Immigration to Finland and the cold war

Posted on by Migrant Tales

While history provides a good answer why Finland as a nation has shown a clear manifest unease of foreigners and outside investment, it still does not provide us with an all-encompassing answer as to why. Are we still resentful of newcomers because our language rights were granted in 1862?  Is it due to the Russification period, when the Russian Empire attempted to impose their language and culture on us at the cost of our precious autonomy?

If so, we Finns hold grudges for a very long time.

Irrespective of those two historical factors, I believe the biggest culprit of our present-day negative stance gained strength during World War 2 and the cold war years. Even though we rebuilt our nation from the ashes of war, we had the right to be resentful of the Soviet Union but were censored harshly by the Finnish political intelligentsia to air our views.

The fear of the USSR, which strengthened our negative view in general of all outsiders, was reinforced by our “successful” relations with Moscow. The history of Finland in the cold war era is in a nutshell a story about how a nation broke out little by little of its political and economic near-isolation from Western Europe that culminates in 1995, when we became EU members.

Our special relationship with Moscow gave birth to Finlandization. Even though the relationship was good for Finnish-Soviet trade (we bartered manufactured goods that we could not sell elsewhere for oil), it was devastating for democracy, freedom of the press, internationalization, immigration to this country and to our identity as a nation.

During those near-stagnant cultural and political years, immigrants were called “aliens” (muukalainen) and refugees “loikkari” (a person who skips a country).

If I were a politician living at that time and wanted to impose my rule on the country, I would have certainly used the Moscow card like Center Party icon Urho Kekkonen did on many occasions.

While some Finns believe that enough historical psychoanalysis has been carried out on those bygone years, nothing could be further from the truth. There are still many skeletons in closets that will haunt and surprise us in the future. One way of keeping those revelations from appearing is by keeping them to a minimum with respect to our former relations with the USSR and the cold war period.

By keeping guarding the secrets of the past we end up doing great harm to ourselves and future generations because we continue to wrongly believe that the way things were done politically, democratically and economically (monopolies and oligopolies) were right.  A good example of what I am saying is the Center Party: they appear to be for the EU but in reality they continue support it opportunistically and reject it at every turn, like Paavo Väyrynen as a political phenomenon.

Don’t expect anything to change in Finland too rapidly. Even so, part of the answer lies in how courageously we open up the cold war years in order to understand who we are today.

Multiculturalism in Canada and Australia

Posted on by Migrant Tales

In order to clear up matters a little, I would like to show how multiculturalism as a social policy is defined in Canada and Australia. Contrary to Finland, both counties have been strongly influenced by immigration.

ADDITION (March 1, 2010): If there were a list of countries with liberal and conservative policies on immigration, Finland would end up at the bottom-end of the latter group. It has not only been in immigration policy (or the lack of it/Finland got its first immigration act in 1983!) but in its view of foreign investment (see Restricting Act of 1939, which was in force until 1992!).

What is incredible to note, and taking into account the ever-higher number of pensioners and thus a threat to our economic wellbeing, NO political party in Finland has an official immigration policy.  This is, in my opinion, incredible taking into account the demographic threats that will either make or break us economically this decade.

Even though Finland is not officially a multicultural nation, its constitution and laws encourage the same values but not as passionately.   In the Finnish Constitution and Equality Act there are, for example, no mention of the term “multicultural society.”

Moreover, in these countries I am certain that people do not go around describing their societies as multicultural every chance they get. However, it is kind of interesting that we in Finland, which has a very small foreign population, use this term liberally.


Multiculturalism in Canada

The concept of Canada as a “multicultural society” can be interpreted in different ways: descriptively (as a sociological fact), prescriptively (as ideology), from a political perspective (as policy), or as a set of intergroup dynamics (as process).

As fact, “multiculturalism” in Canada refers to the presence and persistence of diverse racial and ethnic minorities who define themselves as different and who wish to remain so. Ideologically, multiculturalism consists of a relatively coherent set of ideas and ideals pertaining to the celebration of Canada’s cultural diversity. Multiculturalism at the policy level is structured around the management of diversity through formal initiatives in the federal, provincial and municipal domains. Finally, multiculturalism is the process by which racial and ethnic minorities compete to obtain support from central authorities for the achievement of certain goals and aspirations.

This study focuses on an analysis of Canadian multiculturalism both as a demographic reality and as a public policy.

Multiculturalism in Australia

‘Multicultural’ is a term that describes the cultural and linguistic diversity of Australian society. Cultural and linguistic diversity was a feature of life for the first Australians, well before European settlement. It remains a feature of modern Australian life, and it continues to give us distinct social, cultural and business advantages.

The Australian Government’s multicultural policy addresses the consequences of this diversity in the interests of the individual and society as a whole. It recognises, accepts, respects and celebrates our cultural diversity.

The freedom of all Australians to express and share their cultural values is dependent on their abiding by mutual civic obligations. All Australians are expected to have an overriding loyalty to Australia and its people, and to respect the basic structures and principles underwriting our democratic society. These are: the Constitution, parliamentary democracy, freedom of speech and religion, English as the national language, the rule of law, acceptance and equality.

What Finland’s immigration policy lacks

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

If we look at the dismal amount of immigrants and refugees as well as high unemployment one can reach only one conclusion: a policy that has failed miserably. Certainly progress has been made: the number of immigrants has risen albeit slowly to  143,256 today from 12,670 in 1981, while unemployment has come down officially from 53% in 1994 to over 20%.

One of the biggest failures of our immigration policy is that it is really not an immigration policy at all but looks like a poorly assembled hall where newcomers are given a bit of schooling in the Finnish langauge and culture and then required to face the brave new world by getting a job.

The crux of the matter is that we are going to have to do a much better job if we want labor immigrants to fill jobs left by our ever-growing number of pensioners. One of the first steps in this direction is to offer more than a wham-bang-thank-you-mam approach to immigration.

Immigration is a powerful social force that can work to a society’s favor if it is done correctly. The basic starting point for a successful immigration policy is in the hands of the host society. If there is rejection, ignorance, bigotry and lack of opportunities such a policy will fail as it has today.

Another important aspect of a successful immigration policy is that it must have something more than the wham-bang in order to succeed. Those same values that unite Finns and make them proud of their society should rub off on immigrants.

What are these values? They are those in our laws and our compassion and suffering that we faced as a nation. It is in solidarity and opportunity – a real sense of community where we live together for the common good. The pathway to incorporation into Finnish society should be much faster than today.

Even though these types of values may sound as if they were from some imaginary place, it is the only way towards a successful immigration policy and sheds light why our integration policy has failed despite its good intentions. Offering no dreams and hopes to newcomers and marginalizing them is sowing the seeds of pesent and future discord.

What kind of a society are we offering newcomers if we jealously guard our dreams to ourselves?

The role of the Finnish social welfare state and newcomers

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is surprising that one can hear these days in private conversation from some teachers and people working with immigrants and refugees that some national groups should never be  brought to this country because they will never adapt to our way of life. “Why do they continue to bring them here?” some say.

Another affirmation that has surprised me for quite some time is the naive view that we can choose those that we like to move to this country and live happily ever after.

These two comments not only reveal a generous dose of ignorance about the dynamics of immigration and refugees but relfect their setbacks and frustration in teaching and working with immigrants and refugees.

If a person believes that fifty-year-old women from the Middle East should never be brought to this country refugees because “people of her kind will never adapt,” then we should, in all fairness, apply the same standard to Finns that are not adapted to society: the alcoholics, the long-term middle-aged unemployed, people who suffer from chronic depression as well as a long list of  others.

When I asked one of the teachers what should be done, silence answered my question. I asked if we should round up all those we consider “maladapted and/or unadaptable” and deport them back to their war-torn countries? In the case of those Finns we consider marginal from society, should we also lock them up in some asylum or island and throw away the keys so they won’t bother us any longer?

A relative of mine once said that when one moves to a foreign country, one learns new things about oneself. In the same respect, immigrants and refugees are showing the positive and negative side of our society because it is being put to the test, sometimes under extreme condtions.

I believe that one of the major problems of our immigrant and refugee policy is littered with good intention but lacks a coherent policy. Newcomers are showing some positive and unsettling matters about our society such as bigotry and ignorance. It is also showing the most important matter of all: lack of clear leadership from those who should show the way to a successful immigration/refugee policy.

A shameful view of Finland’s refugee policy during the cold war

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In this week’s Apu magazine (issue 6/2010) there is a feature authored by me on a former Soviet citizen who was caught in 1974 by Finnish border guards and whisked back to the USSR without granting him the right to political asylum. You can read about it in Apu magazine or get some background information in this blog on how Finland’s special relationship with the USSR would not tolerate Soviet refugees.

The first biggest group of refugees that came to Finland during those years were Chileans after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. The majority of them (about 150 persons) moved elsewhere in Europe after a short stint in the country.

Alberdi and the role of immigration to Finland

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Juan Bautista Alberdi was one of the greatest social thinkers that Latin America produced in the nineteenth century.  If we look at the Argentina and South America right after these countries gained independence from Spain from the 1820s, they faced a daunting task: How to build new nations from scratch.

Countries in the region were huge in size with little infrastructure and small populations. In the early nineteenth century, Argentina’s population was a mere 400,000 while Uruguay and Paraguay had an estimated 40,000 and 100,000, respectively. Even countries such as Brazil had underwhelming populations: in 1800 it was estimated to be 3.35 million versus 300,000 in 1700. In the Viceroyalty of Nueva Granada (Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela), population estimates for 1750 show that there lived 350,000 Peninsulares (native Spaniards) compared with 600,000 native Americans in 1650.

Before the arrival of the Spaniards in greater numbers from the sixteenth century, the indigenous population was estimated in the Americas to be between 80 million and 100 million, according to some estimates.

Looking at Argentina from the mid-nineteenth century, Alberdi understood that the country would never realize its potential with a small population. According to him, Argentina would never become a developed and prosperous nation as long as it had a population of one million (by 1869 it had grown to 1.527 million) in a country that could comfortably house 50 million people.

While immigration played a more prominent role in forging the populations of countries such as Argentina as opposed to Colombia, it radically changed the demographic make up. By 1914, Argentina’s population had grown to 5.527 million, or 30.3% of the population (49.4% in Buenos Aires!) thanks to immigration.

Look at these percentages and compare it with Finland’s 2.7% foreign population. Some Finns are already sounding the alarms bells because of such a single-digit percentage!

Apart from the demographic impact, European immigration changed the country socially, politically and economically. It had an adverse impact on the country’s Amerindian population. The good news, however, is that such a high percentage of immigrants did not end up at each others throats as was the case in the former Yugoslavia.

Alberdi and Finland

As Finnish policy makers and politicians plan how many immigrants Finland must have to maintain our standard of living and social welfare state, they should read statesmen such as Alberdi, study Finnish and general immigration history to grasp what immigration means instead of falling into the defensive and fearing what it implies to our country.

Alberdi’s greatest work was Bases, which looked at the different constitutions in the region and which ones Argentina should not imitate. His main argument was that those constitutions that placed limits on immigration and nationality were examples that Argentina should not imitate. Taking into account the nationalism and highly exclusive nature of Finland’s constitution of 1919 up to 1999, Alberdi would have surely criticized it because it discouraged immigration on all levels and made citizenship exclusive.

The big question: If Finnish society and history have reinforced nationalism as a nation-building process by excluding others, how is Finland going to be receptive to new members of society?

The above question, in my opinion, is the biggest unanswered challenge facing Finland. We are not ready and too few understand what immigration is and how our society could benefit and correct some of the challenges it imposes.

A good pessimistic example comes from a recent seminar I attended with Finnsh-language teachers who work with refugees and immigrants. After scraping through the “we-believe-Finland-will-win-with-newcomers” phase of our conversation, one of the teachers said in a defensive tone: “We don’t have to change even if more immigrants come to Finland.”

What this statement reveals is not only ignorance what immigration implies but a deep fear that some Finns have. They believe that all they have to do is to bring labor immigrants and continue with their lives as if nothing has happened. Finns don’t have to change because immigrants will be assimilated into our culture.

One could ask how prevalent this feeling is among our policy makers, politicians and population. If that is what the majority feels, immigration will fail miserably in this country.

The saddest fact is that we do not understand why it even failed before it began. on a bigger scale.

Immigration debate in Finland and Europe: Turning the lights off

Posted on by Migrant Tales

The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted
to learn from the crow.
William Blake (1757-1827)

I remember a long time ago reading an editorial by the Buenos Aires Herald on how the military coup of 1976 was able to shut off lights in Argentina and keep the country in an information blackout. It argued that since outdated infrastructure such as telephones and telecommunications were in a wretched state, it was easy for the junta leaders to literally turn off the lights and spoon feed information to its citizens anyway it wished.

Even though cell phones and IT infrastructure are today the best in the world, some of us in western countries such as Finland continue to live in our self-imposed information bubble about people from other cultures. We hate this group because they do this and we don’t like that group because they have different customs than ours.

What is paradoxical about these “champions of our western way of life” is that they would, if given the opportunity, be the first to impose the very autocratic measures that they claim to be fighting against. They would not waste any time in limiting civil liberties such as religious freedom and even freedom of speech by over-exaggerating and overkilling their cases.

The kind of world they wish to impose on Europe is the one that had caused so much bloodshed in the past century.

Europe, as well as other parts of the world, know first-hand what racial and ethnic strife can bring. Hopefully some understand better in other parts of the world that wise tales about other ethnic groups to suit myopic “racial theories” can only lead to disaster.

Thanks to the Internet and the free flow of information, however, their attempts to shut off the information lights of Europe will be an impossible task.

Giving Migrant Tales a new look

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I am very happy how these modest blog has grown from relative obscurity to a platform where almost everyone can put in his/Her views on immigrant issues in Finland.

I have been thinking for quite some time on how the blog could better serve the immigrant community, interested Finns and advancing the cause of understanding between different cultures.

One matter that I would like to propose is having interviews of real people that decide on immigration policy in Finland as well as look at concrete flaws in the law, or when one is applying for a residence permit in this country. What would be the most successful way of surviving in Finland if you are an immigrant?

Guest writers would be invited to give their views on a specific aspect of immigration.

What would you like to see more or less of in Migrant Tales?

The role of Finnish language in discrimination

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I was speaking today with a woman from an African country who had been in Finland for five years and had never held a job. She said that she had tried to find work as a cleaner but, surprisingly, she said that she could not because her Finnish wasn’t good enough.

We had a short chat about her studies and the difficulties of finding work in Finland. This took place in Finnish.

In my opinion, her Finnish was good enough to work as a cleaner. Why, then, wasn’t a black woman from Africa employed as a cleaner in eastern Finland?

I am convinced that since language plays a special role in this country historically and culturally (mother tongue is even tabulated in the census), it is used in the same context as skin color in the United States.

This may reflect that some Finns feel less bothered by skin color than by non-native Finnish. But if you have the wrong skin color (not white) and do not speak Finnish as a near-native, then you get hit by a double discrimination whammy in Finland.

Hence, when a Finnish employer says that you do not speak Finnish well enough, he or she may be saying that you are an outsider and we do not employ these kinds of people.

If language plays such an important role in the perception some Finns have of non-native Finns, then it suggests that they will never be accepted as an equal in the Nordic sense by our society.

Addressing the issue of language discrimination in Finland may shed light on a totally hitherto-unknown culprit.

An immigrant call to change and Finnish society

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Some wrongfully accuse those of speaking up for cultural diversity in Finland of “whining” and being “ungrateful.” Apart from exercising one’s democratic right of free speech, bigger steps have to be taken by minorities in this country to drive home their message of greater equality and fair treatment.

If we wait for change it will never happen in our lifetimes.

In my opinion, the situation of immigrants in Finland is tragic and shameful. On the one hand, you have people who want to eagerly take part in this society but cannot due to a number of imagined and real factors such as language, while Finnish authorities simultaneously spend a lot of funds and good will on integrating these persons to our society.

The integration program, although well-intentioned, lacks one very important component in order for it to be successful: Immigrants’ input. The program is the majority’s view on how newcomers should integrate into our society.

On many occasions I have mentioned that we do not need any magic trick to integrate immigrants and refugees. Those very values that makeup our society would be enough. However, the problem is that these legal benchmarks enshrined in the Constitution and Non-Discrimination Act do not apply to minorities who don’t speak Finnish or Swedish as natives.

Real integration does not only mean job opportunities but, most importantly, a willingness by society to accept these people. Today unemployment among immigrants is officially 2-3 higher than the national level and by looking at the silence and lack of leadership of Finnish politicians, the closed view of institutions such as the police and the constant attacks by hardline “Finland for Finns” proponents, it is clear what a significant part of the population thinks.

We are still at such a diaper stage in the immigrant debate that some of our politicians and policy-makers do not even grasp why immigration is important for this country but prefer instead to stick their heads in the sand and hide behind nationalism.

Change will not come from the majority because there is a definite lack of leadership in this area. If this is so, we must spearhead change and make our voices heard and take part more vociferously than ever in the ongoing one-sided debate on immigrants in Finland. We must lobby politicians and use all the opportunities and channels offered by democratic society to make our voices heard.

That time has come now.