Much of the way Europeans perceive themselves as a group today is still deeply embedded in racism. The fact that we haven’t yet even started to confront the legacy of colonialism, which fuels our ”us” and ”them” view of the world, reveals a disturbing fact: There’s still too little inclusion and acceptance in this part of the world.
Sadder still is the fact that too few of us openly promote more inclusion and acceptance in our society. How many times have you heard your local politician use terms like “mutual acceptance” and “respect” when speaking of immigrants and visible minorities?
Our race-and- blood view of ourselves and “others” explains why some Europeans still have difficulty overcoming the “us vs. them” mindset.
It would be naive, even foolhardy, to claim that the root of European racism does not date back to the nineteenth century, when we were a colonial power.
Racist views of other groups, especially blacks, is still predominant. The drawing is from the Golden Book Encyclopedia. The 1959 edition sold over 60 million volumes.
While nineteenth century evolutionism played a crucial role in justifying the exploitation of Africans, Asians and other regions, it was a very effective excuse to justify our domination of other groups. These same arguments are still used today by different groups to justify our racist views.
Julian Abagond asks in a blog entry whether blacks would have raided, pillaged and enslaved so many people if they had had guns and ocean-going ships before whites.
He writes: “Technology advances and spreads unevenly. It is common for one region to have a technological edge over another – yet it is rare for it to lead to genocide, even when the edge is military.”
While Europe’s new inhabitants want to adapt and see their living standards rise in their new homeland, they too are part of the “us-vs.-them” problem. Some immigrants come from countries and societies that are just as racist as Europe.
While the latter may be true, everyone can learn new rules and values in our new or old homelands that promote a well-functioning society. We should learn that racism and social exclusion are our biggest threats.
European Uncle Toms are as much of a danger to our ever-growing culturally diverse society as far-right groups. They are hindering the creation of a more-inclusive and culturally diverse Europe that can live side by side in harmony and reap synergies.
Writes Migrant Tales: “The Finnish Uncle Tom is a pretty opportunistic person. He or she believes that the only way to escape discrimination is by accepting those values that promote social exclusion of other groups like immigrants.”
In order to avoid the terrible wars that once ravaged this part of the world, we must strive to create and teach present and future European generations the crucial role that mutual acceptance and respect play in inclusion.
Racism is the shovel we Europeans use to dig our common grave.
We need more social inclusion in Europe to build a better society tomorrow.
This brought tears to my eyes because it describes the life i live in Finland, the trap im in wich sometimes make me feel hopeles and helpless, thinking will i ever survive of it, will i ever get through it, sometimes in the back of my mind i scream for help like if someone could just come and help me rescue of this nightmare, what i mean by night mare is that a total isolation, me and many immigrants have been shuit down if this society, we’re forced of true isolation, basically there is no way out, we’re trapped for life, i an go back to my country because ive grown up here and due to civil war i’d get killed, and when i take a close look at the life i live here it’s a total isolation, i feel like sometimes im in a prison. Yeah ive tried to blend in Finnish society but by now everyone who lives in Finland knows that Finnish does not want anything part with us, so in my case what would you do? does anyone have an answer for me, and bytw i was you guys to check up this site this trully moved me to tears because it describes the life i live in here. ——————->http://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.fi/2012/03/finnish-racism-post-from-guest-author.html
Hi MT, D4R,and pretty all
Thanks D4R for link, hugs and have a happy day with ur family
Smile
Have a great day uuuu dear all
No problem Iam 🙂
You fail to see that europeans are different. There is no absolute “we europeans”.
You fail to see that Finns are different. There is no absolute “we Finns”.
What reaction would we get here in Finland if one of us held a poster at a street intersection that read, Integration is beautiful. Racism is stupid?
Check out this link.
Ihan ok. Kannattaa kyllä muistaa, että olemme kaikki täsässä samassa suossa. Toiset vain ovat syvemmällä kuin toiset.
Uncle tommia en kyllä kuvaisi opportunistiksi vaan reallistiksi. Parempi assimioitua kuin pitää kiini kulttuurista. Parempi yrittää olla niin valkoinen kuin mahdollista kuin pitää ylpeyttä rotuun.
Rasismi Lännen ulkopuolella on enimmäkseen sitä samaa rasismia mitä tääläkin. Hyvin harva värillinen on rasisti valkoisia kohtaan, mutta monet ovat rasisteja tummepia kohtaan, koska rasismin tärkein oppi on että valkoinen on aina parempi kuin musta. Miksi muuten värilliset ostavat ihon vaalennus voiteita kuin yrittää olla Eurooppalainen.
Sasu, tiesitkö, että Argentiinassa kutsutan “valkoiseksi” kaikki eurooppalaisia, eli sillä henkilölle ei ole yhtään amerintialaista, aasialaista tai afrikkalaista tausta.
En tiennyt mutta osaisin kyllä arvata. Etelä-amerikassa voi näyttää, että olisi rodullista tasa-arvoa, mutta todellisuudessa creollit ja konkistadorien suorat jälkeläiset pitävät valtaa.
Rasismi on hyvin yleistä myäs Etelä-amerikiassa. Monet siirtolaiset, jotka olivat euroopalaisia, toivat samoja arvoja myäs sinne.
Does anyone have any opinions about the elections in Greece?
(Reuters) – Parties committed to Greece’s multi-billion-euro bailout are on course to secure a slim parliamentary majority in an election result that could keep the debt-laden country in the euro zone, according to an official vote projection.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/17/us-greece-election-idUSBRE85F05320120617
Tell us, is there an absolute “we immigrants” when talking about immigrants living in Finland?
The European colonial justified their atrocious acts in Africa by saying “these people”, “we want to civilise these savages”. Their arguments were essentially what you are saying today: there is no “we Finns” or “we Europeans” since as whites and “civilised”, “we…” are different. But “they” i.e. the Negroes, being inferior beings are the same.
One has to wonder, just how far, have we as a people come. It seems those who are not bigoted,or prejudiced against other races are the civilised ones.
Heh
The same reaction that you would get if you wore a clown suit or suffered a heart attack.
None whatsoever.
People will pretend not to see you.
Then they will gossip about you anonymously on the Internet and some PS parliamentarian will try to get you banned so that people no longer have to make the effort not to see you.
Nobody will have the guts to engage you in rational discussion, but a few drunks may try to pick a fight with you.
Welcome to Finland.
No. I hope the “pro-immigration” parties would acknowledge this too. Should i feel quilt because of colonial powers that parts of africa?
Finns were under swedish rule for hundreds of years. They regarded us as lower type of humans (they forcefully castrated some saami aswell, along with banning finnish language in sweden. This was after swedish rule in finland though)
We have stressed again and again that the only thing immigrants in Finland have in common is their legal and administrative status, which is something created by public policy, not by immigrants.
Public policy in a liberal democracy seeks to accommodate the differences between the people that it affects, but this aim has been realised only very slowly in relation to immigrants. Even the special circumstances of women immigrants have been largely ignored in this society that enjoys trumpeting its alleged achievements in the field of sex equality.
The territory and inhabitants of modern Finland were an integral part of a colonial power for some 700 years, and for most of that time there was no discernible collective identity of “Finns”. It is a deliberate distortion to present this period of history as one of explicit colonisation of a separate “Finland” entity by a foreign colonial power, insofar as this projects a sense of nationhood back in time to a point when no such nationhood existed.
Another way to put this is that there was no obstacle of modern “nationality” as such to the social or political ambitions of an inhabitant of any part of the northern Baltic rim within the Nordic superstate of the day. To this extent the people of the northeast Baltic region were just as much citizens of a colonial, expansionist power as those of the northwest and southeast Baltic region.
Guilt is the wrong expression to use in relation to the conduct of forebears long since deceased, but this does not mean that we should not be aware of the sustained consequences of that conduct.