COMMENTARY: Unabashedly racist?

By Annamari Sipilä
     
      Racism takes many forms and there are distinct differences in how it shows itself in different countries.
      In Finland, racism is straightforward enough: either you are a racist or you are not. It is not hard to spot those with racist tendencies in these parts. Their prejudices are visible and audible. Education and higher social status do not necessarily go hand-in-hand with greater tolerance in the Finnish experience. There are racists to be found at every social level.
      The more tolerant side of the Finnish population tries to shape the attitudes of the racists with factual arguments. Their aim is to produce a country free of prejudice and discrimination. The battle-lines are clearly drawn.
     
The ways in which racism manifests itself
in Britain, on the other hand, are a good deal more complex. It is not possible to perform such a brisk analysis.
      Take the current debate, for instance. For the past few weeks, British television viewers (those who admit to watching reality-TV) have been following Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother.
      Even the Finnish news threshold has been crossed by stories of how one contestant, an Indian Bollywood star, has been the object of bullying racist remarks from some of her fellow inmates in the CBB household.
      Some viewers have been horrified at what has gone down - for modern Britain is proud of its tolerance and multiculturalism. There have been questions in Parliament and the government has been obliged to comment in an attempt to calm down the national and international outcry.
     
But the picture one gets of the furore is incomplete without an understanding of the background of the people who are alleged to have bullied and taunted the Indian actress.
      One of them is Jade Goody, a 25-year-old whose claim to "tabloid celebrity" status stems from her having taken part in an earlier incarnation of Big Brother - this time for ordinary folks - in 2002.
      Another in her gang is Danielle Lloyd , a glamour model and the winner of the 2004 Miss England beauty pageant. She was also chosen as Miss Great Britain 2006, but was stripped of her title after a topless spread in Playboy magazine and suggestions that she had been dating one of the judges.
      Both women have, on several previous occasions, demonstrated to British TV viewers their complete lack of education. Back in 2002, Goody professed to know that Cambridge was in London, and when told that it was actually in East Anglia [north-east of the capital], replied "Where's East Angular [sic], though? I thought that was abroad". She was also under the impression that Rio de Janeiro was a person.
      Danielle Lloyd, for her part, guessed on a TV quiz programme that Winston Churchill - Britain's wartime Prime Minister and voted the greatest-ever Briton in a 2002 BBC poll of the "100 Greatest Britons" - was the first black President of the United States.
     
The ignorance of the two TV-bimbos does not, of course, excuse their prejudices. And yet the stupidity of these celebrity representatives of British "chav" culture has its own role to play: it is a means for more intelligent Britons to outsource their own racist thoughts in a socially acceptable fashion.
      The middle-class Brit does not feel he or she can be openly racist. It is perfectly acceptable, on the other hand, to despise the uneducated underclass. The end result is that the middle class sneers at the underclass that says aloud what should not be said aloud, and the middle-class condemns them (and at the same time feels comfortable about themselves).
      In this way the racism is hidden, and is directed elsewhere.
      This process is known as the sublimation of racism.
     
Such a process will not work in Finland, as Finland is not a class society in the same way. In the Finnish experience, everyone gets much the same education. We do not have an ignorant underclass on the lines of the British model, through which others can channel their own prejudices.
      And yet an apparently egalitarian and homogeneous society such as this one is a trap for immigrants.
      When the Finns find it practically impossible to despise their own, they despise instead those who have come from elsewhere. In a country of direct, unsublimated racism it is not necessary even to hide your prejudices. It is by no means out of the question to hear somebody in Finland describe themselves as "unabashedly racist".
     
It is difficult to saywhich of the two models, the British or the Finnish one, is the less pernicious. Both have their repugnant features.
      One thing is certain, all the same. Unless the Finns can shake off their prejudices, our economic growth is pretty soon going to run into a brick wall of our own making. We are shortly going to need new workers desperately, and they cannot all be blue-eyed, flaxen-haired specimens.
      Personally I would not be in the least astonished if the Finns were ultimately to spring a surprise and weed out their prejudices in record time. It would be that famous Finnish pragmatism in action; a ready desire to recognise the economic realities.
      Quite another matter, though, is who would end up being kicked around in this future scenario. It could be that Finland has a demand for a new underclass.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.1.2007
     
The columnist is a former Helsingin Sanomat correspondent in London.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  The racist attack that never was (28.11.2006)

Links:
  Jade Goody (Wikipedia)
  Danielle Lloyd (Wikipedia)
  Chav (Wikipedia)