debate on racism in Finland (s.c.nordic texts)

The home pages for the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.nordic

RXML parse error: No current scope.
 | <if variable="print is 1">
 | <if not="not" variable="print is 1">

---->

RXML parse error: No current scope.
 | <if variable="print is 1">
 | <if not="not" variable="print is 1">
 | <if not="not" variable="print is 1">

It is difficult to forgive Eugene Holman for his comments on race relations in Finland (letters, September 1) and some reinforcement of Jon Henley's original article (August 18) seems to be in order.

Commenting on a recent Finnish periodic report, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination was particularly critical of the tendency to underrate the importance of racist phenomena in Finland. Eugene Holman gives a good example of this as he argues that such phenomena "have to be put into perspective".

The fact is that there are quite a few places where Holman, as a black person, would be ill-advised to go alone. The situation in the eastern Finnish town of Joensuu a couple of years ago was so bad that the best advice the Chief Constable could give to black residents was to stay home in the evenings. Shortly after this, a black American basketball player left Joensuu, complaining that he feared for his safety in public places.

We do not argue that middle-class blacks and other immigrants cannot succeed in this largely middle-class country. It is, however, time to stop dwelling on the alleged forgivable historical causes of Finnish "reserve with respect to foreigners" (a euphemism for xenophobia) and to deal with racial discrimination in all its forms.

No institutionalised racism? In a much-publicised incident on 21.1.1995, a black man was followed on a train journey and then kicked unconscious by a group of white men at the Helsinki Central Railway station. Three railway employees (responsible for public order) stood by and did nothing. The attackers were still present when the police arrived but no action was taken. One witness reported that it was even too much trouble for them to call for an ambulance. There were several eye witnesses to the event and video surveillance of the railway station but no suspects were identified. In another, similar incident the police did catch one of the attackers and confiscated a film containing pictures of the assault. Despite this advantage, no suspects were identified.

As one prominent Helsinki human rights lawyer later commented: "if these people had been foreign drug dealers, they would be behind bars now".

There are countless other examples but perhaps the most telling is the commonplace phenomenon of Russian- speaking parents instructing their children to speak in a whisper when in public places such as buses and trains. Holman points out that the current and highly popular Miss Finland is black, but racism in Finland is not only about skin colour.

At the level of the law, it is still noticeable that only sex discrimination is taken seriously in Finland. A black person who is passed over in favour of a less well-qualified Finnish employee has no effective legal remedy unless the two candidates are of opposite sexes. Furthermore, a proposal to amend this state of affairs was rejected by the Refugee and Migration Affairs Commission with no discussion. At the same time the Commission supported the creation of special immigration and welfare privileges for non-citizens of remote Finnish descent. In at least one case, access to these privileges was secured by means of a dna test. It is difficult to frame a more obviously racist piece of legislation.

Immigrants in Finland have fought for and achieved an extraordinary liberalisation of the law in the last decade. Non-citizens have, for example, gained freedom of speech and lawful assembly, freedom of trade and political rights in local government. However, it should not be overlooked that such a giddying pace of reform is only possible because so many of these rights were denied to immigrants for so long.

The attitudes behind such denials of rights remain very strong and immigrants must often actively assert their rights in order to get them. One strategy often used by our organisation is to offer expert assistance to immigrants dealing with unhelpful and obstructive officials. In such cases the immigrant regularly reports amazement at the positive change of attitude in the official when it becomes clear that our representative is prepared to, and knows how to make trouble. As one of our members put it: "Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snarl and you get better service."

The Guardian Weekly published an article by Jon Henley in its August 18th edition which conveyed the picture to the world that Finland is a country suffering from virulent racism.

I wrote a rejoinder, published in the September 1 edition, in which I tried to show that the article was exaggerated, and that Finland, while not free of racist incidents, is not a racist country.

I wrote this as a black person who grew up in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, and has lived in Finland since 1966. Daryl Taylor wrote a rejoinder to my article, in which he takes issue with my standpoint and presents information which he claims "reinforces" the original article.

I don't think that the Guardian Weekly is an appropriate forum to discuss this issue in detail, but it is an important one. Consequently, I would like to begin a thread on this topic here.

The fundamental difference between Daryl's and my viewpoints is, I claim, different definitions of racisim. In Daryl's rejoinder he states: "Holman points out that the current and highly popular Miss Finland is black, but racism in Finland is not only about skin colour".

To me, racism is only about skin colo(u)r: "If you're white, that's all right, if you're brown stick around, if you're black, get back, get back, get back."

Having lived as a black person in Finland for more than thirty years, I can honestly and categorically state that the number of unpleasant situations which have arisen as a consequence of the color of my skin can be counted on two hands. Having come of age in the USA of the early 1960s, and lived, studied, or worked in Germany, Sweden, the USSR, the United Kingdom, Estonia, and Ukraine, I have no difficulty stating that of all the societies I have experienced, Finland has been the one least obsessed by questions of skin color.

My students have never questioned my competence as a teacher on the basis of my skin color, something which does happen in the US as a reaction to "affirmative action".

Daryl Taylor states in his rejoinder "We do not argue that middle-class blacks and other immigrants cannot succeed in this largely middle-class country." This is, as far as I understand, as clear a statement as any that Finnish society does not place restrictons on people because of their race or ethnicity.

My own experience has been that, given the relatively small number of "people of colo(u)r" in Finland, an exceptional number of them have been quite successful. Daryl then goes on to mention that "Russian-speaking parents instruct(ing) their children to speak in a whisper in public places such as buses and trains." The parents may give such advice to their children, but Russian is heard every day, loudly and clearly, in Helsinki and eastern Finnish towns, since many of the "Russians" in Finland are actually Ingrians, that is to say, Finns that wound up on the wrong side of the border as Russia expanded towards the northwest.

In conclusion I would like to state that I have no illusions about Finns or Finland. Finns can be nasty and crude - the consequence of their "reserve with respect to foreigners" and the fact that sparsely populated Finland is far from the densely populated urban centers where "manners" as we understand them developed as a practical necessity. Official Finland, of which I, as a member of the Finnish civil service, am also a part, can be Byzantine and irresponsive/irresponsible. Finnish culture is essentially rural, while foreigners are essentially urban. To deny the existence of problems between Finns and immigrants would be folly. But to ascribe them to Finnish racism would be the height of folly.

Good thread. It may be that one should restrict the concept of racism to contradictions between groups with distinguishable external racial traits like skin colour (black Africans, "yellow" East Asians, etc.).

We loose a lot that way, though. In Europe (and some parts of the Middle East), Jews have been the main target for something suspiciously like your version of racism. With the breakdown in Eastern Europe, ethnic groups that for outsiders are indistinguishable declare each other as underbeings and try to eradicate each other. In Rwanda the same, with even larger numbers involved.

If you could hear Norwegians, Finns or Swedes in the 1950s while commenting upon Sámis, you would have the same jokes, the same attitudes as in American election speaches at the same.

There are two points to this. One is that ethnic bickering or hatred doesn't need much of observable difference to become really nasty. What you call racism is a part of something more extensive, allthough obviously skin colour works exceptionally well, given that a single individual cannot choose to assimilate by changing hide like he would change language, religion or manners. Like sex and age, colour is biological fate. Furthermore, in the former colonies there is the history of slavery which must be an important part of that particular kind of white-black racism. Most European countries, while historically participating in the slavery system more or less, didn't have slavery up close, so the issue of shame and contempt isn't so clear.

The second point is that the most malignant racism works against domestic minorities.

I have met a few Scotsmen, Welsh and Irish who find English jokes about them racist. I think there has been court decisions about the issue that support that view. This may be exploding the racist concept. But I think you are too exclusive.

Sounds like a typical British marxist out of arguments. "Middle class" isn't valid, and "a largely middle class country" certainly can't be. That said, I know that poor African blacks can have a hard time meeting racism in Europe. Some friends of mind swear that Britain is worst, but I can't say I know that. Have you made any observations of that kind in Finland?

There may be some Finns that are not quite as happy with Russians as an average Brit may be. I guess the article of Jon Henley is an example of the wonderful journalism we are used to from particularly German and British papers when writing about small countries: Strange customs; something discriminating about "national character" they would never say about people belonging to larger powers; the words "barren" and "wind swept" in every paragraph if they actually went here; never a trace of documentation, few numbers but lots of anecdotes. One can only laugh of this.

I am fully aware of such postings and such attitudes. they demosntrate, like Johan Olofsson has pointed out, that you and I understand the term racism in quite different ways.

As an American who grew up in the USA during the Civil Rights struggle, I understand "racism" as prejudice based on skin color and other racial, that is to say, physical, traits. When I perceive someone's behavior with respect to another person to be primarily determined by that person's race - skin color, with attendant nose shape and hair texture, I consider this behavior to have a racially-motivated or racist dimension.

It's quite true, as Johan pointed out, that American's throw a wide range of physical types into the broad categories of "white", "black", "yellow", "brown", and "red" through which they categorize people, but they are it least consistent in the sense that they are focusing solely on physical traits, even if there is an intense debate currently under way in the United States concerning the question of whether there is any correlation between "race" in the above sense and what is generally regarded as "intelligence".

European usage of the term "race" tends to differ considerably from American usage: Churchill spoke of the "English-speaking races", thus seeing it as having a linguistic dimension, Hitler called the Jews "eine fremde Rasse", seeing race as having an at least partially confessional aspect, while tension between Scandinavian populations and Sámis and Romanis is often characeterized as "racial" in the local press, even though being a Sámi or Romani is at least partially a lifestyle choice in the sense that a person can marry into the community, accept its lifestyle, and be recognized and accepted as a Sámi or Romani. These European usages seem both imprecise and inconsistent: Northern Germans are known to disparage their "racially inferior" Bavarian and Swabian southern compatriots, not to mention Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks which are often physically identical with them. Finns, many of whom are of partially Swedish ancestry, have historically suffered from "race hate" in Sweden because they speak a non Indo-European (often mistakenly called "non-Aryan") language. And, as the letter you have posted showed, some Finns even consider themselves "racially superior" to their Ingrian-Finnish or Estonian-speaking linguistic and blood relatives who had the misfortune to be born on the wrong side of the border. Whereas I cannot criticize Europeans for using the concept "race" in their own way(s), I find that the term racisim, if based on such vague and incompatible criteria, loses all meaningfulness.

The racisim I have been referring to, and that which the article by Jon Henley in the Guardian which triggered this discussion was concerned with, is that based on the immutable physical properties by which people are classified as belonging to one of a small set of groups, the fundamental one being white/non-white. Within that frame of reference I have found Finland, a 99.99% "white" country, to be surprisingly, free of race-based prejudice. I am not just basing this on my own experience, but rather also on the experience and insights gained over thirty years doing such things as counseling "colored" exchange students in Finland, watching non-whites succeed or fail here over the past thirty years, working as a court interpreter in cases involving foreigners, interviewing foreigners to see whether their English is sufficient to allow them to enter a university, and just observing the dynamics of the society in which I live. Certainly there have been ugly incidents, such as the Zairian who was beaten to a pulp, presumably solely on the basis of who and where he was, at the Helsinki railway station a while back, not to mention the American basketball player who decided that the skinheads in Joensuu were making his life intolerable. A drunk in the tram last week said "Nigger go home" to three Somali children who were animatedly chattering away - in Finnish - about what they were going to buy. But there are dozens, probably hundreds of black basketball players who have enjoyed their stay in Finland, both helping their teams and gaining real friends in the process. In Helsinki, at least, there are successful and contented African, Chinese, Indian, and Thai restaurant owners, businesspeople, teachers, and scholars, not to mention the increasing number of "Finns of color". Even the more than 2,000 Somalis, from a vastly different culture, entering the Finland at a time of severe economic depression, and resented by some old-time Finns because they "didn't stay and fight for their country like we did during the Winter War", have, despite some "turbulance", become accepted to a degree few would have thought possible a few years ago.

From what I have seen, experienced, read, and been told, there is hardly any of the harrassment or tension here that one has to live with in places like the United States, former East Germany, or, increasingly, Sweden, not to mention countries like the United Kingdom and France where "Out with the Wogs" have been on the agendas of political parties. Lola Odusoga was elected Miss Finland with scarcely a naysayer being heard; compare that to the intense controversy and soul-searching her Italian analogue caused. The unfortunate incident in which a Somali killed a Finnish girl in Tampere last year did not result in a pogrom; instead Finns and Somalis marched together in the streets of the city to demonstrate that they would not allow such an incident to serve as grist for the mill of the relatively few people there who want to use the incident to make "racially-based" hate into an issue.

The phenomena Daryl writes about do exist, and they are not a credit to this hard-working, enlightened, and well-educated society. But they fall, as I see it anyway, under the rubrics of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. Finland has only recently made the transition from a static, inward-looking and homogeneous rural society to a more dynamic, outward-looking and heterogeneous urban one. Perhaps the most telling sign of that is that twenty years ago Finnish cities virtually emptied for major holidays and summer weekends; now there is a large class of city dweller with few if any roots in the countryside who would rather spend a free weekend in Stockholm or Tallinn that in the forest berrypicking or fishing on some backwoods lake. Finnish history as well as traditional attitudes have made Finns, on both the official and the individual level, somewhat wary of foreigners, particularly those who come from cultures which are popularly perceived as "inferior": a "colored" person from the USA or Great Britain has an easier time being accepted than an African does; the same holds true for a "white" person from those countries, Germany, or Scandinavia than one from Russia, Estonia, or Bulgaria. On the other hand, the intense interest that Finns have in foreign cultures and foreign languages means that the behavior of only a relatively small part of the population is crucuially determined by such perceptions. I would venture that few people here have much consider the skinheads of Joensuu to be anything but a marginal, if loud-mouthed and demonstrative, band of bullies.

As far as ethnocentricism is concerned, it is a feeling that is closely related to patriotism and pride in the achievements of one's nation. The Finns, who have succeeded in building a well-functioning, equitable, and extremely tolerant society in exceptionally difficult climactic and geopolitical circumstances, have every reason to be proud of their achievements. I am more amused than concerned by the type of attitudes I saw reflected in a newspaper article I read today decrying that "Veli-virolainen" ("Our Estonian Brothers") are beginning to drive much better cars than Finns can afford because of the different taxation system. Indeed, it has been interesting to observe the manner in which Finnish attitudes towards Estonia and Estonians have changed as that country tries to regain its traditional status as the more prosperous of the two: during the 1920s and 30s, I've been told by several reliable sources, Estonians who wanted to "go slumming" used to visit Helsinki.

So, to conclude, every country, including Finland, has its share of people who have nothing better to do with their time than express opinions of the type contained in Daryl's example. In Finland, despite a tradition of being more inward than outward looking, such views do not reflect a manner of thinking that is widespread or taken seriously by any but an extremely marginal segment of the population. As far as just living one's life and being relatively content with it are concerned, I would still defend the view that Finland offers individuals who are racially or ethnically "exotic" more opportunities and less harassment than most European countries.

			*- Is the text above really reliable?* - See the discussion in section 1.2.2!
`---->` RXML parse error: No current scope. \| <if variable="print is 1"> \| <if not="not" variable="print is 1"> \| <if not="not" variable="print is 1"> \| <else> FAQ-Related texts