One of the biggest challenges and shortfalls of Finland’s integration law is that it is one-sided: Here is a list of things you must do to adapt to our society. This aim is very general, and if you start to study it closer, you will find no answers.
While language is essential, and Finland places a lot of emphasis on this, it is not your get-out-of-jail pass to live “integrated” and happily forever. As people of color and other minorities know, integration is a two-way street.
Considering the present political landscape and how much minorities influence the public policy of migrants and minorities, we are still a long way off and on the wrong path to achieve a society that respects difference.
If we look at school children in one of the world’s best education systems, why is it that some dark-skinned people are ashamed because they aren’t white enough? This fact forms part of a backdrop of discrimination and bullying at some Finnish schools.
For decades, Finland has been such a far-flung country that it still does not have any good word for inclusion, never mind any willingness to promote it to newcomers. The same happened to the word “integration,” which became part of the Finnish language in the late-1990s.
Those were the good old days when foreigners and minorities were excluded and how white Finnish society monopolized all social, political, and economic power.
In Finland, we too often confuse these two words: equality (yhdenvertaisuus) and equity (oikeudenmukaisuus). Without equity, there is no social equality. Source: MF.
I would go as far as to state that a good Finnish term for inclusion does not exist because outsiders are expected to be indefinite outsiders.
A word like “inclusion” reveals volumes about Finnish society and how we see Others and keep them excluded. If you want people to integrate or be equal members of society, Finland should promote inclusion instead of integration.
But that is a tall order. By promoting inclusion, you are effectively giving real power, whereas, by integration, people accept the status quo.
Having taught many students about Finnish society for many years, two matters surprise me about this teaching line: Are the people giving these courses qualified and simple, 1 + 1 = 2, explanations to a complex matter as adaption.
If the integration model is overly simplistic, treat it with tweezers because its conclusions are suspect. Integration, adaption, or properly inclusion is a complex matter.
During my years as a teacher of these courses, I have requested material taught by other teachers. Not one white Finnish teacher has, however, has shared with me the material they teach newcomers about Finland.
I get the impression that the only requirement to teach newcomers about Finnish society is that you are a white Finn with some teaching background. Every white Finn knows what our culture is, right?
Telling newcomers about our society riddled with exceptionalism, ethnocentricm and even racism partly explain why, I suspect, that the majority of these people have no idea what kotoutuminen means or implies.
If you want an example of a 1 + 1 = 2 integration model, check out Perussuomalaiset (PS)* MP Kristian Sheikki Laakso’s tweet below, who affirms this is how you become a part of Finnish society.
Joy Aalto, who is a candidate for the upcoming municipal election in April for a party known for its hostile Islamophobic rants, gives us her recipe for integration:
If the learn-Finnish-and-you’re-integrated promise is misleading, so are many others spread by people who should know better.
“The best way to eliminate racism is to get people to know each other,” goes the affirmation. It is like the claim that traveling opens your eyes to the world.
After we do all these things, will we kiss and make up and live in a post-racial society?
Dead wrong.
What we are doing with the argument is what Robin DiAngelo points in her white fragility argument, or how to keep race off the table.
“All of those narratives function to get race off the table close the exploration [and] exempt the person from any further engagement and protect the racial hierarchy in a white position.”
When we mention things like more contact, traveling, learn the language, we are also taking race, or precisely the solution, off the table.
In order to tackle racism in society, we need to understand how we form part of the racist hierarchy and the role of power and privilege in such a social ill
Like traveling, contact with people can reinforce making you even more racist and hateful of other ethnic groups.
Traveling and living in different lands can have the same toxic impact and blunt our efforts to find credible solutions to winning racism.
Many times I wonder where people who work and assist asylum seekers and migrants get their cultural training. If you are a teacher, is it stated, for example, in the national curriculum, how cultural diversity is supposed to work in the classroom? If you are a social worker, how do you promote two-way adaption?
These are important questions. If we do not deal with them properly, our integration program, which claims to be a two-way process, is nothing more than assimilation (one-way adaption).
Another big challenge is the lack of proper oversight. Which body ensures that our teaching or guidance isn’t racist?
After many years of studying and observing integration policies and practices in Finland, I have yet to understand what two-way integration means in practice.
While there are teachers and culturally sensitive social workers who are a source of inspiration to some newcomers, there are still too many poor examples around.
These poor examples of cultural insensitivity and fueled by exceptionalism only serve to confuse and relegate migrants to take their roles as second-class members of society.
KOTOUTUMINEN #3
Below are four cases that are good examples of a toxic brew: disrespect for other cultures, Finnish exceptionalism, and white privilege.
Case 1: We are sitting at a table with middle-aged Muslim women who wear hijabs (veils). A counselor, who assists and counsels these people, comes to greet them and touches one woman on the shoulder. Those who work with Muslims understand that men do not touch women if the person isn’t his father or brother. Even so, it is the woman who decides if she wants to shake you hand or not.
Case 2: I was told that another counselor mocks a Muslim for noticing that pork was cooked in the same oven he was going to make food. Instead of expressing some understanding for the Muslim’s concern, the worker stated that the state that pays his social welfare eats pork so he’ better get used to it.
Case 3: On planning earlier this year a seminar on hate crime, a social worker brings up the topic of gay rights, which is important. All hate crimes, irrespective of their motives are important to debate publicly. However, the social worker insisted and showed more preference for hate crimes against gays because she probably believes that Muslims are homophobic. Some are, some aren’t. Ninety percent of all hate crimes in 2017 are due to a person’s ethnic or religious background compared with 4.9% due to sexual orientation.
Case 4: Muslims, who are still trying to make sense of their new home country, are given the usual tasa-arvo treatment that “in Finland, women have equal rights.” True in many respects and commendable, but they forget to tell them that our country is one of the most violent in the EU against women. While it is a good matter that women work and become independent, a person has a right to chose his or her lifestyle. If the person stays at home and takes care of her children, wears a hijab, or is an avid Muslim worshipper, these are the person’s personal choices and should be respected.
By forcing our culture and our exceptionalism on migrants, we do nothing more than retard the process of making such people active members of society.
Migrant Tales launches a new series called kotoutuminen, or integration. Readers are encouraged to send their personal experiences, comments on integration programs, and policies.
Kotoutuminen, or integration, functions in many ways like white fragility. It is a weapon and tool to subjugate newcomers and migrants who have lived in Finland for a long time.
Robin Diangelo describes as white fragility in her best-selling book, “White Fragility.” She states that most white people “are absolutely not receptive to finding out their impact on other people.” She also mentions that the reaction caused by white fragility is nothing fragile but hostile.
A good example of how even governments use kotoutuminen as a tool to control people is their hysterical and politically opportunistic response to the sexual assault cases of Oulu.
In this particular case, the former government of Prime Minister Juha Sipilä blamed the integration program for the sexual assault cases. Then Interior Minister Kai Mykkänen even threatened to give newcomers tests to determine if they are a danger to society.
Any sensible person can see that these types of political soundbites were made for public consumption before the April parliamentary elections. Aren’t people innocent before they are proven guilty? Isn’t Mykkänen’s disregard for this human right worrying?
The use of integration programs to control migrants is another example of why such programs face challenges.
Migrant Tales launches a new series called kotoutuminen, or integration. Readers are encouraged to send their personal experiences, comments on integration programs, and policies.
A suitable synonym for kotoutuminen is structural racism. In the process of integrating into Finnish society, newcomers are rarely taught the racism and discrimination they may face and, importantly, how to challenge such social ills.
Here is a good example of how stereotypes and prejudices of Finnish culture are taught to students at some integration classes. Yes, believe it or not, these types of silly cartoons are shown to newcomers to help them understand Finnish culture. Aren’t they learning to understand the cartoonist’s prejudices and stereotypes? The cartoonist is Karolina Korhonen.
In other words, kotoutuminen is another form of reinforcing structural racism and also Finnish exceptionalism. You are taught about how you are expected to adapt but never how to challenge those structures that may relegate you to second-class members of society.
The situation is further muddled that such classes or courses are usually taught by unqualified teachers who lack the tools to question their own prejudices and racism.
*Kotoutiminen is the Finnish term for integration.
I never have or want to “integrate.” I have, however, learned how to survive in Finland.
If there is one matter that the sexual assault cases of Oulu have exposed in the raw is a false expectation about migrants. If we listen to the media, police and politicians, migrants cannot commit crimes because Finns rarely do if ever break the law. White Finns are model humans, asylum seekers are not.
This erroneous expectation becomes clear when the Oulu police and the media announce a new sexual abuse case by “a person of foreign origin,” which is code for Muslim, asylum seeker, and non-EU citizen.
Unfortunately, more of these types of crimes will come to light because men commit such crimes constantly.
Blaming asylum seekers and migrants for not “integrating” enough reveals our false expectations and ignorance of cultural diversity.
Take effective steps to do away with racism and discrimination if you are serious about integrating newcomers.
I have worked in helping new migrants to get an understanding of Finnish society and their rightful places in it.
If a student states that there is no equality in Finland, I agree with him. All this talk about how we respect equality in Finland is a lie. The correct question you must ask is who has the right to demand equality in Finland.
But what can you expect with the rise of far-right parties like the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* in this decade and the present government that wants to label and shame Muslims and other groups? What can you expect from a country where mainstream parties like the National Coalition Party and Social Democrats lack the leadership to speak out against racism but instead succumb to it?
As a sociologist and anti-racism activist, I was not surprised by the banality of Finance Minister Petteri Orpo’s and Interior Minister Kai Mykkänen’s model to better integrate and do away with migrant crime. The answer? A test!
Even if this is not mentioned by these National Coalition Party (NCP)ministers, Finns also commit sexual assault crimes. Many of them brought up in the Finnish education system but some still commit sexual crimes.
Kokoomus, or the National Coalition Party, is the second-most anti-immigration party in Finland after the Perussuomalaiset-Blue Reform* parties.
Aren’t these types of statements “about informing asylum seekers about our values” a bit fishy with parliamentary elections just around the corner in April? These types of catchphrases are only another chapter in the language used by politicians to support and fuel Finland’s hostile environment against migrants and minorities.
I sent Tuesday an email to the Police University College, which forwarded it to the Oulu police.
My question was simple and one that nobody appears to care to ask: Why is it important for the police to mention that the suspects of sexual assault are “persons of foreign origin?”
As we all know, “a person of foreign origin” is code for a non-EU citizen, Muslim and/or asylum seeker.
Far-right poliicians and Islamophobes of varying hues commonly blame Muslims for banning traditional Christmas parties at school. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Those wanting to remove Christmas parties are Finns who believe that religion should not play a role in our schools since we are officially a secular state.
What happens when most of the students of the schools aren’t Christians and you insist that the Christmas party must go on? What does it say about our respect for other religions and cultures? Is it a power trip? Does it send a warning that we call the cultural and religious shots in Finnish society?
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church is by far the biggest in Finland with 72.6% (4.004 million) of the population belonging to that faith. The second- and third-biggest religions in the country are the Islamic faith and the Finnish Orthodox Church with 1.3% (70,000) and 1.1% (61,690), respectively.
One question we could ask is why do we keep under a magnifying glass a congregation that accounts for only 1.3% of the population? The answer, I believe, is obvious: Islamophobia that lives another day thanks to denial and misinformation.
Why the open hostility if Finland is a country that guarantees religious freedom? Why is there so much hostility?
White Finnish privilege #55
A good example of white Finnish privilege is organizing Christmas parties at schools and by denying other religions the same public spaces. While Finland states publicly that the adaption of newcomers to Finland is a two-way process (Integration), it is in practice a one-way process (assimilation).
Disagree? Wasn’t President Sauli Niinistö quoted as saying in YLE, just before presidential election day that the only “public” spaces that foreigners have are the four walls of their homes?
