But let’s go to the point. You mentioned that an adolescent, who had the courage to stand up against racial harassment in public is suspect. Maybe the moral to the Rebecka Holm story is that that all types of hatred are unacceptable.

What do you think we should do about this? Should we speak out against it or should we deny it? It’s difficult for a white Finn to see these types of things. I hear a lot about them and have seen it happen to me. Racism is a personal thing: some people get more affected by it than others. Some have worse luck than others (they are in the wrong place at the wrong time).

Contrary to what some Finnsh visitors may say on this blog, we do not like to state that ALL Finns are racists like ALL immigrants are this or that. Some, however, are.

First of all racism is of course not acceptable. however the claims this girl is making are somewhat “to be proven”, in different articles she says racism happens every week, then every month and one article said she said daily, she has also said the things she told happened actually to some people she has talked with not so much to herself and furthermore her definition of racism might go wider than you would first expect as she speaks in another article about people being sometimes rasistically called gays and vamps.

If you don’t live in Finland, don’t think you know how racism is here or how it isn’t. I’ve lived here all my life and in capital city area where these sorta things supposingly happening regularly and i have NEVER saw a rasistic incident anywhere and i use public transportations daily. However in Finland there are many drunk men on public transportations and sometimes they say whatever but no Finn is saying on the papers how some drunk man once called her fat or whatever.

That was a sad story. Hard to say what was behind, but as not much was certain about the attacker, I suppose it was a Finn, otherwise they might have stood out more. Not that that is significant, except to say that these things affect all societies. This is exactly the kind of random attack that can happen. It’s not good, but it’s also quite different to the kind of weekly abuse that Nickola gets. She doesn’t get abused by ‘random strangers’; she get’s abused because her skin is the ‘wrong’ colour. I really wish you would wake up to that. It’s not about saying one kind of abuse is worse than the other, it’s just recognising the abuse for what it is – i.e. not random!

Mark, there is no racism in Finland.

Oh, let me guess – you redefine racism in such a way that it ‘magically disappears’. Maybe this is what you mean by the ‘magic wall’.

What you find is, as you say it is not right to extend actions of an individual to a group, culture or nation, so Finns are not racists. Thete might be individuals out there spewing abuse, but that is that individuals problem, not the societys or cultures problem. Eat your own medicine, how does it taste?

Tastes good, Allan. Finally we are on the same page. Yes, it is about individuals. Finns are not racists because they are Finns. Some Finns are racists because they choose to be. It is society’s problem if they antagonise other people. It is society’s problem if they do nothing to stop it. It is a problem of Finnish culture if that culture were to ignore or dismiss the negative effect on other people of that attitude of some individuals within society. In the same way, some elements of foreign cultures can also harbour very negative or abusive behaviours, within families, within domestic violence, in the rights of women. I know you have mentioned these things, so I still think we are on the same page.

Gosh, a miracle!

I am not downplaying it. I am putting it into its place. You are trying to present it as something that requires attention before all the other things requiring attention. You are jumping the queue.

I see, like you put immigrants in their place too, I suppose? You are downplaying it, completely. You have expressed absolutely no sentiment that this is unacceptable, on any level. On the contrary, you have made out that it’s no big deal. Perhaps for you. But this was enough of an issue that a young girl wrote to the editor of a newspaper. I guess it was a big deal for her. And I think rightly so.

And at no point have I said that it requires attention before all other things. Quote me, if you can. All I have said is that it is a clear case of racism in Finland and that it is unacceptable that a 14-year-old girl gets abused in this way on a weekly basis. You were the one to introduce the idea of queues. As you have claimed again and again on this blog that there is no racism based on colour in Finland, this story, one of many, clearly refutes your ridiculous claims.

You first deny there is racism in Finland, and when faced with clear evidence, you claim it’s no big deal. You cannot have it both ways. Either it exists or it doesn’t. If you are admitting that it exists, but that it’s no big deal, then fine, but you have contradicted your earlier statements that it doesn’t exist. Who cares about a little thing called consistency, eh?