Last Friday, on the Marja Sannikka show about racism, was a fiasco. It was the worst talk show on racism I have seen in Finland. It was such a flop that the host, Sannikka, allowed one of the guests to say the full n-word twice and did not even object.
Before I continue, I would like to say that Renaz Ebrahimi is a brave woman who brought up some crucial points about the discrimination and racism minorities face daily in Finland.
The Marja Sannikka show was the worst talk show I have ever seen in Finland. It was like putting Renaz Ebrahimi in a shark tank with Esko Valtaoja and the host, who made no qualms about showing off their ignorance and white privilege. Ebrahimi held one’s own. See the full show here.
Thanks to the show, the n-word and the full n-word were trending on Twitter. Moreover, when you watch these types of flops you know that nothing will improve on the anti-racism front in Finland.
But what can you expect when the host and gust, Esko Valtaoja, an astronomer and writer, faced off Ebrahimi by using the full n-word on the show.
After listening to some of Valtaoja’s points, I wondered why Sannikka invited him? Apart from his ethnocentric views dressed in white privilege, there was nothing constrictive coming from him.
Sannikka’s comments about how to deal with racism were a flop as well. Like Valtaoja, she is white and has no idea what racism is because it has never affected her in the same way as Ebrahimi.
At best, she showed her ignorance of the issue.
Shameful lazy journalism where we allow our prejudices to dictate solutions that are full of flaws.
Racism is such a big issue in Finland that even white people are discriminated.
Another news story. Another example. You will lose out in the Finnish labor market if you don’t have a Finnish name. If there is overwhelming proof that this type of discrimination takes place, why does it continue? Why aren’t there any stories in the Finnish media that sued an employer for discrimination?
Why are we reading over and over again ad nauseam about labor market discrimination?
Instead of changing your name to a Finnish-sounding one, why isn’t enough being done?
The big issues isn’t exposing discrimination in the media and in studies, which is welcome, but not doing or doing very little about it is the problem. We don’t make a big fuss about discrimination because we don’t take it seriously enough.
The ongoing discussion in Finland about our ever-growing cultural and ethnic diversity is grounded on two misleading assertions that hide the core problem: language is the magic bullet to become a part of society, and white Finnish society is innocent – if you don’t adapt it’s because of you.
Heikki Turkka of Children of the Station (Aseman lapsia ry) association was quoted as saying on MTV that youth gans in Helsinki may mostly comprise of so-called children of migrant backgrounds.
He adds offering an explanation to why non-white Finns may be a majority in such gangs:
“I’m not surprised at all when I am working with youths,” he said. “If you lack the right language skills, it’s not possible to have the same opportunities to succeed at school, academia, or in a hobby where you would be accepted. In such a case, your opportunities are limited.”
Few will deny that language plays an important role in one’s adaption in Finland and elsewhere. What is misleading, however, is that we spread this myth as a panacea to your final adaption to this country.
Most people know about how difficult it is for a member of the Roma community to get a job interview despite the fact that that person’s mother tongue is Finnish. There are also examples of how difficult it is for brown Finns and other minorities to get job interviews because of their ethnic and cultural background.
An interesting case in point is Spain, where there is a sizeable Latin American community. These people speak Spanish as their mother tongue, are mostly Catholics, and know about Spanish culture because their country of birth was once a Spanish colony.
Finland is in a bind, and we have heard these for a long time: Finland’s population is aging, and there is an ever-growing need for foreign labor. Our answer to these challenges is not only disappointing but leaving our future to chance.
Why is there such a negative and suspicious attitude towards foreigners in Finland? Is it because during the Cold War, geopolitical isolation waws the rule in Finland? Is it due to the myths that feed our exceptionalism at schools? Is it history and our conflicts with the former Soviet Union that left a bitter taste in our mouths?
How come Finland’s second-largest party in parliament is hostile towards immigrants and normally sounds like a rabid dog barging whenever it lashes out its racist views?
Is it xenophobia plain and simple?
It is a positive matter that some Finns have spoken about the anti-foreign atmosphere that robs the country and migrants of utilizing their potential.
A letter to the Helsingin Sanomat editor signed by two rectors of the University of Turku, Haaga-Helia, and a University of Jyväskylä development manager wrote:
“Effective cooperation is needed for the internationalization of higher education institutions generally, to benefit the labor market and society. It requires a change in national attitude [towards foreigners].”
Even if the letter to the editor is essential and shows leadership in an area abandoned to the jaws of populism and politicking, xenophobic sentiment in Finland continues to grow, keeping the whole nation’s moral compass hostage.
Does Finland have the will to change and live up to its highest values enshrined in the constitution?
Time guards the secret to that answer, but rest assure, we will know sooner or later.
I, if anyone, wishes Finland’s new prime minister, Sanna Marin, the best of luck and success.
Someone asked me a while back what I thought about former Prime Minister Antti Rinne’s government and if it signalled major improvements and changes in immigration policy and in fighting racism.
My answer was short: It all depends on the deeds.
While there has been a lot of talk by the government about respecting human rights, the rule of law, we still have not moved forward even if suspicion and racism are no longer the narrative as was the case in Juho Sipilä’s government.
We’re still in the same place we were before: The hardline policy of the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) is still the rule; there is a national outcry and lack of leadership about repatriating 10 women and about 30 children from the al-Hol camp in Syria; racism is profitable politically as opinion polls show; there are no new effective steps to tackle racism, job discrimination, hate speech and hate crime in our society.
When Prime Minister Marin speaks of ensuring that Finland remains an inclusive and socially just society, she must mean for migrants and minorities as well.
Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s government. See any minorities?Source: Facebook.
I might be wrong and I hope I am. If the picture above and the ethnic makeup of Marin’s government is anything to go by, it sill does not show any visible minorities.
Helsingin Sanomat, the country’s biggest daily, celebrated its 130th anniversary on Saturday. Congratulations on your important anniversary but the picture below reinforces what I knew about the daily and Finnish mainstream media in general: It’s too white.
Considering that Helsingin Sanomat is the newspaper of Finland’s capital Helsinki, it is surprising that there are no visible minorities in the picture, considering that 9.4% (59,779 persons) of the city’s total population of 635,181 in 2016/2017 are foreign citizens, according to Helsingin väestö vuodenvaihteessa 2016/2017 ja väestönmuutokset vuonna 2016.
The percentage is even higher if look at people who speak another language other than Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue (93,214/14.7%) and who were not born in Finland (86,998/13.6%).
Can you spot a minority? Read the full story (in Finnis) here.
One of the problems of Finland’s ongoing debate on its ever-growing culturally and ethnically diverse society is that the predominantly white media give a lopsided – usually inaccurate – account of our communities.
One good way of challenging the present situation is to encourage more non-white Finns to become journalists and writers and, importantly, encourage them to write courageously about our communities and realities.
Racism is not an idea to be debated, it is a social ill that we must fight.
Wouldn’t you know it? One of the whitest countries in Europe, Finland, is afraid of being taken over by Muslims and other people of color. Who else but members of the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* party are pushing these types of conspiracy theories?
The whole idea that one of Europe’s whitest countries is being taken over by people of color reveals Finland’s deep-bedded racism.
Sounding like the far-right marches of Charlottesville in June 2017, where they chanted “Jews will not replace us,” newly elected vice president Riikka Purra and party chairperson Jussi Halla-aho are playing the same vicious tune.
In a Helsingin Sanomat article, a non-issue like white Finns is discussed. Since nothing of this is happening, and therefore it isn’t news, the story is about the racist and mistaken worldviews of PS politicians like Purra.
Trying to raise a storm in a teacup, Purra gives us some lessons about her far-right credentials. She states that when “population changes” the population changes (duh!), but if it changes a lot it means population replacement. She asks in the tweet a question to Helsingin Sanomat: If 70% of Finland’s population would be German, would Finland’s population change or be replaced?
These types of fear-mongering, that whites will become a minority in their own country, is an old theme used in other countries. Even in a 1966 Reader’s Digest article,”Yhdysvaltain todellinen n-sana ongelma,” (The real n-word problem in the United States), warns readers about how major cities in the US will be soon taken over by blacks.
The article reads: “If the current [birth rate] trend continues, n-words will be by 1980 the majority in Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis.”
Nothing of the sort happened in 1980 or later. According to the 2010 census, the percentage of black people living in Detroit was 22.8%, Cleveland 20.1%, Baltimore 28.7%, and Chicago 17.0%.
And so what if it happened? Is it that some white people fear being treated the same way they and history have treated minorities like blacks?
Let me put it in the simplest language like in this recent Migrant Tales podcast: “None of us want to be white like you [Halla-aho, Purra, and PS party secretary Simo Grönroos] never mind hold the same racist ideas like you. That would be horrible. However, everyone irrespective of their background is an equal member of society who defines Finnishness in the way he or she wishes. Finnishness does not and will never mean being white.”
Apart from being one of the whitest countries of Europe, Finland has seen over 1.2 million of its nationals emigrate abroad between 1860 and 1999. If all of these emigrants would have stayed in Finland, our population would be today about 7 million.
Moreover, these emigrants that moved mostly to North America before World War 2 and thereafter to Sweden did the most normal and natural thing: they mixed ethnically and culturally with people of other cultures.
Mark my words and read my lips: Finland will be culturally and ethnically diverse because it has always been such a country. Excluding and labeling Others as second-class members of society is what Purra, Halla-aho and the PS are going. They want to build a country where some are more equal than others.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.
Finnish election campaigns make it hard to stay calm even for a tax-paying, diligent, well-educated and fluent in local language EU-citizen with two decades of history in this inward-turning country showing more and more its ugly face of xenophobia and hatred.
In a country which makes you wonder nearly every day if it actually joined the European Union over 20 years ago and ever implemented the basic freedom of movement, Perussuomalaiset* (PS) party Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho expresses concern regarding the incoming and outgoing workforce flows between Finland and other EU member states.
How “free” has that flow been? It is still absolutely an exception that a skilled EU citizen would come to work for a company in Finland. Not even exchange-student graduates succeed in finding employment other than menial jobs like janitors after their studies end. Many of them must seek professional careers in other Western countries or back home rather than stay in Finland.
Plans to attract foreign qualified workers are delegated to work groups formed by Finnish politicians and public servants and not allowing foreigners to speak for themselves. A unique phenomenon a foreigner faces is that a Finn always knows better than an immigrant and what the immigrant ought to “feel.” Chewing through theory with no practical results brings an outcome that unemployment among qualified immigrants remains high in this country.
The language barrier is a fake pretext for keeping people unemployed. The real reason is Finns’ low tolerance for otherness. Most companies are too afraid to embrace the knowledge from diversity provided by someone not holding a degree and fitting into the narrow Finnish box.
Past years have shown that even education and work experience acquired abroad by Finns is poorly recognized if that person returns to Finland. Such people need their own support groups. It is as if living abroad was an impairment on their ability to handle working life. Knowhow flows unused through the stiff fingers of Finnish intolerance and fear. It is a fear of promoting local mediocrity at the cost of foreign smartness.
PS leader Halla-aho also fears that the brain drain in Finland is causing many educated Finns to move away from the “world’s happiest country.” To make matters worse, many have good chances to find employment in other countries that are smart enough to embrace diversity. Not Finland though.
A poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) showed a lot of concern in Finland about its locally educated workforce moving away from the country while immigration flows remain low. This scenario is exacerbated by the ever-growing ageing population posing problems in the near future. For more information on this go here.
So at least one of Halla-aho’s observations is correct. Also, educated Finns will more and more use their authentic EU freedoms to leave a sinking ship called Finland.
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. Despite the name changes, we believe that it is the same party in different clothing. Both factions are hostile to cultural diversity never mind Muslims and other visible minorities. One is more open about it while the other says it in a different way.
A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.
The Helsingin Sanomat headline of the newly appointed Ombudswoman for Children, Elina Pekkarinen, says it all: “the new Ombudswoman for Children knows the needs of Finnish children. OK, fair enough. Newspapers decide on the wording of the headline. Even so, there is not one word mentioned how the new ombudswoman will protect the rights and situation of non-white Finnish children.
One gets the view after reading the article that only white children who live in Finland matter. These cliens are served by other white officials who smile in pictures.
But all of this could be a mistake, right? Here is Migrant Tales overreacting again.
I visited the Ombudswoman for Children website and all the pictures portray the ideal family and smiling authorities who are all white.
If the webpage was anything to go by, there are no non-white children and parents living in Finland.
The fact that the article is all smiles and all white tells me which groups calls the shots in Finland. It is another example how non-white children are treated and represented as second- and third-class members of Finnish society.
Comments Christian Thibault, Liikkukaa CEO: “Although we have to give Elina Pekkainen the benefit of the doubt, the attitude displayed in the HS article must raise eyebrows. Over 20% of the children in the Helsinki-Vantaa-Espoo region have at least one parent who was born in another country than Finland. It is naive, or even negligent, to maintain color blindness towards the situation of those children.”
And adds: “The statistics about discrimination and experience of violence by children [of color] with at least one immigrant parent speak volumes.”
Ahti Tolvanen, chairperson of the Forum for Foreign Scholars, writes on Facebook: “What exactly is the condition of underaged children seeking asylum in this country? Seems many are kept with their parents in the same substandard reception centres in overcrowded conditions. Are suspect kids of parents with asylum refusals often get separated from their parents just like in the US? This lady has an assignment waiting for her.”
Susannah, a member of Migrant Tales who writes on condition of anonymity, writes: “The constitution also guarantees rights to migrants. One of these rights is not to be returned to a country where your life would be in danger.”
Congratulations on your appointment, Elina Pekkarinen, but what are you going to do about improving the plight of non-white Finnish children and families? This question is not addressed in the Helsingin Sanomat article.
A new forecast by Statistics Finland tells us what we’ve known for a long time: We are in demographic hot water and our population will start to shrink and get older, according to YLE News. Net immigration will keep up present population levels at 5.6 million until 2035, but will decline to 5.5 million in the 2050s.
YLE News writes: “In 2010, the average number of births per woman in Finland was 1.87, compared to an average of 1.49 children per woman in 2017 — the lowest level in Finnish history. The overall fertility rate in 2018 is expected to decline to 1.43 and the last time that the birth rate declined as much in consecutive years was in the 1960s.”
As population forecasts show, Finland needs to take steps to increase its low birthrate and lure migrants to the country.
Using the roughly 35,000 asylum seekers that moved to Finland in 2015-2016 as an example, it’s clear that Finland and the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) have shown their usual hostile face to migration.
