For a
change, I write this post in English to make it understandable for non-Finnish
speakers as well. I haven’t written anything in this blog for ages. After
considering several topics, I finally realised what sums them all up: a striving
for a monoculture. And I do not mean farming.
Racism, xenophobia, and “hate speech” have been present a lot in Finnish media lately. The discussion is highly polarised: some (me including) think Finland is too closed and xenophobic, and some undermine those problems, and talk about the negative consequences of immigration. These are actually two different discussions but in the end they all converge in one final battlefield – multiculturalism versus monoculturalism.
Finnish
culture after the 2nd World War has been extremely monoculturalist.
It has tolerated very little variation in ways of living and being. This is not
only the issues for people from different cultures, but also for some
individuals from the white Lutheran Finnish majority, and for traditional
minority cultures living in Finland. Historically Finland has had a great
number of inhabitants coming from different cultures: Tatars, Roma, Jews,
Germans, Russians, Swedes, Orthodox Karelians, Sami people, etc. Most of them
are nowadays virtually undetectable because they have accepted the Finnish
monoculture and its demands. Some, like the Sami and Roma, still try to
maintain their original cultures. As a result, they face discrimination.
As I
mentioned, it’s not only a problem for ethnic minorities. The classical
monoculture in Finland has also traditionally been very intolerable against
sexual minorities (resulting gay people to flee to Sweden during the Cold War).
People are expected to live and behave in a very narrow manner. Even still
today, men are expected to go to the army, study practical fields (not
humanities or arts), get a job, have a short haircut and shave the beard
(which, Gott sei Dank, is not an absolute norm anymore), dress normally and
casually, get children, and work like a lunatic while they are young.
Recommended hobbies are sports, hunting, and all kinds of gadgets. If you are
into dancing or painting, or dress untypically, you’re a weirdo or a gay or
both. Girls/women are expected to do well in school, have a long hair while
young, not go to the army, get a spouse and a job, have children and take the
biggest responsibility of them. Somehow I’ve got the feeling that (young) women
enjoy a bit greater variety of acceptable lifestyles and individualism than men
but I might be wrong because I’m young and a man.
Why has
there been so strong strive for a monoculture? Historically it can be explained
by the need for national unity after the dividing and tragic events of the
civilian war, the following 2nd World War, and also the insecure
times in the Cold War. But: these events are history now. There simply isn’t
anymore a political reason to narrow people’s ways of living.
Back to the
immigration discussion. Many commentators in several newspaper websites and
Internet forums say that immigrants can be accepted if they adopt the Finnish
majority culture and live by its norms (listed above) like Tatars and Jews have
done before. When very recently a young perfectly Finnish-speaking educated and
employed Muslim woman explained about her experiences of racism in Helsingin
Sanomat (http://www.hs.fi/elama/Solvaajien+taltuttaja/a1386144021457), many commentators stated she
should dress like the majority in order to not face racism. Why should she
change her dressing style just because it does not fit into the one image of
the Finnish culture? There is simply an unintelligibly strong strive for a
monoculture, and inability to accept that people combining aspects of several
cultures and making individual choices might still be respectable and accepted
citizens. We do not utilise the talents of people coming from different
backgrounds. In a country with lack of medical doctors, why are African doctors
re-educated as bus drivers? Why do we demand an industrial cleaner to be fluent
in Finnish in order to be hired? Why are there still employers who discriminate
civilian servicemen (men not having done the army) in hiring? Why is a man with
a long hair and a beard, or a woman with short hair ineligible for a customer
service job (let alone a man with dyed hair)? Ironically, the demand of total
adaption actually effectively marginalises many immigrant groups, driving them
away from the labour markets and civil society.
The times
are changing but unfortunately very slowly. There is still no legal gay
marriage. The effort to put all people into one mould is not only killing the
creativity but makes the social atmosphere very tense and drives away a lot of
talent. And it makes the life more miserable for all of us, not just minorities.
Luckily the religion, thanks to our secular roots, has never been a very
dominant factor. Unless you’re a Muslim, of course. The aim for a simple
monoculture creates unnecessary xenophobia and prejudices of people wishing to
live in a different way. There can still be rules and laws, and there needs to
be, but could we please be a bit more relaxed and tolerant towards other
people? Could we accept a bit more variety? Even though some people in
anti-immigration forums believe so, it will not lead to Sharia Dictatorship
(yet again a monoculture).
All these
problems presented above and also the bulk of the current discussion about
immigration boil down into this one little thing, the monoculture. The belief
that there can only be one culture present in a society seems to stick hard
among the Average Joe, be it Finnish immigrant-originated culture. But I say,
there can be both and even more affecting a single individual in the same time.
If we, the people in Finland, get rid of this incorrect and harmful belief that
only one culture can prevail in a society at certain time, we can also get rid
of most the racism and xenophobia present in our society. After that we can all
treat each other as individuals with strengths and weaknesses and not just as mindless
robots a certain monoculture.
