To move or not to move to Helsinki

[EP]

Language is more important than skin colour.

There was a little piece about racism in the newspaper today. A Finnish woman wrote about her African husband who works as a bus driver in Helsinki. Once an old man (before even getting into the bus) had started to tell him to go back at once where ever he had come from. The husband had said: "Then hop in and and fast. We have a long way to go, namely this bus now goes to Africa." The old man had climbed in and sat very still throughout the journey.

[toukokuu]

HI EP! I have faced an incident where I walking with my professional friend/ academic friend from Africa, and Finnish guys were directly laughing at me. "Are you with him?" Very nasty and primitive comments. However, this guy was more immune to these comments than me. I would like to beat someone..but I know that it does not help. There must be a deeper change in the Finnish society. I dont mean that there is not racism elsewhere. There is a lot. It is easier to tackle with, when it is more hidden. When we go to the west, to Sweden etc, it is more hidden and civilised. In Russian, it is more than in Finland. Also very open.....But the bus driver was the wise man!!!He will always do well in his life.

[baris]

I will try to be kind but at the same time try to give some insight on this issue. I've been here in Helsinki for more than 4 years and I've been with Finns with reasonably good education background most of the time but I, of course, get in touch with Finnish people having any kind of background.

What I think is that, there is "soft" racism in Finland. What does that mean? This means, don't expect anyone to hit you in the face because you are black or dark but expect that you might be discriminated because of your appearance or country of origin. Sadly this can even happen by officers and I have a couple of cases of that as well.

Most of the time, the kind of discrimination is trying to avoid contact with you so nothing really important as long as you have some other Finns to communicate or hang around. I know this quite sure since I've experienced over a hundred of cases when someone comes to me and initiates a conversation and then that someone changes the attitude after hearing where I'm from. Of course, you will not notice this kind of attitude, if you are not from a country which some Finns have negative opinions about.

To be explicit, for instance, if you are from Russia (maybe the country Finns hate most), many (if not the most) of the Finns will be distant to you because of historical reasons. So I can say that, Finns don't have xenophobia for every foreigners but have some of it for some of the nations in changing degrees. Just to give a popular and recent example, in the firing of Nightwish case, the letter was even mentioning cultural differences.

I'm sorry if I expressed the things too straightforward but someone should really tell about this otherwise this kind of behavior will never change. Having said all these things, I have many Finnish friends and I haven't sense a bit of racism in most of them and some of them just needed some time to get rid of their distant attitude. Of course, I know Finns are shy and so on but what I'm talking about is not being shy before and being shy after you hear about person's country of origin, if you know what I mean?

Also, maybe Finns are not exactly aware but they have quite many racist jokes. It might be part of this Nordic sarcasm though.

In my opinion, the major reason behind having this "soft" racism is that, having relatively small amount of foreigners in Finland. To be exact, Finland has the least amount of foreigners in Europe. Just in the last decades people started to see some different faces around so maybe it might take a couple of generations for the problems to be resolved.

[Hank W.]

I can admit Finland is no paradise, and everything you describe about the "soft" racism is true. Finns aren't too ready always to confront a person who is different. And the elder generations have a hard time confronting the new wave of immigrants. If one looks at the statistics, 20-30 years ago it was a totally different country. But one cannot expect some 70-year olds to change their attitudes overnight. or their children, but in a few generations it will change. That is a long process. But we do have the ombudsman for minorities whom you can go make a complaint.

But, on the other hand it is evident all over - and in many places far worse than here. Ethnic clashes in... you name the country.

Including the jokes. You give me a country where there aren't any racist jokes... I can tell a few saucy Russian jokes on Finns... Or Swedish jokes on Finns.

It all turns around when *you* are the foreigner in the foreign country - then the jokes are made from you - been to Sweden and Germany and had some "shy" incidents myself. I think though this and as it happens to be with Russians - after a few thousand years of warfare and so forth, the old case of "familiarity breeds contempt"... I guess the amicable and good relations between the Greeks and the Turks, the British and the Irish, the Germans and the Polish are related to this close neighbourhood thing... I mean nobody these days goes whack anyone on the street, but as long as nobody mentions the War... But "exotic" people from places you have not heard of pass along easier as nobody has any historical beef with them.

So I wonder now - where *are* you from, the paradise nobody has any kind of inhibitions against foreigners or minorities ever? I can give you a long Finnish stare next time we meet.

[toukokuu]

Dear Baris and Hank and everyone! I am sorry to hear your experiences. Sometimes I am ashamed of being a Finn. Recently, a pizzeria keeper of Iraqi origin was beaten up and before that, not a long time ago, there was a major incident with an arab(?) I guess in Kajaani, eastern Finland. We are having lack of labour force in the whole Finland and should not treat anyone like that. Not of course even if we did not have lack of labour force!

When it comes to Russians, we not only have hatred based on history, but also prejudice based on the realities of the present time. BAris you know that many Russians in Finland, even maybe a minority of the whole, are involved with maffia and prostitution. And also, the mentality is different. I used to know a highly educated Russian lady who married in order to get into the country, and after getting a Finnish passport, she divorced and married a rich man. She admitted that she used men.

But it is still wrong to have major prejudice, and not to be open to face people as individuals.Many Russians in FInland are highly educated professionals, like doctors and artists. Still there is the attitude that they are "second class". That is sad. Russian people are very intelligent and I would like to have more of them in Helsinki. When I have said to my FInnish friends that I love Helsinki because it is a micture of east and west, with a large Russian influence, they do are not happy with the Russian influence. But it is still the richness of being Finnish. We are completely a micture of east and west. Finnish people would only consider themselves as westeners. Our mentality, however, is much more eastern than in Sweden.

Hank, what you said about the neighbours' love etc., is very true. We both love and hate Swedish people. And they do us.When I lived in Sweden, it was actually hard to be Finnish. I am a professional, and not poor, but the influence of the previous generation who moved there when FInland had a poor economy, has its influence. Finns are still considered little bit like second class citizens. This is more like hidden. But sometimes it was even difficult to get a dentist appoinment by telephone when you have a Finnish name. I think that it is very much the same situation like Russians are facing in FInland. I would not like to generalise, are there are all kind of Swedes, but I understand that Finnish people in Sweden have a lot of social and health problems. And Irish people in the U.K. die much younger than the British..

So, it is good to discuss these issues. I am especially thankful about your opinions, Baris! Do not keep quiet.

[Hank W.]

We are having lack of labour force in the whole Finland and should not treat anyone like that. Not of course even if we did not have lack of labour force!

Which is utter bollochs. What they want is cheap dispensable labor. This kind of "vuokratyövoima" that can be laid off on a moments notice. In the HS there was story of the African-origin plumber who had a hard time finding a steady job. Oh so there is a "labour shortage" in construction. Bollochs. Today I was reading some just-graduated person's "letter to the editor" in HS. Somehow reminds me of me graduating in 1994. The writer is a BA, graduated 2004 and had only one temporary job. Can't get no job without work experience and cannot get a job "under the education level" because "first we train you and then something better comes up and you'll go"... The employer's attitudes in Finland is the problem! And I don't blame if this "just graduated" feels his work is "stolen". How can you get work experience if nobody gives you a job!?

(If I was 'the graduate', I'd moved to some other EU country already...)

[baris]

All right, now that I mentioned half of the glass not having water, it is now time to mention also the other half having the water.

My negative experiences are mostly restricted to a specific case, night life, clubs, etc. So what I mean is that, I haven't experienced the things at work or in other places that intensive. I'm from Turkey so actually these problems might be related to the sort of macho image created by some Turkish men. So here comes the fundamental problem. Even though people might have seen some bad cases, why do they stick to that prejudice for everyone from the same country? Ok, this is done by almost every nation so no one can blame Finns for this probably and as Hank said there are many countries having this kind of behavior much more intense that Finns have. In Turkey we have too many varieties of people. Finland is way too homogeneous with compared to Turkey. That might explain the reasoning behing some cases as well.

One thing very difficult for sure is understanding the difference between shyness and intentional avoidance. The thing might become much more complicated when you face some act for sure not because of shyness and try to interpret every other act in a similar way. So we as foreigners in Finland also should not have the paranoia of racism even though we might face a bit of it sometimes.

Other interesting thing is that, Finns are sometimes not even aware when something might be offensive for the other. When you talk about it, they realize it pretty much quickly. So don't just give up, talk with them.

toukokuu thanks for your thoughts!

[EP]

"But the bus driver was the wise man!!!He will always do well in his life."

Agreed, but I think he didn´t give that little well-deserved slap in English. I just repeat that language is more important than nationality, race or skin colour. For example I don´t think anybody sees Lola Odusoga (ex-Miss Finland/half Nigerian) as anything else but a pretty girl from Turku who speaks in dialect and doesn´t know how to say "r". And who fell out of grace in the eyes of people when she had her boobs operated ("A Nice Finnish Girl is Natural").

What comes to Nightwish case: If their disagreements were at least partly based on cultural differencies, why couldn´t one say it directly? What bad was in that?

And it is true that sometimes foreign people see as rudeness something that certainly is not meant to be rude. For example I have learned from this forum that some have taken an innocent Finnish question "Why are you here?" as an insult. That is just simple curiosity.

[baris]

What comes to Nightwish case: If their disagreements were at least partly based on cultural differencies, why couldn´t one say it directly? What bad was in that?

Actually my point there was not about making that information publicly available even though ethics of that might be questioned as well. I meant more how can a worldwide known band such as Nightwish could suffer from a cultural difference? It sounds quite weird to me as they are touring all over the world, it shouldn't be that hard to cope with other cultures for bob's sake. Of course, one metal band is definitely not enough to make comments about all society.

And it is true that sometimes foreign people see as rudeness something that certainly is not meant to be rude. For example I have learned from this forum that some have taken an innocent Finnish question "Why are you here?" as an insult. That is just simple curiosity.

This is particularly a very good point because I was as well in that group interpreting "Why did you come to Finland?" as "Why the hell did you come here? We don't want you here.". It took some time to adapt to it. So some good will and more communication will pave the way.

[EP]

" how can a worldwide known band such as Nightwish could suffer from a cultural difference?"

I believe it is possible if the vocalist´s husband/manager starts to dictate too much, and if his opinions are not in line with the rest of the band´s. I understood that he saw the band just as a money-making machine, and even though is is also that, the guys had also more "artistic" goals.

But sorry, now we are getting too far from the original question.

[toukokuu]

Dear all !

To EP, sorry for partly missing your original point of the importance of language. I do agree.

To Baris, I had very much prejudice about Turkish men, based on repeated bad experiences but also on news and image created of them.They were the next worst guys for me after the Morroccean. This was until recently I met 2 Turkish men, who were very intelligent and gentle, indeed. So, I told to my Turkish friend, that this changed my opinion of Turkish men. I had had already from before pretty good opinion of Turkish women.

By the way, have you read the book of "Snow" by Orphan Pamuk? Really intensive. Like the whole Turkish society is full of tensions.... But it is still a novel. How is the reality?And your name gave me a Russian impression. Is Baris Turkish name, nickname or just a webname?

[haahatus]

And to point out not everyone against immigration has something against against singe individuals resulting in rude behaviour like not holding the door open or something more severe. Otherwise I am tired of the subject from this perspective except I'l be there when there's a discussion about the benefits and drawbacks of immigration

[Samppa]

But it is still the richness of being Finnish. We are completely a micture of east and west.

Of North and South...

[baris]

Dear toukokuu,

Thanks for expressing your opinions bluntly, I appreciate. Otherwise it takes time to figure out. I already figured out the things you mentioned long ago but it is good to be verified.

This was until recently I met 2 Turkish men, who were very intelligent and gentle, indeed. So, I told to my Turkish friend, that this changed my opinion of Turkish men.

Actually now not only you've met the third intelligent and gentle Turkish men, but also maybe the first handsome, charming, romantic, dedicated, hilarious, honest and apparently the narsist one .

Ok, just not to drift away from the original topic, I will inform you about the other things about Turkey by PM.

One more important point, any sort of racism can not be deduced from the people that are not exposed to it, but from the people exposed to it. This should have been very clear from the beginning to everyone already I guess.

[sammy]

So here comes the fundamental problem. Even though people might have seen some bad cases, why do they stick to that prejudice for everyone from the same country?

Partly, I think, this is just an unfortunate feature of human psychology. Whether we like it or not, we tend to simplify things this way, to lessen the stress on the old cerebellum caused by an increasingly complex and multi-faceted world. "All Finns are shy and quiet" and so on

(the scientific term for this simplification process is stupidity )

It is of course possible to rise above this kind of thinking...