Tag: immigration

Turning naivety on Finland into action

Posted on by Migrant Tales

Like many second-generation Finns that lived abroad, I too hoped to move back to live in Finland one day.

While the decision to move back was an easy one, I encountered my first setback when I applied for a residence permit. In the late-1970s, Finland had a pretty draconian view of who was and was not a Finn.

Even though I had a Finnish mother and had spent most of my childhood and adolescent summers in the country with my grandparents, I was treated by the law like a foreigner with no rights. The first residence permit I got was for three months, then it was extended for six and later on for two years.

The treatment I got from the authorities, and those that were enforcing it at the Aliens’ Office, forced my naivety of Finland to vanish rapidly. A woman who worked at the Aliens’ Office once snapped at me, when I protested at the unfair treatment I was getting.

“You’re not a Finn!” she said, adding I had no bonds to the culture!

Certainly I wasn’t a Finn, officially, but that’s not how I felt.

Who is a Finn anyway? Who decides? Is it a passport? Language? What about if you’re deaf? Is it culture? Or does it boil down to a deep-rooted feeling of “where one feels he is from?”

Many challenges await Finland as we race deeper into the 21st century. One of the greatest of these is learning how to accept others from different backgrounds and use their synergies to strengthen and forge our sense of Finnish identity.

There is ample room for people from other national backgrounds to live in Finland and be accepted and encouraged to feel that they are a part of a noble project we call Finland. In this country of the future, Finland will prosper.

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.

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.