Tag: Immigration policy

Some reasons behind Finland’s strong anti-immigrant stance

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Having lived in Finland on and off for 30 years, I have come to some explanations why some Finns feel so strongly about immigration.

I could give you the usual explanations: Finland has had few immigrants, the climate, difficult language, the culture, lack of jobs etc…

These are the most common explanations that make us go around in circles and stop those most critical Finns on immigration to see the other side of the issue.

One of the reasons, which is rarely looked at more deeply, is Finland’s suspicion of Russians. While there are a lot of reasons that justify such a stance, it keeps our view on things very limited. It confines us in a small town were some of us only have the ability to see 50km or 100km from where we live.

Some of us still do not believe the Continuation War (1941-44) ended close to 64 years ago and our “special relationship” with the former Soviet Union finished in the early 1990s.

Let me get to the point:

1) The reason why the number of foreigners dwindled after the Second World War was because of our relationship with the USSR. We did not have a refugee policy because asylum-seekers from the Soviet Union were supposed to be returned to Russian authorities with no respect for their human rights.

2) Finland was in constant threat, and extremely concerned, by the influence and threat the Soviet Union posed. Finland could not become a haven – like Germany – for anti-Soviet propaganda. Accepting refugees from the USSR would have put Finland’s independence in jeopardy.

3) If we look at our stance towards outsiders, I believe it stems a lot from our difficult relationship with the Soviet Union. Some despise Russians so much that we do not even want to buy ceded territories like Karelia because that would imply taking in a large Russian-speaking minority.

4) A good example of this fear and suspicion is that we have scores of contingency plans for thousands, maybe tens of thousands of Russians overrunning Finland. There are many examples of poorer countries living next to richer ones where such fears are not an issue.See Mexico versus the United States, Bolivia versus Argentina, Indonesia versus Australia…

5) Could it be that we are still building a national identity after 1917 that has as its mentors the threats of the last century? Are the police and civil servants responsible for handling immigrant affairs still living in the in the cold war era? Where they junior civil servants back then and now are in senior positions?

Conclusion: We need a totally new way of seeing Finnish culture, where one of its main pillars will be a more open society to outsiders. It will be a culture that does not see the world through myopic eyes but through very open ones. A society were racism has very little space to breed and grow. A country where everyone can grow and live in dignity.

When in Finland do as the Finns do…

Posted on by Migrant Tales

I read an interesting post in Svenskfinland titled, “When in Rome, do as the Romans,” and it set me thinking.

The post continues: “…in other words, that integration should mean that migrants to Finland so quickly as possibly forget their own background and take on entirely a Finnish lifestyle – essentially abandoning or replacing their own cultural values and taking on ours completely. This argument comes up in comments to Migrant Tales and in many other online and offline debates on immigration and integration policy.”

While there are many Finns such as Svenskfinland who think differently, I would like to ask those who believe this form of “integration or bust” to tell me how it works. How do you integrate non-Finns to become 100% Finns and throw away their culture(s)?

I wonder what my late father would say about so-called 100% integration? He never learned to speak English well not because he did not want to, but because he did not agree with many US values. Not speaking flawless English was his way of protesting against other values. Have you ever wondered why Blacks, Mexicans, Finns, Italians speak a foreign language differently in a foreign country? Possibly it is a way to identify with a certain national group.

I’m also thinking of the hundreds of thousands of first-generation Finns that moved to the Americas. I remember in my own study on the Finns of Argentina, where there were first- and even second-generation Finns who had lived almost all their lives in Argentina but never learned to speak Spanish like the majority culture.

A question: Why do some think that it is OK for a foreigner to give up his culture but consider it “high treason” if that Finn living abroad threw away his culture? Why hasn’t Finland done away with the Saami, Swedish-speaking Finns and other groups?

The answer: My father grew up in the United States and educated himself by going to university WITHOUT giving up his culture and values. The United States gave him an opportunity and he made the best of it. Southern Californian society was also tolerant enough of people who came from different cultural and national backgrounds.

The argument that foreigners should give up their cultures to become Finns is preposterous. It would never worked and is doomed to failure. It is the answer to a segregated society full of complex rules of exclusion and inclusion.

What IS an effective way of integrating people? In my opinion, you cannot force integrating anyone. But one can inspire others to integrate, if they want.

If a society expresses outright suspicion, hostility and places a bunch of impossible so-called “integration” tests on its new inhabitants, it will have very few people wanting to become a part of it.  Immigrants are people and, like the inhabitants of the host country, work to help create economic growth.

Towards an effective immigration policy in Finland

Posted on by Migrant Tales

It is very easy to complain about why Finland should be reticent or more open about foreigners moving to the country to plug the ever-growing labor shortage and arrest the aging process of the Finnish population.

If I could lay the foundations of Finland’s new immigrant policy, I’d make the following recommendations:

1) Decide once and for all that Finland needs foreigners.

2) Accept that foreigners are a POSITIVE matter for Finnish society. Finnish culture — like the cultures the foreigners represent as well — will benefit and grow by living in the same country in a society that has become a beacon of hope for many down-trodden countries. The success — not the marginalization — of a foreigner will benefit Finland.

3) Some Finns’ views that integration is a one-way street is the surest way to create a society of insiders and outsiders. This will undermine Finland. Finnish culture and society has the means to inspire other national groups to take part in it.

4) As a result of the foreigners and especially their children and grandchildren, Finnish culture will enrich itself as a result. It will become stronger.

5) Foreigners, like Finns, have to be given opportunities to grow and develop. Like Martin Luther King said: a person should be weighed by his character NOT by his skin color. Like Finns, foreigners have the ability to bring new ideas. New ideas work if they are effective and successful.

6) Since the above-mentioned factors are in short supply these days — albeit changing slowly — there has to be a totally different view and attitude to the mindset. Without them we will fail miserably.

Finnish immigration policy is lost in time

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Every country has a sensitive nerve. Find and touch it and you will hear pain – or outrage. In the US it is Washington’s unilateral approach to foreign policy, accepting that it was a crime against humanity to drop two atom bombs on Japan, in Spain it is the pillaging of Latin America from the 16th century, in France it is accepting that French culture has been relegated to a second-class global status, in Argentina it is being an animal rights advocate and in Germany it is exposing in great detail the crimes committed against the Jews and other nationalities during the Nazi regime.

What is Finland’s vulnerable nerve? In my opinion it is having a totally new look at Russia and immigration in general. Specifically, seeing these two latter matters as an opportunity – not as a gas pump to feed one’s nationalism and an opportunity to exploit to the maximum.

Those who know little about Finland will usually claim that the country has been hardened by its uneasy relationship with its giant eastern neighbor Russia. Three terrible wars (Civil, Winter and Continuation) shaped how some Finns saw the outside world. Basically it was seen as a threat compared with being an opportunity.

If anything, Finnish immigration policy, especially after the Second World War, reflects this attitude. Imagine, if the “white” Russians have caused so much harm to Finland, what kind of a unknown threat would other cultures pose on the country? Finland’s attitude towards outsiders had also been expressed in its antiquated foreign investment laws that prohibited foreigners from owning stakes in key industries such a forestry, own land etc. The law, which came into force in 1939, was only thrown into the trashcan of history after Finland became a EU member in 1995.

Even though I have a lot of hope that matters will eventually change for the better in Finland, I’m not holding my breath. Many of the policy makers who are now drafting Finland’s immigration and multicultural policy grew up during the cold war era, when Finland walked a very thin geopolitical line. Another factor that has kept Finland’s immigration policy lost in time is that it is guided mostly by nationalist emotions. How many foreigners or sons of foreigners wield enough power in Finland to influence such decisions? Very few – if none. The situation is a bit like being a white racially ignorant social worker from Alabama offering advice to Blacks in Harlem. The best people to help such Blacks are the Blacks from Harlem.

To conclude, Finland’s stance and policy on immigration is like the internationalization that Finnish companies underwent in the 1980s. They became “international” companies but had few if any non-Finns working for them.

In memory of Eila Kännö

Posted on by Migrant Tales

For those of you who had the opportunity to move to Finland in the 1970s or early 1980s, will certainly remember Eila Kännö, the head of the then-Aliens’ Office. Has anyone counted how many times the name of the immigration office has changed since the 1970s? I have lost track.

She was the epitome of keeping Finland “clean” of foreigners.  Kari, the late Helsingin Sanomat cartoonist, who was well known for his stance against immigrants in Finland, did a cartoon of Kännö.  She was depicted as a doorwoman standing guard in front of hordes or inhuman-looking foreigners attempting to enter the country. Helsingin Sanomat compared her style of rule with Benito Mussolini’s.

But her hard-line stance was her downfall. Kännö had threatened in an evening paper to throw the foreigners, who had staged the biggest demonstration ever in the early 1980s demanding greater rights, into jail because it was illegal for a non-Finn to organize a demonstration. There was a loophole: The Helsinki University Union student body organized the demonstration.

That demonstration was what probably brought Kännö down. The more hostile and reticent the Aliens’ Office became the more of a liability she became.  It’s incredible that some Finns and well-known journalists like Pekka Karhuvaara approved of her tough autocratic style.

One of the favorite arguments used by police authorities back then why Finland had to keep outsiders from living in Finland was because they were “potential criminals.” Incredulous, no?

We should never forget this bleak period and more should be written about it. Not for revenge but that such policy mistakes never occur again.