In the same way, as in the United States and other predominantly white countries like Finland that are witnessing a growing culturally and ethnically diverse society, Jane Elliott, an anti-racist activist, and educator offers some sound advice below.
In Finland, some of us are so afraid of losing power to ethnic minorities that we saw the rise of an Islamophobic party that is the second biggest in parliament. The Perussuomalaiset* party’s youth organization recently tweeted voters to vote for the PS unless they want Finland to have people of African descent.
Here is Elliott’s advice:
“If you want to get ready for the future, if you want to be treated well in the future, treat others well in the present. What we do in the present constructs the future.”
* The Perussuomalaiset (PS) party imploded on June 13, 2017, into two factions, the PS and New Alternative, which is now called Blue Reform. In the last parliamentary election, Blue Reform has wiped off the Finnish political map when they saw their numbers in parliament plummet from 18 MPs to none. A direct translation of Perussuomalaiset in English would be something like “basic” or “fundamental Finn.” Official translations of the Finnish name of the party, such as Finns Party or True Finns, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and racism. We, therefore, at Migrant Tales prefer to use in our postings the Finnish name of the party once and after that the acronym PS.