Is Apple Pie racist, or stating that it is very American? If not, then I see nothing wrong in this. It can be played both by the racists and by non-racists. I don’t see what is racist in making up a list of things that are particularly very Finnish.

Such a movement can be a good idea, but it would be wrong to do it via political groups, politicians, researchers or whatever.. I think that if you want the true answer you’d be best off asking a hundred artists, authors, poets, handicrafters, historians etc to do something that to them is Finnishness thne show that in a museum.

If its done by the ministry of culture or education, what we’ll get is sdp propoganda with a touch of opera and ballet. Completely ignoring for example something like an internet culture while praising a supposed love for the theater when nobody under 30 has been to a theater since a forced school excursion..

I think the first step for anyone is to recognize and respect their own culture before they can regognize and respect other cultures. Or are you saying the whole world should just be coca-cola-culture – “multiculturalism” in other words is that everyone else’s culture is superior to the local one? I don’t think so.

What is Swedishness? The Liberal Folkpartiet MP Cecilia Wikström has suggested that the government produce a list of the essential Swedish culture. Committees would compile the most important works in literature, music, architecture, and other forms of art into a cultural anthology. According to the Dagens Nyheter daily, the notion would be to “cement a clear idea of what it is to be a Swede”.

I think they already answered their question …

I’m just really concerned about that sentence from that Kokoomus chick, “multiculturalism and internationality continue to increase in all aspects of life”. As if we foreigenrs are coming and changing everything, so we better set it in stone now. Culture changes, we should embrace it not fear it.

Politicians at her age have a wired tendency of following swedish things. So its no wonder.

Even though I understand the aim of making these types of lists, I’ve always been pretty sceptical about them. First and foremost, they usually reflect very strongly the values and beliefs of the people who have been chosen to compose it. They tend to be biased and geared more towards so-called “high culture” and ignore what is actually known and widespread, and therefore has real influence on people’s lives and thinking.

For example, a couple of years ago the Helsingin Sanomat weekly magazine NYT asked some literature and culture scholars to compose a list of books that they felt had influenced western literature the most. Most books were so-called canonised literature, whom everyone has heard about but few have actually read. It was a list of “officially good and Very Important” books.

Popular books which have influenced the lives of millions of western people but aren’t necessarily accepted by the cultural elite, such as Anne of Green Gables and The Lord of the Rings, were completely absent from that list.

James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is no doubt a very important book in the development of the specific literary style it portrays, but compared to the concrete influence that books like Anne of Green Gables and The Lord of the Rings have had on peoples’ actual day-to-day lives, its’ influence is marginal.

@Phil #5: I agree wholeheartedly. What was ‘Finnishness’ 10 years ago is no more. And I for one am happy about that. Or did the new un-Finnish ideas adopted from abroad during the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age destroy our culture

Folkpartiet is a bit loopy when it comes to this type of thing though. It’s no coincidence that they always propose a tougher line on immigration and deporting people from Sweden as well.

I sincerely hope they don’t come into power as part of an Alliance victory in the September Swedish elections.

I don’t see how you can make a list of things that compose Swedishness (or Finnishness or anyotherlandness either). Would you include meatballs on it and then determine that all Swedes who are vegetarians are therefore not Swedish enough. It’s just a stupid idea. You can’t define a national culture in stereotypical generalisations. Institutionalising such stereotypes officially is a very bad plan.

Such concrete lists are a bit problematic because there are only few specific works of art that most people would agree on. I think many of Sibelius’ works are very good expressions of our national spirit.

Many religious and popular cultural influences are imported from the USA. I detest American religious influences. I agree with Panu Höglund on many American Christian sects active abroad. Many aspects of American popular sentiment are rather off-putting in my opinion, like the tacit popular acceptance of large scale prisoner rape.

I find Phil’s libertarian ideas concerning immigration, for instance, to be naive to a degree. Globalization does not automatically lead to the triumph of individualism, rationality and democracy everywhere. There are other global ideological forces in the world.

TERVE! to finland from inFINNdel in massachusetts!
after visiting finland 5 times so far,i have witnessed many distinct cultural tendencies of finland….also since i am finnish american,born in strong local finnish cultural area in massachusetts,i feel proud to be a FINN and can compare my cultural legacy to what i have seen in my travels in finland…..

My short list of undisputed aspects of finnishness :
1. The 2 true finnish gods are *OLUT* and *KOSKENKORVA*
And SANTA CLAUS is there prophet!
i will add more insane insights from my travels in suomi as people respond to my short list…..inFINNdel…hei hei!

Culture changes, we should embrace it not fear it.

Sometimes, sometimes not.

I propose there should be a test for immigrants. Like perhaps they should eat several bags of disgusting Salmiakki in one sitting, while smiling and proclaiming how much they like it. If they can’t do it, then we brand them forever as Ausländer…er, I mean Ulkomaalaiset

But seriously, if you can’t drink hard liquor and stagger properly, you really don’t belong here. So, it’s best we know up front.

HEI! Phil…greetings from massachusetts..
i do not understand your comments about Suomen Sisu organization..
here in local finn communities,all finn americans try to retain as much of our finish heritage as we can…thankfully the internet allows us finns in america to do serious research on all things finnish..as finnish americans are proud of being finnish…finnish americans have done extremely well in AMERICA, and are highly respected citizens who are proud of being americans and also being finnish…both cultures benefit! finland MUST encourage its citizens to retain a strong FINNISH identity and emphasize the positive aspects of finnish culture..
Finnish-Americans have made considerable contributions to America because they were FINNS!…hei hei! inFINNdel

Nice to see that the holidays had a positive effect on you, great blogging

““…multiculturalism and internationality continue to increase in all aspects of life” let’s get on the knees & bow for the american production?

well, your blog really hits the lows recently. I think I will unsubscribe. What’s happened, phil? It used to be quite decent and thoughtful.

i do not understand your comments about Suomen Sisu organization..

They’re a bit like giving the local Aryan Nation flair.

Heh, this is really something, that can be expected from the Danes. Their motto should be “Probably the best country in the world”…

Compiling some culture anthology and preserving it in the safe deposit of the Centre for Metrology and Accreditation as a standard of finnishness sounds too much, like a proposal by a committee of 1950′s school teachers. Why it should be so damn official. OK, the kids should at least know the existence of certain books, so they know, where to start, if they want to explore their finnishness. And certain works of art and literature capture something crucial of their time. I guess “The Unknown Soldier” of the Nokia craze era is not yet even written.

But I think everybody’s instructor to the finnishness can find the right works without some committee, who decides to include all the possible books and artworks on Finland in case some group feels offended and being left out of the big picture.

Ah yes, the old culture debate. First you’d have to get everyone to agree what defines culture, which is what I think #7 was getting at. There must be at least 1,000 definitions.

This is probably well intentioned and all, but I’m always a bit sceptical about people trying to define a national culture. There’ve been some pretty disgusting things done in the name of Kultur, er, culture.

(Incidently, the German constitution actually forbids having a Ministry of Culture.)

It’s very practical to require immigrants to learn the language and some of the history, but other than that, I agree with #18 about just pointing them in the right direction. Perhaps they could have them work on research projects of their choice in the upper level Finnish as a Second Language classes at the University of Helsinki. It’d certainly produce better speakers of Finnish than having them memorize grammar rules all the time. (I’m still disappointed about that.)

But as others pointed out, does not liking salmiakkikossu make you less of a Finn? And I’ve met some Finns who don’t enjoy hockey OR skiing. Can you imagine?

I didn’t even bother reading the other comments. To me to start specifying what it is to be a Finn is such a waste of time, even if I don’t have anything to do. I could be sitting in downtown Bucarest thinking what it is to be a Romanian, but this accident of birth that took place in Koylio, Finland, makes me not eligible for such undertaking. I say, this is stupid nationalistic crap and should be flushed down to toilet!

Harri #2: isn’t our minister of culture Keskusta’s own Tanja Saarela who used to be an aerobics instructor? Didn’t she say when she came to be minister that she has a little bit different view of culture than the traditional one thanks to her background?

A Finn is a person who lives in Finland and speaks Finnish as thier native language. Anyone else is a hyphenated Finn

If you’ve born in Finland, you’re Finnish, no matter where you may live currently. That’s how I feel, at least.

@giustino #22 “…and speaks Finnish as thier native language”

What a bozo. I guess that leaves out people like Mannerhein, Runnenberg and Ragnar Granit