Tag: Cultural diversity

Migrant Tales Literary: Yearning never waits

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I made one of the greatest discoveries of my life in 1998 at the Finnish Seamen’s Church of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Even if such pleasant interior landscapes no longer witness my silence and stance, they are now distant memories that have turned into spacious imaginary cities of the mind where each building has a tale to tell, whispering.

Even if I had visited the Finnish Seamen’s Church on many occasions,  the days I spent there as a tenant brought me back to the beginning of a long journey I began around two decades ago when I moved back to Finland.

William Blake (1757-1827) once said that improvements make straight roads but that it  was the crooked ones without improvement that are roads of genius. Is yearning and following your heart’s desire a crooked road that can lead you to wonderful places never imagined?

The former Finnish Seamen’s Church is today a cultural center in dire need of money and repair. 

Even if my great grandparents, Dante and Jacob only appear occasionally in talk, I can say with total confidence that the yearning and restlessness  I feel today is because of them…

…or possibly it’s because I was born in an enormous migrant transit lounge called The Americas.

Like many others, my family has been on the move for generations: from my father’s side, my great grandfather Dante was from Italy, my grandfather Nemo was born in Brazil, my father and I were born in Argentina, and my three children were  born in Finland.

Yearning is a powerful force. It is the fuel that turns on our hope; it is so powerful that it rarely dies in a lifetime but lives on for generations.

The world is becoming a very small place as time takes us by the hand to the future. It’s pretty certain that my children and grandchildren will be much luckier than I. They will have the ability to visit and leave cultures and lifestyles at will and be – if they wish – from many places simultaneously. They will travel without the baggage of hatred and prejudice constantly overlooking them.

As long as smaller cultures and not devoured by larger ones, life in the new millennium will resemble vast cities like New York or London, where everyone is from somewhere but few from there.

If we all learned to let go and allow yearning to take us by the hand, maybe the first lesson we’d learn is that we are nothing than temporary migrants on Earth searching for that hill where the grass is greener on the other side.

(1999)

Don’t give racism a platform!

Posted on by Mark

I’m fed up. I’m fed up of certain commentators visiting us here on Migrant Tales to spread lies and personal insults and to disrespect other cultures. Those that ONLY have terrible things to say about specific peoples (as opposed to cultural criticism) really are practicing extremism. How could it be otherwise?

When we condemn totalitarianism, do we always imagine that the people subjected to it are happy with that? There will always be supporters of extremism, some that will win or benefit from the privileges that come from those political or social systems. But we should NEVER blame the people as a whole, the nation or the nationality. Otherwise, no country in the world would allow Brits, the French, the Germans, the Italians and the Spanish into their countries because of the atrocities these ‘nations’ have carried out in the past.

There are two commentators on here in the last week that have finally snapped my patience. It seems very clear to me that Allan and Göran [they only ever use their first names, so I am not identifying them] have allowed themselves to become radicalised. I do not say this lightly. I have studied radicalisation for over 20 years, both from psychological, political and religious perspectives. They have nothing good to say about Somalis, in particular, with Afghans and Iraqis also mentioned in the same vein from time to time.

The fact that Allan and others HAVE to say that we are Finland-haters in order to maintain their world-view and to resist having to take seriously our arguments tells a lot about the psychology of radicalisation. To maintain a war, there must be an enemy.

If your ‘enemy’ starts to look too human, then you must dehumanise them, you must destroy any semblence of respectability that they have. Call them liars, call them haters, even if they are preaching love and tolerance.

I’m sure Allan believes I hate Finland. What can I say to that? My kids are Finnish. It doesn’t get any more personal or hurtful to hear that kind of crap from Allan. But it isn’t just about my kids. I was only yesterday walking around the streets of my home town here in Finland thinking about how much I appreciate many of the things in Finland.

It’s not perfect and it has, to different degrees, much the same social problems and inequalities of British society, but there is still a sense of safety about Finland that perhaps we have lost in the UK. There is not, or has not been to a great extent, the kind of cynicism and social division in Finnish society that we have seen, either historically or in recent times, in parts of Britain. Yes, in Finland there are inequalities of income to an extent and even of cultural perspectives and education, but not anything that has led to ‘war on the streets’ in the way that it has in the UK at times in the last 50 years. I really hope that doesn’t happen here in Finland.

What I do know is that some of the problems in the UK in regards to race relations were made much worse by Far Right groups stirring up hatreds in much the same way that Allan and Göran and others attempt to do when attacking this blog in the comments. Sometimes the response to this ethnic agitation in the UK at least has been reasoned, other times, it is expressed as an equally blind anger and bitterness, probably not so different in kind to the hatred that Allan and Göran so obviously display towards certain immigrants. Who’s to blame then? When does the hating stop? That is always the problem when you start down that kind of road to war. And it is a road to war, make no bones about it.

People in Europe are banging the war drums, telling us that Christianity and Islam are fundamentally opposed in their values, regardless of the fact that Muslims have been living peacefully in Europe for hundreds of years. They are banging the war drums because people seek a better life here in Europe, and rather than give those that manage to get here, for whatever reason, the opportunity to succeed and contribute, the talk is only of the costs of adaptation –

seeing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

I’ve had enough of Allan. The danger whenever you are ‘forced’ to engage with extremists is that you give them a platform. The words of hate have a way of getting inside, of manipulating our fears and our sense of what’s right. Who thinks crime is right? Who thinks rape is right? Who thinks oppressing women is right? Of course, if all it takes is to discover these things in our culture, then we are truly all guilty.

But ultimately, crime is a deed of the individual, and we have no business making it into an ethnic or cultural matter. Researchers are very clear in what factors are known to affect crime, in quite complex ways, and they are poverty, disempowerment, social anger, marginalisation, inequality, etc. It must always be recognised that people are free to be different, to choose a law-abiding life, regardless of their culture. The vast majority of people on this planet want peace and prosperity and the freedom to express themselves.

There is every reason to stand up for the rights and values of the West, but we would be making a huge mistake if we think that we have a monopoly on those rights, or that those in developing or conflict ridden countries have a monopoly on intolerance, inhumanity etc.

A multiethnic society requires a common bed of values which are understood and shared. If we take the guests in Finland and attempt to portray their values as always being negative, always being inferior, always being somehow in conflict with our own values, then there will be no peace. This is war-mongering. It is dangerous and it is absolutely unnecessary.

If you are concerned about these rights and values, then there is every possibility to study them, to understand them, and to be active in trying to protect and promote them.

But the way to arrive at peace and development is not to repeatedly and cold-bloodedly insult peoples. That, surely, is common sense! Not for some….

Finland’s cultural diversity debate: Patronizing a minority into complacency

Posted on by Migrant Tales

One of the big issues concerning the ongoing debate on Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity is that rarely are we asked our opinion.  A good example was Friday’s Helsingin Sanomat, which asked only white Finns whether our country understand the threat that racism poses and if such a threat is taken seriously. 

The question that we should possibly ask is why does Helsingin Sanomat and the media in general rarely take into account what the victims of racism and social exclusion think about this social ill? Is it a cultural thing (this is our country and our discussion – stay out)? Or is it patronizing behavior by the majority to a largely silent “Other” Finland?

One of the positive matters about the Helsigin Sanomat survey, however, is that 74% felt that racism isn’t taken seriously enough in Finland. Thirteen percent felt that it was while 13% had no opinion.

One of our most persistent stands on Migrant Tales has been that racism is not taken seriously enough in Finland. Politicians, the media and the general public have preferred instead to watch from the sidelines while this shameful behavior takes place in the form of institutional and colorblind racism.

Writer Kaari Utrio said on the survey: “The only way to deal with the matter is to have zero tolerance for racism. Our past reminds us the terrible consequences happen when we accept racism. If we tolerate racism, it will soon be accepted and become the way of [our everyday] thinking. Thereafter we’ll start building concentration camps and gas chambers.”

Who is to say that racism isn’t already a part of our everyday thinking? Why is it when some of us speak about this social ill, we usually end up using the conditional or future tenses? Racism is something that could impact us in the future but is not a problem today.

Excluding Finnish- and Swedish-speakers, a total of 226,220 people speak another language as their mother tongue in Finland, according to the Population Register Center.  For the sake of comparison, there were 291,153 Swedish speakers in Finland (5.42%) in 2010-11.

If we added to the former figure the children of immigrants who are bilingual but speak Finnish as their mother tongue, the number of “Other” Finns is quite significant.

Could we speak of disenfranchised groups? Certainly.

The attitude of leading dailies like Helsingin Sanomat, which did not even bother to ask immigrants never mind a Finn with international backgrounds their opinion about such an important matter, is a classic case of how  Finland deals and challenges such a social ill.

If we sit around waiting for our point of view to be heard, we might as well wait forever.  The solution? Get active and say it loudly!

Migrant Tales is a blog that accepts who we are where we are

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

I sometimes wonder where I get the strength and inspiration to write at least one blog entry a day on Migrant Tales. It’s not that I have the luxury of giving 100% of my time to this blog because I have a job and a life as well.  Migrant Tales is a powerful voice because it is a hand-on-heart operation running on the fuel of passion for social justice and equality.

I am not the only one who has turned our blog into not-such-a-humble voice of our community. JusticeDemon, Mark, PeterofFinland, Eyeopener, D4R, Sasu, Jonas and many others have played a key role.

Contrary to what people think, I am a Finn with an international background.  Finland is my home sweet home.

I personally never knew it then but when I was a child briefly growing up in Helsinki between the end-1950s and early 1960s, there was a lot of racism that would single you out irrespective of your age and sex.

In order for my neighborhood friends to accept me, I had to fight my way with my fists. If I hadn’t challenged their initial prejudice towards me I would have never been accepted.

Fighting my way to acceptance was possible if the kids were of my age. There were older children that I could not defend myself against them because they attacked me as a group and were stronger than I. From them I ran away if they physically and verbally started to harass me when I was playing on the swings by myself.

There were complete strangers as well that would ridicule me in a cinema because I looked different from them. Some children would laugh along while others would watch with their silence.

All my life I grew up with a clear unwritten message from this society: I am not from here but you can stay with us as long as you don’t claim to be from here. Classifying you as a Finn is too complicated and would upset the order of things.

You may ask why did I choose Finland out of my two other homelands, the United States and Argentina? Because Finland was the most challenging and the hardest of the three where I’d be accepted.

There were many noble exceptions, however, to that rule. In the early 1970s, when I was spending my summer holiday with my grandparents in Mikkeli, I took part in a regional high jump competition. I won but there was a problem: I wasn’t a Finn.

After meeting and discussing the problem, they made a decision: I had won the competition and was recognized as the regional high jump champion.

My life in Finland has been a constant battle between acceptance and exclusion. Sometimes I have excluded myself with the full approval of society.

When the economic chips are down, it’s clear that you will get the short end of the stick because you have no claim to historicty.

In the early 1990s, when Finland was suffering from its worst recession in a century, I had written, among other topics, a lot about racism and refugee issues from countries like the former Soviet Union.  I was seen by some foreign ministry officials as a threat to this country’s international image. Some officials even complained directly to the publication.

Will I suffer the same type of persecution I did back in the early 1990s for what I wrote and defended?   Not as long as Migrant Tales and we exist.

We are a blog where I and many others have found strength to battle a social ill that raised its head in the April election. Even so, we are confident that our efforts and arguments will expose the ugliness of racism and social exclusion in our society.

Our blog has grown thanks to you because we have finally accepted who we are where we are.

Is Finland ready for cultural diversity?

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

In light of social ills like racism and social exclusion in Finland, J. W. Berry of Queen’s University of Canada offers us an opportunity to ask a very important question: Are we in Finland ready for cultural diversity? If we still aren’t quite there yet, how long will it take? 

Nationalism is a double-edged sword. It served to unite and mold a social construct like the national identity of the Finns but in the process it excluded other groups.

While great injustices were committed against us by Stalin, we have to learn to forgive and move on. This is necessary if we want to build a well-functioning culturally diverse society that reaps synergies and grows successfully. But taking into account the political situation in Russia, such a task can be challenging.

We should, however, not mix the Russian people and individuals with its past and present political system and leaders.

Our national identity should not hinge on those rivers of blood from former wars but how we turned this society after those wars into a successful Nordic welfare state. Lasting values like social equality and social justice should unite us today, not the hatred that lingers from those conflicts.

Doing away with our ethnic and national myths, which constantly remind us that we are under threat from the outside world and that war is only a heartbeat away, will be easier said than done.

Certainly I would want to be an optimist and state that this wretched period is only a short temporary phase.  Admitting that things will be better in a few years time is, however, an exercise in self-deception.

I hope, however, that time will prove me wrong.

But let’s look at Berry’s view* on the factors that make a culturally diverse society possible. According to him, there are four criteria:

  1. There needs to be a general support for cultural diversity as a valuable resource for a society.
  2. There should be overall low levels of prejudice in the population.
  3. There should be generally positive mutual attitudes among the various ethnocultural groups that constitute the society.
  4. There needs to be a degree of attachment to the larger national society.

All these points could be debated for and against about our society. Possibly some would claim that all four points are met with flying colors by our society. Others would disagree.

I believe it’s not a question whether we are ready or not for culturally diversity. The fact is that our society is culturally diverse and we should deal with it.

If the aim of political parties like the Perussuomalaiset [1] has been to make Finland white again, then it’s clear that they’ve failed.

* J. W. Berry: Prejudice, Ethnocentrism and Racism. Siirtolaisuus-Migration 2/1996. pp. 5-9.

[1] The Finnish name of the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The English names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.

Milloin minusta tulee suomalainen?

Posted on by Sasu

Sasu Xinhang Öländer

”Olenko suomalainen?” on niitä kysymyksiä, jotka yhdistävät kaikkia toisen polven maahanmuuttajia. Mutta kaikista kipeimmin se koskettaa värillisiä. Kantasuomalaisten keskuudessa kuuluu välillä lausahdus maassa maan tavalla mutta mitä tämä sanonta oikeasti tarkoittaa.

Abdirahim Husu Hussein sanoi kerran maahanmuuttajien poliittisessa paneelista, että on täysin kyllästynyt tähän sanontaan. Hän asettui sanomaan, että eikö somalit jo eläneet maassa maan tavalla. Tietyssä mielessä Abdirahim asetti kysymyksen. Mikä oikeasti riittää?

Tätä me emme usein kysy. Mutta meidän on silti aloitettava siitä. Jos haluat elää suomessa on sinun sopeuduttava ympäristöön. Kovin pala onkin kielen oppiminen. Suomen kieli on yksi vaikeimmista kielistä. Samalla suomen kielen opetus kouluissa on pirstaleista ja usein ala-arvoista. Vanhemmille maahanmuuttajille kielen oppiminen käyttökelpoiselle tasolle on useimmiten lähes mahdotonta. Lasten kohdalla oppimisen mahdollisuudet ovat useimmiten erittäin hyvä. Tämä johtuu siitä että lapset omaksuvat uusia asioita helpommin ja he useimmiten kasvavat pitkälti kantasuomalaisten keskuudessa. Nyrkki sääntö on, että ensimmäinen sukupolvi harvemmin oppii uuden asuin maan tavoille, mutta toinen polvi oppii.

Sitten tulee kulttuuri kohta. Tässäkin kohdassa ensimmäisellä sukupolvella useimmiten on hankaluuksia myötäillä ympäröivää kulttuuria. Heidän lasten kohdalla tilanne on monimutkaisempi. He oppivat koulun kautta erittäin hyvin mitä on olla Suomalainen ja Eurooppalainen. Ongelmaksi tulee silti, että opetus ei ole monikulttuurista. Suomen koulut valitettavasti ovat pahasti etnosentrisiä. Opetus antaa värillisille lapsille ulkoisuuden tunteen. He eivät kykene löytämään itseänsä koulusta samalla tavalla, kuin valkoiset oppilaat. Tämä voi johtaa kahteen mahdolliseen tilanteeseen.

Ensimmäinen on koulutuksen täydellinen hylkääminen koska kouluilla ei ole mitään tarjottavaa värilliselle lapselle. Tavallaan parempi vaihtoehto on koulutuksen vastaan ottaminen. Tässä vaihtoehdossa on enemmän hyötyä, mutta pahoja sivuoireita. Tärkein oire on omiensa mahdollinen hylkääminen. Tämä johtuu siitä että sinä et enään usko, että veljesi ja siskosi eivät ole enään samalla viivalla. Sinä olet nyt käynyt koulun ja oppinut miten olla suomalainen/Eurooppalainen ja näin ollen olet asteen ylempi. Tämä nähtiin siinä miten Afrikkalaiset ja Aasialaiset jotka ovat käyneet Eurooppalaisen koulutuksen olivat irtaantuneet omien maanmiesten todellisuudesta. Pahin on mahdollisen itseinhon synty. Et usko olevasi yhtä hyvä jollet osoita käytökselläsi, että Eurooppalaisuus ja valkeus on hyvä. On mainittava, että median antamat viestit hyvästä/pahasta ja kauniista/rumasta vahvistaa tätä ajattelu mallia.

Toisaalta Suomalaissuusta opitaan myös ympäristöstä. Ympäristö maahanmuuttajilla on pahasti vaihtelevaa. Osa maahanmuuttajista elävät monikulttuurisesta ympäristössä jossa asuu myös kantasuomalaisia. Ja toisaalta osa elää ympäristössä joka on monikulttuurinen mutta kantasuomalaisia ei näy hirveästi. Sellaisessa ympäristössä on huomattavasti hankalampaa suomalaistua. Voisin sanoa sen olevan lähes mahdotonta. Tässä näkyykin selvästi kantasuomalaisten tekopyhyys. He haluavat maahanmuuttajien suomalaistumista, mutta eivät ole valmiita asumaan heidän kanssa.

Sosiologi Sam Richards totesi, että sehän on ihan hullua olettaa maahanmuuttajien sulautuvan ympäröivään yhteiskuntaan, jos hallitseva ryhmä ei ole valmis asumaan heidän kanssa. Miten sinä voit oppia olemaan suomalainen, jos ympärilläsi on vain ainoastaan maahanmuuttajia. Tämä on maahanmuuttokriitikoiden pahin karikko. Jos Jussi Halla-Aho ei ole valmis asumaan Somalien kanssa, ei hänellä ole mitään moraalista oikeutta sanoa, että heidän pitäisi suomalaistua.

Ne jotka uskovat ”maassa maan tavalla” slouganiin näkevät, että mitään muutosta ei ole tapahtunut. He näkevät kulttuurit staattisina elementteinä, jotka eivät ikinä muutu. On suuri virhe uskoa että kulttuuri olisi staattinen. Kulttuuri on alituisessa muutos tilassa. Sekoittuminen on alituinen ilmiö, jota tapahtuu aina monikulttuurisissa yhteisöissä.

Vaikka suomalaiset eivät siitä ehkä pitäisi niin suomalaisuuteen on liittynyt aina vain uusia elementtejä. 1940-50-luvun sukupolvet eivät nuoruudessa kykenisi ajattelemaan, että he saattaisivat hakea Thaihierontaa, akupunktiota, syödä kebab aterioita, nauttia intialaista tai nepalilaista ruokaa ja tuskinpa he voisivat ajattelevan, että miten monen kirjava Kampin ja Asematunnelin edusta voisi olla. He tutkin kykenisivät uskomaan, että he voisivat aivan itse tehdä kiinalaista ruokaa eksoottisilla aineksilla, jotka sinä voit ostaa Hämeentieltä. Jos haluat nähdä maahanmuuton niin tee panorama asematunnelin historiasta.

Nämä analyyttiset todisteet annettuna on meidän palattava alun kysymykseen, mikä tekee sinusta suomalaisen. Jos suomalaisuus on pelkkää tietoisuutta Suomen historiasta ja kulttuurista niin silloin Abdirahim kommentti on oikeutettu. Maahanmuuttokriitikoiden tarvitsee kävellä vain Suomen kouluihin nähdäkseen sen sukupolven. Sukupolven maahanmuuttajia, jotka ovat omaksuneet Suomen heidän toiseksi identiteetiksi. Mutta he löytävät myös kadotetun sukupolven. He ovat värilliset. Värilliset jotka ovat tehneet kaikkensa, mutta se ei riitä vieläkään. Heille kysymys ”milloin olen suomalainen” vaanii olan takana aina, kun ventovieras kysyy mistä tulet. Aina kun he kohtaavat syrjintää, he muistavat, että vaikka he itse mielessään olisivat suomalaisia niin suurimmalle osalle suomalaisia he ovat yhä maahanmuuttajia ja kuokka vieraita. Heille suomalaisuus muuttuu helposti taakaksi. He joutuvat pohtimaan aina mitä he sanovat, kun kysymys tulee. Mitä kantasuomalaiset haluavat kuulla heiltä ja mitä he uskovat. Samalla he kamppailevat median ja yhteiskunnan heijastamia stereotyyppejä vastaan. Stereotyyppejä jotka ovat negatiivisia ja pahin kaikesta on, että värilliset alkavat uskoa siihen.

Stereotyypit ja Internoidut rasistiset uskomukset tekevät suomalaisuus identiteetistä ongelman. Ensiksi olet epävarma kuka sinä olet ja toiseksi et tiedä mitä uskoa itsestä. Oman arvon tunnistaminen on on ongelmista vaikein. Mistä tiedät kuinka kykenevä olet kun yhteiskunta heijastaa hirveän negatiivisen kuvan sinunlaisista. Yrität olla suomalainen, mutta mikään ei tunnu ikinä riittävän. Kun kuulet Maassa Maan Tavalla on sinun kysyttävä etkö sinä jo elä niin.

Martin Luther King sanoi Where Do We Go From Here Chaos or Community kirjassa, että pahin asia jonka ihminen voi menettää on tietämys omasta arvosta ja omasta kulttuurista. Ei ole olemassa pahinta haavaa kuin sielun haava. Vahvin vastalääke tähän on ylpeys. Ylpeys omaan rotuun, etnisyyteen/kulttuuriin ja uskontoon. Kun sinä olet tietoinen omista juurista ja ylpeä niistä, silloin rasismi ei voi tuhota sinua sisältä päin. Malcolm X, Steven Biko ja Martin Luther King toimikoon profeetoina tällä tiellä.

The big picture of Finnish society in the twenty-first century

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the biggest unanswered questions when debating our ever-culturally diverse society in Finland during this century is trying to make out what the big picture is. Do we have to search faraway to forge that big picture or are the answers right under our noses?  

If you ask anti-immigration groups what that big picture is they will quickly cite one-way integration, or assimilation (check the Perussuomalaiset party’s Nuiva Manifesto). On the opposite side of the debate you will hear a completely different answer promoting “tolerance,” or suvaitsevaisuus.

One of the pitfalls of both positions is that they lack a comprehensive view of the big picture. Even if anti-immigration groups are fighting tooth and nail to keep Finnish society “white,” they don’t offer any solutions on how to include those that are visible immigrants and minorities. Tolerance is a very general term and could not stand alone as an effective integration model.

Another key stumbling block in the search for a model is that we haven’t asked the opinion of immigrants and Finns with international backgrounds how they envision our society in this century.

When looking at different integration models we should find one that works best for us.

It is a good matter that Finland looks at Canada as one successful integration model for immigrants. It should be noted, however, that the Canadian model of multiculturalism is totally different from what some anti-immigration groups define it to be.

In Canada it is a model that promotes inclusion of immigrants whereas for anti-immigration groups in Europe it is an immigration policy that permits Muslims and Africans from moving to the region.

If you ever get into a debate with a member of the PS who belongs to the Suomen Sisu association, you should ask that person to define multiculturalism. Is he or she talking about the Canadian social policy that came about in the 1970s or is it an immigration policy that allows Muslims and non-EU nationals from moving to our country?

The first big mistake that anti-immigration groups in Finland and elsewhere make is claiming that we are a multicultural nation. Nowhere in our most important laws like the Constitution is that adjective “multicultural” mentioned. It does not even appear in the Non-Discrimination Act (Yhteenvertaisuuslaki).

What kind of a society are we then? We use a lot the term “multiculturalism” but what does it actually mean? Does it mean cultural diverse society?

If a term like multiculturalism can mean so many things to different groups, this explains in part why we are still in the dark about that big picture of what kind of society we want to build in this century.

The formula and building tools for our society are not in Canada per se but right under our noses. We could have never built such a well-functioning society that is at peace with itself after a very rocky first quarter of a century of our independence without key values such as social equality, or tasa-arvo.

To that key value, we should add other ones like mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities.

If we keep to these values, or those that we use to include all members of our society and apply it to others as well, we will be on the right path.

Thus the big picture of our society in this century should be inclusion through mutual acceptance and respect.

Finland's ever-growing cultural diversity is an opportunity to overcome past fears

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the matters that Finnish academics, politicians, policy makers never mind the general public missed out completely about our ever-growing cultural diversity is that our history and myths are hindering us to see the big picture.  The official and unofficial response to our culturally diverse society appears to be a subtle “no.”

As there are Finns who don’t get it there are others who do. Those that do  build bridges and pathways to our society with mutual acceptance between ourselves and our newest members of our society.

The debate in Finland concerning the big picture about cultural diversity is muddled by our impaired view from inside those trenches that we have dug. Our violent history and the cold war, which kept us geopolitically near-isolated from the rest of the world during 1945-91, are some shovels we have used to dig ourselves in that hole.

We should make an effort to get out of there because the task will take generations.

Debate about our cultural diversity and that big picture of Finnish society in this century should begin first and foremost among ourselves. In that debate, we must make an effort to banish our historical grudges and, most importantly, our fears as a nation of Russia and the outside world.

Any integration program that does not tackle these issue is doomed to failure. Xenophobia and racism will be the most effective weapon of choice used by Finns to keep that “Other” world in its place.

This route is not only a reckless one but very expensive to tax payers. Politicians should be told that integration, inclusion and opportunities will save Finnish tax payers a lot of money as opposed to jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon and spreading urban tales.

As long as some of us continue to live inside those deep trenches, our society will always be threatened by populists and the far right as we saw in the April election, which reinforced institutional and colorblind racism in Finland.

Matters are in a very critical state at present. So much so in fact, that some Finns don’t even believe that racism and populism aren’t a threat to our society.

Past wars have traumatized our country but isn’t time ripe to attempt to heal those wounds?

Like it or not, our ever-growing culturally diverse society is offering us that opportunity.

Finland’s ever-growing cultural diversity is an opportunity to overcome past fears

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

One of the matters that Finnish academics, politicians, policy makers never mind the general public missed out completely about our ever-growing cultural diversity is that our history and myths are hindering us to see the big picture.  The official and unofficial response to our culturally diverse society appears to be a subtle “no.”

As there are Finns who don’t get it there are others who do. Those that do  build bridges and pathways to our society with mutual acceptance between ourselves and our newest members of our society.

The debate in Finland concerning the big picture about cultural diversity is muddled by our impaired view from inside those trenches that we have dug. Our violent history and the cold war, which kept us geopolitically near-isolated from the rest of the world during 1945-91, are some shovels we have used to dig ourselves in that hole.

We should make an effort to get out of there because the task will take generations.

Debate about our cultural diversity and that big picture of Finnish society in this century should begin first and foremost among ourselves. In that debate, we must make an effort to banish our historical grudges and, most importantly, our fears as a nation of Russia and the outside world.

Any integration program that does not tackle these issue is doomed to failure. Xenophobia and racism will be the most effective weapon of choice used by Finns to keep that “Other” world in its place.

This route is not only a reckless one but very expensive to tax payers. Politicians should be told that integration, inclusion and opportunities will save Finnish tax payers a lot of money as opposed to jumping on the anti-immigration bandwagon and spreading urban tales.

As long as some of us continue to live inside those deep trenches, our society will always be threatened by populists and the far right as we saw in the April election, which reinforced institutional and colorblind racism in Finland.

Matters are in a very critical state at present. So much so in fact, that some Finns don’t even believe that racism and populism aren’t a threat to our society.

Past wars have traumatized our country but isn’t time ripe to attempt to heal those wounds?

Like it or not, our ever-growing culturally diverse society is offering us that opportunity.

A new view of our diversity as a society is needed by the Finnish police

Posted on by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

The violence we have witnessed recently against immigrants in cities like Oulu and Espoo Leppävaara put into question the claim that hate crimes fell by 15%  in 2010, according to the Police College of Finland. Apart from raising worrisome questions about the present direction of our society it looks at the role of the police in answering this threat.

Reporting a hate crime to the authorities can be easier said than done, according to a Migrant Tales blog entry.  The low hate-crime figure in 2010 could reveal a worrisome reality:  Mistrust of the police by some immigrants.

It is nothing new that Finland’s society is becoming more culturally and ethnically diverse. The rise of some parties like the anti-immigration Perussuomalaiset (PS), and the ongoing heated debate on some anti-immigration forums, reveal that some Finns, and even immigrants, are either in denial or ignorant about such an ever-growing group.

This reality can be seen in our police force, where you’ll find dear little representation of that ever-growing “Other” Finland.

Migrant Tales got in touch with the police and asked how many non-white police there were in Finland. According to the present law, the police are not required to reveal the ethnic identity of its employees. While steps are being taken to diversify Finland’s police force and change the law in order to recruit more non-white Finns to the force, it is still unclear when this will happen, according to the police.

While I am certain that there are many service-community minded policemen and policewomen in Finland, there appears to be at present a lack of political will to do so.

The apparent lack of will to change matters on this front could explain why the immigrant community has mixed feeling about the police.  Some claim that the police do a fine job while others express mistrust and accuse them of racial profiling.

One good way to undermine mistrust and bolster credibility of the police force is by diversifying it and ensuring immigrants and visible minorities in the process that they are equally protected, not persecuted.  Being colorblind, or arguing that ethnicity has no bearing on a crime, does more harm to the integrity of the police force and its assurances that it serves each member of the community equally.

Changing Finland’s police force to represent “Other” Finns and immigrants may be easier said than done.  As with the rest of society, many still find it difficult to accept immigrants and Finns who are visible minorities as equals. The recent warning by the police about hate speech and racism on the Internet reinforce the latter perception and should concern us all.