social exclusion Archives - Page 11 of 11

Teach me that we are more alike than different…

Posted on September 9, 2012 by Migrant Tales

…teach me not to hate. Teach me the lie and shame of racism [because] it hurts all people. Teach me to learn from you and to learn about me…

Inspirational words from the Center for the Healing of Racism that should be the guiding light enshrined in our national curriculum for schools (opetussuunnitelma) concerning cultural diversity.

What is our aim when we speak of integration of elementary school students?

Is the goal of the teacher to convert these students into ”white Finns” or to socially exclude them by pointing out how different they are? Is the aim between these two extremes?

Identity is a personal matter. Who you are depends on who you think you are. If some have a problem with this, it should be viewed as their problem, not yours.

Social exclusion is like a toxic poison. If you take away a child’s identity at an early age by seeing no worth in his ethnicity and background, you’ll end up undermining his or her self-esteem. People with low self-esteem do poorly at school.

Low self-esteem is a factor behind prejudice as well, according to a study published by Psychological Science.

In the same way as racism is costly to society, it can impair children’s learning abilities, according to a study by Essex University.

Even if Finland has become more culturally diverse from the 1990s, the biggest mistake we can make – in my opinion – is forgetting the importance of diversity and values such as mutual acceptance and respect.

Thus Finnish schools should teach their students that we are more alike than different..the lie and shame of racism because it hurts all people.

It should teach student the value of their culture and the culture of others.

Du Bois and Finland: “Your country”

Posted on September 1, 2012 by Migrant Tales

I read an interesting blog entry on Racism Review about what W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963), sociologist, historian and civil rights activist, wrote* about blacks in the United States. His words still ring out today in light of the hostility we see today towards immigrants and visible minorities in many parts of Europe and the United States.

Even if the number of immigrants and visible minorities has been small in countries like Finland, these people form today an integral part of our society and history.

That history is being made right now and at this moment. Every day that passes we shed more roots in this country. Our home in Finland begins to sound like Woody Guthrie’s famous song, This land is your land.

Take a look at what Du Bois wrote over a century ago and try to picture Finland and our every-growing cultural diversity. Board a time machine and travel 30 years in the future and imagine Du Bois’ words in a Finnish context today:

Your country? How came its yours? Before the Pilgrims landed we were here. Here we have brought our three gifts and mingled them with yours: a gift of story and song—soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit.

Around us the history of the land has centered for thrice a hundred years; out of the nation’s heart we have called all that was best to throttle and subdue all that was worst; fire and blood, prayer and sacrifice, have billowed over this people, and they have found peace only in the altars of the God of Right.

Nor has our gift of the Spirit been merely passive. Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation,—we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong, careless people to despise not Justice, Mercy, and Truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse. Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving?

Would America have been America without her Negro people? Even so is the hope that sang in the songs of my fathers well sung. If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, than anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free. Free, free as the sunshine trickling down the morning into these high windows of mine, free as yonder fresh young voices welling up to me from the caverns of brick and mortar below—swelling with song, instinct with life, tremulous treble and darkening bass. My children, my little children, are singing to the sunshine, and thus they sing: Let us cheer the weary traveller, Cheer the weary traveller, Let us cheer the weary traveller Along the heavenly way. And the traveler girds himself, and sets his face toward the Morning, and goes his way.

*Reference: W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (pp. 125-126). Public Domain Books. Kindle. (Free version here)

Exceptional Finns with immigrant backgrounds

Posted on August 11, 2012 by Migrant Tales

Some Exceptional Finns with so-called immigrant backgrounds are Husein Muhammed, Nasima Razmyar, Arman Alizad, Tino Singh, Abdirahim Husu Hussein and Ali Jahangiri. All of them have one thing in common: They are exceptions to the stereotype but have immigrant backgrounds.

But how can you call a person who has lived most of his or her life in Finland “a person with immigrant background” if he speaks Finnish or Swedish as his main language or is near-perfectly bilingual? For how long must that person carry that extra label, immigrant background, before he or she is accepted?

You know that there is something fishy about the whole term, Exceptional Finns, since anti-immigration parties like the Perussuomalaiset, speak in favor of these types of immigrants and Finns.

Exceptional minorities permit racists to be racists. You are an exception and therefore you can get your shoes shined. Only exceptional people count from your ethnic group. Let’s not dwell on the problem: Why are people shining shoes and living in poverty in the first place? Answer: They are not exceptions. Source: Flickr.

The fact that these exceptional people are not considered full-fledged Finns (because they have that drop of immigrant background) not only reveals a lot about our racism but our views of cultural diversity.

Cultural diversity is not a social illness. It not colorblind as well. It is a lifestyle-identity choice that we make personally and which society should protect and encourage. Whether we want to hyphenated our identity or not is a personal choice. It is our choice.

The existence of the Exceptional Finn with immigrant background reveals how some want to eat their racist cake and have it at the same time. It permits them to feel like they are not racist even if they are. This line of thinking in a white Finnish world would work in the following way: Those who do not succeed at becoming exceptions are failures.

In many respects, and in a Finnish context, all these cases represent what Julian Abagond calls in the United States Exceptional Negroes.

“Exceptional Negroes are those who are ‘no like other blacks.’ They do not fit the stereotypes. Sometimes they achieve great things, rise to the top of their field,” writes Abagond. “They become sports heroes, film stars, tokens, black best friends, beloved servants and so on. Some even have white fans, lovers or admirers.”

Language plays an important role in Finland and is an important factor fueling discrimination. Finland’s large white Russian community is a case in point.

Finnish youths with immigrant backgrounds are the new underclass

Posted on August 5, 2012 by Migrant Tales

A new map published by Statistics Finland shows the percentage of marginalized youths (15-29 yrs) by regions. It not only shows a growing problem in this country, but an especially serious one among youths with immigrant backgrounds, who have a much higher chance of being marginalized than white Finns.

A marginalized youth is anyone who is unemployed and not attending school after finishing middle school.

The black boxes are white Finnish youths and the yellow ones youths with immigrant backgrounds. They show what percentage of youths (15-29 yrs) are marginalized from the whole age group.

The highest number of marginalized youths with immigrant backgrounds are n Kainuu (28.8% with immigrant backgrounds versus 3.4% white Finns), Kymenlaakso (26.1%/5.1%), Lappi (24.4%/3.8%), Etelä-Savo (21.7%/3.7%), Pohjois-Karjala (21.3%/3.0%), and Pirkanmaa (21.0%/3.5%).

The lowest percentages can be found in Etelä-Pohjanmaa (12.4%/2.6%), Etelä-Karjala (15.8%/4.1%), Keski-Pohjanmaa (16.0%/2.8%) and Satakunta (16.6%/3.9%)

What do these percentages tell us? In my opinion, they show that we have failed miserably to integrate and accept people with immigrant backgrounds as equal members of our society.

How many of these marginalized youths with immigrant backgrounds have lived the majority of their formative years in Finland? Why do some, after living most of their lives in this country, still feel like outsiders?

While being marginalized is a complex matter that is attributable to many factors, probably the first step in becoming part of this underclass is accepting that you do not belong here. You start to believe that Finland is a country made only for white Finns.

If there is a neglected underclass in Finland, they are the youths with immigrant backgrounds!

Somali-Finn Abdulah: Living in no-man’s land (Part 2)

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Migrant Tales

When Abdulah*, 30, talks to you about his twenty-two years in Finland, one of the first questions that arises is how has so much suffering escaped our attention. For Abdulah, acceptance isn’t only virtually impossible from white Finns, but can be just as hard to get from the Somali community.

“I have decided to live outside this society,” he says. “I have learned that there is no place here. Even my people have turned their backs on me.”

Abdulah says that there are two matters you must never lose if you don’t want to be abandoned by the Somali community.

“Language and religion are crucial,” he explains. “I don’t speak Somali that well anymore since I grew up in this country. I became an atheist two years ago and left the Muslim faith.”

How long will it take for minorities like the Somalis to be treated as equals in Finland?

Abdulah admits that he no longer believes in god.

“How can there be a god if people are constantly killing each other in Somalia?” he continues. “How can there be a god if there’s so much hatred and racism towards you in this country? How can god exist in such hells?”

There are many young men like Abdulah in Finland, who grew up the greater part of their lives in this country. He says that some have problems with the law.

“I don’t identify with such people anymore because I used to be one of them,” he says. “If you start drinking and taking drugs, your situation will only get worse. That’s the reason why I changed my life.”

Abdulah hasn’t forsaken hope despite the difficulties he’s faced. Two factors give him strength: his family and plans to be a gardener.

Billboards like these in the early 1990s spread prejudice about Somalis in Finland. The tabloid ad claims that Somalis had made phone calls to the tune of hundreds of thousands of marks and supposedly passed the bill to the social authorities.

“But living in Finland still feels like being in a trap,” he adds. “I want to free myself but I don’t know how.”

Abdulah discovered Migrant Tales by chance when he was searching for an alternative forum that spoke up for immigrants and visible minorities like him.

“I used to visit Suomi24, Hommaforum and even took part in Iltalehti chat forums,” he says. “They always said the same negative things about immigrants and Somalis. I felt relieved when I found Migrant Tales. It was like a light at the end of a dark tunnel that gave me hope.”

Abdulah is a very sensitive and respectful person. Despite the difficulties he’s encountered, he believes that one must be outspoken if he’s going to challenge a social ill like racism.

“We have to fight back,” he concludes. “Silence hasn’t changed my life for the better. That’s why I’m active in forums like Migrant Tales.”

*Abdulah’s name has been changed to protect his identity.

Study: Homophobia and racism hinder young minority athletes from joining Finnish sports clubs

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Migrant Tales

By Enrique Tessieri

Helsingin Sanomat reported that homophobia and racism are two factors that hinder young minority athletes from joining a Finnish sports club, according to a study. If the story is true it is not only another indication that some Finns live tucked deep in the values of the previous century, but for this to be going on still today is shameful, self-defeating and above all unacceptable.

Another factor that stops minorities from joining a sports club is cost.

Even if discrimination is an obtacle in some sports clubs it is a reflection of our society as a whole and our acceptance by too many of these types of social ills.

Like any social ill, racism and homophobia are difficult but not impossible to show. Even so, the study shows that prejudice and racism do not foster inclusion but fuel social exclusion.

What to do? When battling discrimination we have to first make a decision that we will actually challenge this social ill. Secondly, we must be persistent and patient because eradicating decades of near-unchallenged racism and homophobia in Finland will take many generations.

Despite the challenge, the sooner we begin the better for the sake of our future generations.