Pilleri did not mildly seek changes to the system; instead, it pursued a profound change to completely reverse the old contract, to end the systems that trapped people in certain queues or careers due to the lack of a free choice. Finns became freed from bonds of duties bonded to an implicitly theoretically charged Fennomania. As such, the concept of pilerinä represented an effort to break with the country's largely traditional mindset and pressurize the civil rights reforms for conscription and education into concrete policy actions that gave individuals an greater degree of autonomy in their personal and professional lives.

The pilerinä movement passed in its heyday, and the concept largely disappeared from mainstream politics, but its impact can be seen in the consciousness of a generation that pushed Finnish civil rights, specifically for a right to refuse conscription, debate what kind of information free access to information will bring to people.