obikenobi71 wrote:I would like to know about how the muslims (the good ones, not the leech-off-tax-money) live in Lappeenranta )
Let me know if I am off here, but your comment seems to imply that there is something people do in order to be subject to abuse and anger from locals, not in "your fault" type of way. You maybe disappointed if you expect that by following all the roles and being a role citizen who contributes to society you're expecting to not face harassment or injustice. Bonneheads
like these aren't likely to ask you if you are a good citizen before they start abusing...
People sometimes ask here if there is racism in Finland and the answers here are the ones you'd expect from a bunch of white males... I'm one myself, european white, and could perhaps name two situations (in 15 years) when I may have faced racism. And those are laughable cases, nothing really that I can point as a patent racism.
Instead of asking if there is racism, it is perhaps more useful think there are two questions that people should ask, when asking what is it like to be a foreigner in a culture:
- What, about yourself, is likely to trigger prejudice?
How much will you have to give up, or instead face prejudice? (and that is different from what you give up because of inappropriate language skills or other skills)
These are related. When it comes to yourself, there are things that you can not change like your skin color or your psychological bias (at least not in the short term) and others that you can change at more or less ease (the way you dress). How close or far is your tone of skin? Generally, the further it deviates from white/pinkish, the higher the chance of being subject to prejudice. Attitude is another big one. A friend of mine born less than 100 kms from me will tell you about racism on a daily case. As you can imagine, he's a rather negative person. But his experience is real - in his mind at least, and wears him down, as well as others around him.
I'm not blaming people for their beliefs - if anyone thinks that those are easy to change ask yourself who pays all those therapists. I'd rather make a case for knowing yourself and how can you handle perceived or outright unfairness.
The second question is the most important, and is related to the former. We probably don't think of it because for most of us, we either don't have that many restrictions, we are not interested to start with (think of going to a bar where right wing bald men meet...), or we talked ourselves that we don't need (see comment above about keeping a low profile. Even if Rinso means don't get on trouble, we still end up restricting ourselves). You may face or perceive prejudice if you go to certain areas, if you try certain activities. Sometimes even if you try to keep a high (positive) profile.