Finland is still far from regaining its former political composure after
the April 2011 elections, which saw the right-wing populist Finns Party
win a historic election victory by becoming the country’s third-largest
political force in parliament after the National Coalition Party and the Social
Democrats. Compared to the elections before 2011, the number of Finns Party
MPs rose from five in 2007 to an astonishing 39.
Read the full column here.
Many political observers have wondered how an anti-EU, anti-immigration
and especially anti-Islam party can become a major political force in Finland
in only four years. My guess is the following: Our lack of cultural diversity.
Finland’s foreign population totals today about 4% of the population. It is
still too small to make a dent on national politics.
Certainly, there are other factors at play that helped the Finns Party to
win the last parliamentary elections. There’s the euro crisis and the deep
recession, which have helped far-right and right-wing populist parties to
see unprecedented growth in today’s Europe. Even so, if Finland had larger
ethnic and religious minorities, the result of the 2011 election would have
been different.
Our large Finnish-American and Finnish-Canadian expatriate communities
abroad are good examples how diversity has not only enriched Finnish culture
but made it stronger.
One of the big debates going on in Finland is how our ever-growing
immigrant population will change our country demographically and culturally.
While we don’t have a precise answer to such questions because the future
rarely reveals itself to us, the only matter we can say with some certainty is
that our population will change in the next two decades.
