Racism in Finland
Milla Hyttinen, Spring 2005 (US)
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Racism as a phenomenon is hardly unknown to any nation or society. Finland is no exception. However, manifestations of racism can vary greatly; prejudice has many faces depending on the circumstances and cultural environment. How is racism visible in Finnish society?
The aim of this paper is to examine different aspects of racism in Finland and study the underlying reasons for Finns’ prejudicial attitudes towards certain ethnic groups in Finland.
Who Is Prejudiced, and Against Whom?
Finns are generally regarded as being tolerant and well aware of cultural differences, due to their high level of education and keen interest in traveling. However, many Finns are still prejudiced against foreigners living in Finland. In this light, certain generalizations can be made as to which groups within the Finnish population are most likely to have prejudicial attitudes and which ethnicities are most likely to become the object of prejudice.
Studies have shown that Finnish men have a more negative attitude towards immigrants than women do. The level of education matters as well. Those who have a university-level education tend to be more tolerant than the less educated. The residential environment is also influential. People living in large cities, especially in Helsinki, are less prejudiced than people who live in small towns or rural areas (Jaakkola 12, 22, 29). The relevance of education and place of residence will be explained in more detail later in this paper.
It is worth noting that immigrants are not the only ones subject to prejudice, even though the focus of this paper will be on them. Finns who have different ethnic backgrounds than the majority of the population, such as gypsies¹ and Swedish-speaking Finns, encounter biased attitudes as well. However, these attitudes may be based on slightly different reasons than the ones towards immigrants. For example, the aversion to Swedish-speaking Finns has its roots in history².
The more the immigrants' appearance and/or behavior differs from that of the average Finn, the more likely they will be discriminated against. Prejudice against people from the Middle East and Africa is exceptionally strong, whereas most white Europeans and Americans are readily accepted. There are exceptions to this rule; for example Asians are accepted much more easily than most other people of color. One explanation for this could be that Asians are commonly perceived as having a high work ethic.
A Brief Overview of Immigration and Racism in 1980-2000
In order to understand the present situation, one must first take a look at the past. Finland does not have a long history of racism, and thus some problems of the recent past may still not be completely solved. One of these problems is the socio-economic threat which immigrants are considered to represent.
Finland has relatively little experience of immigration, as emigration has traditionally been much more common. Even though the number of immigrants exceeded that of emigrants in the early 1980’s and continued increasing rapidly during the following decade, in the year 2000 immigrants were still only 1.6% of the total population. The largest groups of immigrants came from Russia, Estonia, Sweden, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, the United Kingdom and Germany (Heikkilä and Peltonen, 2-3).
Due to Finland’s highly homogeneous ethnic population and geographic position, encounters with foreigners have always been relatively infrequent. It is therefore no wonder that most Finns took up a somewhat reserved attitude towards the growing number of immigrants arriving in the early 1980’s. Racist attitudes must have existed ever since the first foreigners’ arrival, but not much attention was paid to racism in the 1980’s, most probably because it was not seen as an actual problem.
However, the problem became obvious when the number of immigrants doubled during the 1990’s, especially as the rapid growth coincided with an economic depression. An idea of immigrants “coming to consume our resources without giving anything in return” emerged among Finns. According to Magdalena Jaakkola’s 1995 study on Finns’ attitudes towards immigrants, Finns were noticeably more ill-disposed towards immigrants in the early 1990’s than in 1987, when she had conducted her previous study on the same subject (10). The clearest indication of the negative change in attitudes was what happened in Joensuu in the 1990’s.
The Skinheads of Joensuu in the 1990’s
The small town of Joensuu in Eastern Finland was severely affected by the depression. Large industrial plants, the biggest employers in the town, were closed, and the unemployment rate sprang up to twenty percent. At the same time, about one hundred Somalian and a few Pakistani and Afghan refugees were placed in the town and in a nearby motel in the absence of other accommodation (Hildén-Paajanen, 1-2). The combination of economic recession and the sudden arrival of a relatively large number of refugees turned out to be volatile.
Feelings of frustration and financial worries started to discharge themselves, and a scapegoat needed to be found. Refugees, the outsiders who had not worked in the first place and lived in a motel for free, quickly became the wrongly accused. A Skinhead movement started to form in Finland during the early 90’s as a protest against the refugees, and gained the silent support of the people of Joensuu during the period of depression (Hildén-Paajanen 9, 12). Groups of young men who identified themselves as skinheads started to act against the refugees. Racist crime was constantly on the increase during the early years of the 90’s in Joensuu.
The news media fixed its attention on the problem when Darryl Parker, an African-American basketball player who had come to Joensuu to play on the town’s team, was attacked by skinheads and had to return to the United States because of their intimidation. The incident also aroused attention in the international media (Hildén-Paajanen 1). Joensuu was thereafter widely known as a place where no immigrant was welcome, especially not a dark-skinned one.
The Skinheads of the 1990’s are the worst and most conspicuous example of animosity against immigrants and refugees in Finnish history. Joensuu’s neo-Nazis were not abashed to show their racist hatred openly; it was not at all unusual for the violence to take place in public places and in broad daylight. Towards the end of the decade, the nature of the crime changed. Violent offences against immigrants and refugees turned to crime involving property, committed in the dark of night. Shaved heads and other outer markers of skinheads started to disappear from the street scene as public disapproval grew (Hildén-Paajanen 7-8, 13). However, this did not mean the disappearance of the ideology or of racist attitudes. Racism took on its present, more subtle form.
Racism in Present-Day Finland
Hostile attitudes have clearly declined since the 1990’s, but it is questionable whether the majority of Finns are still free of prejudice. Racism in Finland is not as bad as it could be in the sense that there are no notable political movements against immigrants; Finns generally strongly disapprove of racist behavior (Iivari). However, one often needs to look beneath the surface in order to see the full extent of the problem that racism represents in present-day Finland.
Open Hostility vs. Exclusion
Comparing the frequency of open hostility and exclusion (hidden racism) is a good starting point for examining racism in present-day Finland. As noted earlier, open hostility was mostly a problem of the 1990’s, but it cannot be completely ruled out as an extinguished problem. Exclusion can be seen as having largely taken the place of open hostility in expressing prejudice against immigrants. Some instances of racism may also include aspects of both open hostility and exclusion.
Open hostility covers insults, threats and violence, among other manifestations of racism. All three are not only disapproved of, but also illegal. Still, especially the first two are regrettably common, and the offenders, most of whom are extreme right-wingers, rarely have to answer for their misdeeds. In 2001, only one illegal threat, six assaults and no insults were reported to the police in Joensuu (Hildén-Paajanen 14). On the basis of this information one might conclude that assaults were the most frequent offences, but this is not the case. Dr. Timo Virtanen’s interviews with 62 immigrants living in Finland clearly revealed that the most frequent offences actually consisted of threats and insults in particular. This must mean that only a small fraction of the threats and insults that actually took place were reported. The more serious the crime, the more sure it was to be reported. In other words, an immigrant who has been assaulted is more likely to report the crime and demand that the offender be punished than someone who has been “merely” insulted.
However, exclusion is increasingly a problem. Exclusion is much more common and difficult to root out than open hostility. While showing open hostility may result in trouble with the law, in most cases it is perfectly legal to choose not to have anything to do with an immigrant, and thus exclude him/her from normal social interaction. This does not always happen premeditatedly; Finns may instinctively avoid what they see as different and strange, and possibly even threatening. In this case, the problem is not so much intentional exclusion as it is general xenophobia. Immigrants who deviate strongly from the majority may find themselves very alone in Finland, especially if they live outside the larger cities.
M’ohammed Sabour classifies cultural exclusion as a form of exclusion which results in immigrants’ inability to practice their cultural habits, such as traditions, religion, language, etc. and forces them to adopt the majority’s views and culture in order to survive (4). Finns do not always consider cultural variety as something enriching. The general, tacit expectation has long been that if an immigrant wants to live in Finland, he/she has to be prepared to integrate into the native population and act accordingly.
However, despite the mental suffering exclusion may cause to an immigrant, it becomes illegal only when performed by an authority, such as the police or employers, as treated in the next section.
Institutional Racism
Sir William McPherson defines institutional racism in The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry as follows:
Institutional Racism consists of the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their color, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes, and behavior which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. (6.34)
McPherson based his definition on the way the British police handled the case of Stephen Lawrence, a young black man who was murdered in England in 1993. The phenomenon of institutional racism is not unknown in Finland, either. For example, in 1998 the police of Joensuu were charged with racial discrimination. The offences were not specified in the news of Helsingin Sanomat, but apparently an officer had used improper language when referring to a dark-skinned immigrant. Furthermore, the cases of immigrants had been belittled and their processing delayed. The charge was dismissed a few months later (in Hildén-Paajanen 11).
Section six in the Constitution of Finland forbids discrimination in the following words:
Everyone is equal before the law. No one shall, without an acceptable reason, be treated differently from other persons on the ground of sex, age, origin, language, religion, conviction, opinion, health, disability or other reason that concerns his or her person. (Ministry of Justice 1)
Normally authorities who have been found to be guilty of racial discrimination will, of course, be punished, but in reality institutional racism may be very difficult to detect due to its implicit nature. For instance, immigrants may not receive appropriate guidance from the authorities, which may complicate their situation considerably.
Such hidden racism has been very common in working life. In 2001 and 2002 Pirkko Pitkänen and Päivi Atjonen studied what kind of attitudes Finnish business executives have towards immigrants applying for jobs. According to the study, the employers were afraid of the risks involved with hiring immigrants. They considered African-born immigrants and Muslims the most unreliable and unwanted employees, but had very little or nothing against hiring people from the Nordic countries, Estonia, Western Europe and North America. Roughly half of all the immigrants in Finland feel that their color, religion or ethnic origin has complicated their employment. About a third of the immigrants are still unemployed (Pitkänen 7-8). Among certain ethnicities, such as Somalians and Iraqis, the unemployment rate is as high as 70% (Heikkilä and Peltonen 5).
It is easy for the employers to plead excuses when they are accused of racial discrimination. For example, it is a fact that immigrants who cannot speak Finnish fluently are often not ideal employees. The accusation may therefore be very difficult to substantiate. As long as the jobseeker cannot prove that they were clearly the most qualified of all the other applicants, and were rejected solely on the basis of prejudice, there is not much they can do. There is no such thing as a quota system in Finland because of the low number of immigrants in proportion to the total population.
Everyday Racism
Vesa Puuronen states in his article Arkipäivän rasismi Suomessa [Everyday Racism in Finland] that racism is not merely an ideology or an institutional phenomenon, but is all around us in the microstructures of everyday life. He argues that even though everyday racism usually manifests itself in the behavior of an individual as prejudice, discrimination, deriding and excluding, it is based on social structures and the power of the majority (1). It is indeed true that when viewing instances of everyday racism, one should bear in mind that it is not only a question of certain individuals acting on their own in a racist manner for reasons known only to them, but a problem deriving from the whole society.
Everyday discrimination consists of both open hostility and exclusion. The outcome is often that the immigrant who is being discriminated against starts to withdraw from interaction with others of their own will. Kader, a 30-year-old Tunisian living in Joensuu, Finland, describes his experience of being excluded, and his subsequent self-exclusion, in the following way:
Sometimes when I go by bus, all seats but the one next to mine are taken. It never fails to surprise me that no one will sit next to me. Sitting there alone, occupying the seats intended for two people, I feel that I am disturbing other people’s lives. The behavior of the other passengers makes me feel unwanted. I am diseased; I am a leper.
My experiences are not as bad as those of some other foreigners, because in order to avoid trouble, I do not go to places where the risk of becoming the object of racist hatred is great. […] In the current situation, I don’t see any future for myself in this country. I live like an animal; get up in the morning and go to my miserable work, come back home and go to sleep, only to repeat everything the next day.
I was married. […] My wife talked about Finnish values and cultural viewpoints all the time, but did not care at all what I and my culture represent. The way I see it, she was convinced, like many Finns, that she is right and represents the best, and that I am wrong and my culture is worthless. […] The best self-defense is self-exclusion, being separated from others. This is a way for me to find inner peace. […] It is best that I draw away from Finns for my own sake, in order to save my mental balance and cultural identity. (in Sabour 99, 101-102)
Several other African-born immigrants interviewed by M’ohammed Sabour had parallel experiences of living in Finland.
Philomena Essed discerns three forms of everyday racism: marginalizing, questioning (the immigrant’s cultural values, intellectual powers, etc.), and frustrating, for example by excluding (in Puuronen 2). All three of these can be seen in the case of Kader. His culture was marginalized, his values were questioned by his wife and many others, and he felt excluded from the community, which eventually drove him into self-exclusion.
Kader explains having avoided certain places, such as bars and discotheques, where he would have been likely to become the object of racist remarks. Essed does not count calling names or intimidation as everyday racism in the above-mentioned definition, but one might say that they do count considering that, along with exclusion, verbal insults are perhaps the most common form of racism in Finland. Due to its great variety and significance, such “linguistic racism” deserves to be dealt with separately.
Language and Racism
Language is a powerful tool in affecting and forming opinions. The language in use often defines and sometimes even sets limits to one’s way of thinking. This is why using words and terms that are loaded with negative connotations easily strengthens certain negative attitudes and may even create them in those who do not even have personal experience of the matter in question.
The use of racist language is not as completely inappropriate in Finland as it is in the United States, for example. Such language would normally not be tolerated from Finnish public figures, but it is still in wide use among the general public everyday, and its usage has even been defended with various arguments.
Referring to people by their ethnic origin, color or religion seems perfectly normal to most Finns, because the language categorizes them. However, the words Finns use to describe other ethnic groups may not be the ones that the group uses for itself or even accepts. Instead these ethnonyms can be derogatory and strongly associated with negative stereotypes of that particular ethnicity.
Puuronen talks briefly about these disparaging ethnonyms in his article Arkipäivän rasismi Suomessa. Words like “neekeri” (“a nigger”), “ryssä” (a derogatory word for a Russian) and “mustalainen” (“a gypsy”) have been used for decades in Finnish. All of these words have clearly negative connotations, but surprisingly many Finns fail to realize how insulting the word “neekeri” is. It can even be used in newspaper articles without quotation marks (4).
Over the last few years there has been a great deal of debate about whether or not one can say “neekeri” when referring to a black person. Pirjo Hiidenmaa summarizes the exchange of views in her book “Suomen kieli – who cares?” [Finnish Language – Who Cares?]. According to Hiidenmaa, the use of the word “neekeri” has most often been defended with the following types of arguments:
1. The word “neekeri” has been used for a long time in the Finnish language, and it does not carry the same type of negative connotations as the English word “nigger” does.
2. Using the word “neekeri” is necessary in order to be able to refer to the Negroid race. One needs accurate terms to describe different races on biological and genetic grounds.
3. If “neekeri” is changed into some more politically correct word, such as “black,” that word will soon be just as disparaging. Tinkering with the language like this will not reduce inequality in any way.
4. One must be able to call things by their right names.
Hiidenmaa opposes these arguments by stating that instead of questioning the word that refers to a classification, one must question the necessity of categorizing itself. Why should people be categorized by their color, religion or ethnic origin, especially in situations when it makes no difference whatsoever? It can even be dangerous to talk about “a black robber” in a news article, because in that context the color of the person in question may be construed as something that explains the crime. No one would talk about “a white robber” in Finland. Affecting the language is a way to see the world from a different point of view. Hiidenmaa also points out that the word “neekeri” has very rarely occurred in neutral contexts (150-153).
Ethnic jokes that play on stereotypes are another manifestation of racism in language. However, it is not always self-evident what is being laughed at. The jokes may sometimes make fun of the stereotypes themselves instead of the ethnic group that is only seemingly the object of ridicule. Much depends on the attitudes of the person who tells or laughs at these jokes.
According to the personal experience of Yasir Gaily, who has lived both in Finland and in the United States, racial humor is considered much more acceptable in Finland than in the U.S. In Finland ethnic jokes may be told on TV and radio and in the newspapers as long as their tone is right, in other words, as long as the object of the mockery is the joke and stereotype itself. Gaily does not see anything wrong with ethnic jokes if there are no racist attitudes behind them. He thinks that they may even reduce prejudice if people realize how laughable the stereotypes presented in these jokes are.
What Are the Causes of Biased Attitudes?
Various manifestations of prejudicial attitudes in Finland have now been viewed, but it still remains unclear what creates these attitudes. Even though there is no simple, straightforward answer to this question, there are some theories that may help to understand Finnish attitudes better. It is also useful to consider and question the reasons that Finns themselves give for their prejudice, if they admit its existence. However, it is not the intention of this section to try to explain why racism as a world-wide phenomenon exists. Although some of the theories presented below may apply to other cultures as well, the point of view is strictly a Finnish one.
Immigrants Perceived as a Socio-Economic Threat
Magdalena Jaakkola’s study on Finns’ negative attitudes towards immigrants was based on the assumption that the number one reason explaining these attitudes is a socio-economic threat. It has indeed been shown by numerous questionnaires that those who feel that their socio-economic status is threatened by immigrants are usually the most prejudiced (3). However, there is reasonable cause to question the results of these questionnaires. What if it is so that in fact the ones who are the most prejudiced use “socio-economic threat” as an excuse to justify their biased attitudes — that are in actuality based mostly on color, nationality or religion?
One fact to support this belief is that the two most common arguments that oppose immigrants on the grounds of socio-economic threat are inconsistent:
1. “Immigrants come to take our jobs. We do not even have enough jobs for Finns, why should we give any of them to foreigners?”
2. “Immigrants come to consume our tax money without giving anything in return. Why should we let them live luxuriously on welfare in our country, seeing as they will never bother to work?”
It is interesting that sometimes these contradictory arguments can be set forth by the same person. The message becomes quite clear: immigrants are unwanted. However, hardly anyone protests against a German, for example, who moves to Finland to earn an honest livelihood. When a Muslim or an African immigrant tries the same, they will find it considerably more difficult, because the amount of mistrust and suspicion they encounter is much greater.
Surely this is presented in a pointed way, but only in order to illustrate that the true reasons behind prejudicial attitudes are far from unambiguous. There is no doubt that socio-economic threat plays at least some part in the forming of prejudice, but it is hardly the only reason. Even though the arguments presented above are still very commonly used, the attitude that they represent is a relic from the depression of the 1990’s, when there was actual reason for Finns to feel insecure about their livelihood.
Nowadays there is no rational basis for the claim that the small minority that the immigrants form in relation to the total population would be a socio-economic threat to Finns.
Finnish Cultural Pride and Ethnocentrism
Cultural pride is deeply embedded in the minds of most Finns. This is something that is not always easily recognized by Finns themselves, but shows itself clearly when the combination is “us against the others.” Finns highly appreciate their own cultural values, which sometimes leads them to look down on other cultures of which they do not have sufficient knowledge. This is the essence of the concept of ethnocentrism, belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group, and is understandable as such.
Extreme right-wingers plead to these patriotic feelings willingly when attempting to gain support for their negative ideas of immigrants. Mika Salo has studied their arguments, and found that Finns are often presented as honest, hard-working and upright people, whereas immigrants are seen as suspicious exploiters who threaten either the Finnish economy or security (10-21, 24-29). Cultural pride and ethnocentrism can be considered as contributory causes of prejudice, but they are not enough as such. Stereotyped thinking goes hand in hand with ethnocentrism and will thus be looked at next.
The Media and Education’s Role in Forming and Dissolving Stereotypes
A stereotype is basically an oversimplified, one-sided picture of a certain group. Stereotypes can be either positive, in which case they cause no harm, or negative, as is most often the case with ethnic stereotypes. No one is completely free of stereotyped thinking; it is only human and helps us organize our ideas of the world. However, when believing in a stereotype, we do not recognize intragroup differences; instead of treating people as individuals, we treat them as representatives of a certain class (Vilkko-Riihelä 631-632). Thus a whole group of people may become strongly stigmatized on the basis of the acts of a few individuals who represent that particular group. In this case stereotyping may easily lead to racism.
Finns have deeply-rooted stereotypes, such as “gypsies are thieves” and “black people are violent and unreliable,” which could be seen as the foundation of prejudicial attitudes. This would explain why for example people from the Far East are less likely than Africans to encounter strong prejudice in Finland despite their differing appearance; there are no clearly negative stereotypes associated with East Asians. Some stereotypes of them are even positive (e.g. “the Japanese are hard-working”).
The news media is clearly responsible for creating or solidifying many of the negative stereotypes that Finns have of foreigners. For example, the stereotype of Africans being violent and committing relatively more crimes than Finns is a distorted idea deriving from the fact that when an immigrant commits a crime, there will be a news article about it in which the skin color or nationality of the immigrant is specified. When only the violent and criminal individuals of a certain ethnic group are brought before the public eye, stigmatizing the entire group as violent criminals is easy. Decent representatives of the same ethnicity have no news value. The following types of news headlines serve as an example of this:
Somalian Girls under Suspicion of Prostitution in Porvoo (Ilta-Sanomat 10.2.1993) ³
Two Out of Three ‘East Refugees’ Were Found Guilty of Crimes (Helsingin Sanomat 11.5.1993)
One-sided information about different cultures and religions provided by the media also strengthens the stereotypes that Finns have. Few Finns know what African cultures are like in reality or what being a Muslim is truly about, for instance. The media convey usually only what is negative from a Finnish perspective: poverty, backwardness of conditions and the low status of women. Kader describes the attitudes he has encountered as follows: “Finns always have prejudice against me, a Muslim living in this society. Whatever I try to be and however I behave, they always have predetermined ideas about me and my origin. And what they ‘know’ are the negative aspects of my culture” (in Sabour 18).
Education is a way to reduce prejudice based on stereotypes. It not only provides more information about different cultures and lifestyles, but also develops a cognitive competence which helps one understand the true reasons for conflicts between certain ethnic groups (Jenssen & Engesbek in Jaakkola 13). In other words, education provides tools for acknowledging one’s own stereotypes, understanding how they were formed, and dissolving them by acquiring enough objective information.
Xenophobia and the Contact Theory
Xenophobia means fear or contempt of the unknown and strange. It is not exactly the same as racism, but undoubtedly contributes to it. Xenophobia partly explains why those foreigners who differ most conspicuously from the average Finn by their outer appearance or customs are most likely to become the object of prejudice and negative stereotypes in Finland. It is worth emphasizing that xenophobia normally arises from ignorance. People often instinctively fear and avoid what they perceive as strange, and about which they do not know much. One does not need negative stereotypes to be xenophobic. However, unlike stereotyped thinking, xenophobia rarely leads to open hostility (Seppälä 2).
According to the contact theory (Jaakkola 3, 27), social contacts between different groups reduce prejudice. However, the relationships have to be long-term and natural in order to take effect. Superficial encounters between people who represent different cultures may at worst only increase prejudice (Vilkko-Riihelä 671-672). This is a situation where mutual understanding does not have enough time to develop, and attitudes remain the same. Many well-intentioned projects to promote multicultural relationships between Finns and other ethnicities have foundered in the fact that the attempts fail to achieve natural relationships between representatives of two completely different cultures, customs and beliefs.
The contact theory is closely connected to xenophobia in the sense that if the contacts between two different ethnicities are rare and superficial or nonexistent, there is every chance for xenophobia to occur. Due to the low number of immigrants residing in Finland, it is not at all unusual for a Finn not to know personally one single immigrant, especially if one lives in a small town or rural area. Since there are relatively more immigrants in the largest cities and nearly half of them reside in the capital city (Jaakkola 27), Finnish city people (especially the inhabitants of Helsinki) have the most contacts with immigrants.
An End to the Vicious Circle of Racism?
As has been established, racism in Finland is nowadays mainly implicit. It lives in language, attitudes and behavior, and rests upon fallacy, stereotypes and ethnocentrism. Misconceptions about foreigners arouse deep mistrust, and an immigrant may easily find himself or herself in a vicious circle of not being able to get a job or contacts because of prejudice. He or she may then become the object of even more prejudice because of being unemployed and isolated.
In the worst cases Finns may even fail to consider certain immigrants as humans whose cultural background and views of life are just as valuable as their own. Negative attitudes have remained much the same for nearly two decades; although they have shown signs of declining since the 1990’s, there is still much to be done before tolerant co-existence between Finns and other ethnicities can be achieved.
By recognizing their prejudicial attitudes and the reasons for them, every Finn has a chance to contribute to putting an end to the vicious circle of racism. When stereotypes are acknowledged they lose much of their power. As the cultural diversity in Finland will continue to grow rapidly in the future, it will become increasingly important for the Finnish population to be able to understand and respect different cultures, religions and lifestyles while at the same time still being proud of their native Finnish culture and customs.
Notes
The gypsy population living in Finland refers to itself as “rom” and “sinto” in their Romani languages, “the Roma” in English and "romani" in Finnish. They became part of the Finnish population at the end of the 18th century.
The aversion to Swedish-speaking Finns is mostly based on envy. The Swedish expression bättre folk (“better people”) refers to the higher social status and greater wealth of the Swedish-speaking upper class compared to the Finnish-speaking common people. Even though this class division dates from the period when Finland was under Swedish rule (1150-1809) and no longer holds true, the prejudice against Swedish-speaking Finns has remained.
Translation into English of these two headlines by the author
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