As another poster said some time ago, what is this EVERYONE’S favourite shit….

It’s your favorite! Didn’t you know?!

I found the first article, “The real intolerance in Finland”, annoying and ignorant. Excuse the strong language, but if the author is an Englishman, he has simply no right to say there is no racial intolerance in Finland. Are the only foreigners English, or from other English-speaking countries? It should be obvious to everyone who has lived here for a little while and experienced real life, not only the isolated life at university or in a cosmopolitan workplace, that, according to Finns – and not only Finns – you can divide people into better and worse categories depending on where they come from. Of course they won’t treat you bad if you come from England. Try being a Pole. Try being a Russian. Try being black. Replace your name with something strange-sounding and try to get a job.

I’m not complaining about this situation, I just hate it when people close their eyes to obvious things. Oh, yeah, and if SixDegrees is political – I wonder if the author has ever had a political newspaper in his hands.

A.

Who are you to say he has no right? Is your tolerance level lower than his?

Hank W:

1) Have you read the aforementioned article?

2) It’s a manner of speech. “[In my opinion,] he has no right…” But “in my opinion” would make it sound weaker, which I didn’t want to do because I was angry.

Of course, everyone has the right to lie if he chooses so or turn the blind eye to obvious things, right? The question is why?

I’m just getting tired of people who were lucky telling others that their problems are imaginary and implying that if they are not accepted here, there must be something wrong with them. It is not so simple. And yes, my level of tolerance for ignorance is pretty low. I can see why some could think it’s bad.

Well, 1) yes – have you? I think you missed his point. His point was theres too many people exactly the likes of you who jump in and say “you may not have an opinion”. He doesn’t deny the discrimination, he says that he has not faced discrimination. What makes the one opinion more “valid” than the other? Especially when your kind comes and slams him down as we can see here? You are being the intolerant bigot denying his right of opinion – and you are being a racist saying that as an Englishman he has no right to express his opinion. Who entitled you with such powers? You just *proved* the point he was making.
Go write a reply into the “Ovi forum” – I extrapolated on the issue in the “general” section. It would be nice to have some debate there.

I am not denying that there is discrimination in Finland – but I am fed up with the foreigners constantly whining about Finland this and Finland that. If you expect people to respect you, you don’t demand it by claiming your way is superior. And I explained why that rubs the wrong way into the Finnish psyche.

And what comes to the discrimination – yes it is a problem – but one cannot expect a nation used to net mass emigration and virtually no immigration to suddenly turn multicultural overnight. It takes time, sometimes even a generation or two to get attitudes to change. You ask someone immigrated in the 1970′s to Finland how it was *then*, and you can understand these guys feel the newcomers complain about trivial things. Finland has changed in leaps and bounds in my lifetime – he 1990′s was *massive* change. But you have to compare Finland in 1990 vs. Finland 2006 now to see improvements/change. You cannot compare London 2006 to Helsinki 2006… maybe London 1956 to Helsinki 2006.

And, the most important part – it is not “discrimination ” if “things are not like at home”. I am also fed up with the bitch, moan and whine of “Finland is not like someotherplace”. Yeah, well, Finland is a foreign country. In foreign countries things are different from “at home”. If Finland was like “at home”, then Finland wouldn’t be a foreign country, would it now? So yes, there are people whose discrimination problems start from themselves – they think they are somehow superior to the locals, and the locals are somehow “wrong” in what they do. Say like not greeting a total stranger on the street – how is it “unfriendly” or “racist”? It is “customary” and “good manners” to let people be, and it is the foreign person who is in the “wrong” invading a stranger’s privacy – if there is anything “wrong” in the first place. – I’d say it is *different*. The key point to multiculturalism is the realisation that there is no right and no wrong way to do things – there is a lot of different ways to do things. If the customary way in the UK is to greet a total stranger, why should this be adapted by the Finns, as there is an equally as good way of showing your tongue as they do in Tibet? Smells slightly of “cultural imperialism” to me. So if you claim the right for multiculturalism remember that your culture is at par with *all* the other cultures – including the local one. So yes, people claiming its “discrimination” people don’t smile or show their tongue to them on the street have the problem themselves. It is far easier then to dismiss everything and anything as “racism” while the real problem is somewhere else. It comes too easily as an excuse or a scapegoat. A shop owner will give the reason he goes bankrupt “discrimination and racism” far easier than “I had a bad business idea”. Likewise not being able to make the mental leap that life in a foreign country is not like “at home” will cause trouble – not least as it is a part of the inevitable culture shock.

After reading this intolerance article, everybody probably guesses, who could have been behind the pseudonym “Finnish Honesty”. I think most of the things Mr. Watson had to endure here in Oulu are no worse than what a 100% finnish country hick has to take in Helsinki, so I wouldn’t call it racism. I guess it is quite rough, if you are not used to little daylight in the winter and people with thin niceness zones. For a country hick, Oulu and it’s people are very nice, although the city council seems to suffer from imperial hubris from time to time.

A. – Well, you have to look before you can see and even then sometimes things are so unpleasant that people tend to look away and pretend. I have a colleague from Nigeria who is fluent in Finnish, has a Finnish wife and 2 kids and is a model of an integrated foreigner who has lived her for more than a decade. However, I’ve watched more than once people in the office complex canteen get up and physically move to another table when we sit down near or next to them. To acknowledge it invites trouble and to ignore it just makes me feel dirty. It exists, but I think a lot of people ignore it in order to cope and get on with their lives.

Hfb – this is what I meant. Thank you for replying.

Hank W.: If I didn’t like Finland, I wouldn’t be here. If I wanted it to be like “at home” – what do you mean? This is my home. You have jumped at me for opinions which are not mine. I mean that pretending that there is no racial discrimination in Finland, or elsewhere in Europe – Finland is not the worst place and I never said it! – is terribly unfair towards people who experience it every day. And no, it is not necessarily their fault. And I don’t mean things like not being greeted in the street!!! – I don’t mean cultural differences, these are interesting, I mean serious problems with finding employment or being treated like dirt in some Finnish institutions and offices. No, it doesn’t happen all the time but often enough to see it as a problem. Is it better in other places in the world? In some it’s worse, but now we’re talking about Finland because this is the subject of this blog.

And I must tell you I would be the last person to moan about my situation in Finland or complain about my life in any way. Who gave you the right to assume such things about me?

Many people in Finland (mind you, I say: MANY, not ALL!) look at foreigners according to the hierarchy that can be compared to Hitler’s. This is a fact and practically all the Finns I have talked to about that admit they have noticed it as well. If an Englishman coming to Finland claims there is no racial discrimination here, it seems to me that either he lives in blissful ignorance or he simply enjoys the benefits of belonging to a better race.

As for Ovi – I don’t have time to be active on more than one forum at the time, sorry. And discussing immigrant issues in Finland just makes me angry and tired. It’s rather pointless, anyway – everyone just has to discover the truth for himself. And some will just never want to see it.

Well, see now what makes me angry is these “children calling wolf” because they obstruct the view of the real “wolf” that it is there. It is far easier to dismiss and not see the “wolf” if the Finns all the time hear bitch, moan & whine over the non-issues re. cultural differences.

*That* is my point. If you complain 24/7 racism this and racism that then nobody will listen after a while.