COMMENTARY: Silence in fear of being called racist is not an option
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By Kristiina Markkanen
Whether we like it or not, the murder-suicide tragedy that played out at the Sello shopping mall in Espoo on New Year's Eve also has something to do with immigration.
At least the immigrant background of the killer Ibrahim Shkupolli has prompted both rage and a prim reluctance to even mention this salient fact.
It is completely repugnant that racist talk and the branding of people by their background immediately take over whenever a wrongdoer happens to be a foreigner.
Almost as repugnant is the equally speedy way in which the upper echelons of society - those making decisions - close ranks and close their mouths, ostensibly in fear of "stirring up racism".
It would be racism if we believed that Shkupolli had done what he did last Thursday specifically because he was a foreigner, a Kosovar Albanian, a Muslim, or "not a Serb".
What is not racism is to discover whether the gunman's background and experiences contain the germ of something that might have had an impact on his actions, and to determine whether it might have been possible to intervene positively in his problems and prevent the carnage.
Many of those of Albanian extraction who left Kosovo in the early 1990s also suffered from serious depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The psychiatrist Göran Roth from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden examined the mental health of Albanians evacuated out of Kosovo in his doctoral thesis in 2006.
Roth also drew attention to a more pronounced sense of alienation and marginalisation than was found in other migrants.
The sense of feeling outside of society can breed bitterness, which for its own part can manifest itself in explosive outbursts of aggression.
Shkupolli was well known to the police and had a lengthy criminal record. We do not know if he also suffered from mental health problems.
His experiences both before and after his arrival in Finland may nevertheless have caused depression, a sense of loneliness, marginalisation, and may have driven him to crime.
Did not the police and those other authorities and officials with whom he had dealings not know of these risks, or were they unable to interpret them?
It is not racism to recognise a person's background and experiences and to take them for what they are.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.1.2010
KRISTIINA MARKKANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
kristiina.markkanen@hs.fi
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| 5.1.2010 - THIS WEEK |
 COMMENTARY: Silence in fear of being called racist is not an option |
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