Helsinki youth with Somali backgrounds tired of constant suspicion

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By Teppo Moisio
     
      "All right, let's sit down here at this table!" Anneli Koskinen, project secretary of the immigrant work effort of the Central Railway station area shouts above the din. Only a few of the boys at the table-football table heed the first call.
      At the Olohuone ("Living Room") youth club on Runeberginkatu 4, voices resonate off the walls, and the clang of various game machines and the shouts of the players make it impossible to hold a conversation in a normal voice.
      In recent weeks a group of about 20 young people with Somali backgrounds have been involved in a number of robberies and assaults, and the unusual violence has been the focus of much attention. The most recent serious case was on Saturday night. Now the intention is to discuss the issue with young Somalis themselves.
     
"Why do they always write in the papers that the perpetrators were Somalis?", asks Yusuf Ali, 25. The young man is clearly upset. "Why don't they write about others? People only say that the Somalis did this and the Somalis did that."
      The others agree. Violence is not seen as a problem of all with a Somali background - but rather that of a few individuals.
      So what might be the cause of the violence? Abdul Abdi, 16, suspects that the robbers and those who commit violent acts are looking for excitement in their lives. "There's always someone in a group who is putting on a show, and who wants to be a tough guy. Of course, it's just insanely stupid."
     
"It's only that certain core group that does things like that", says 24-year-old Hussein Omer, adding that it might be a case of a crowd being as smart as its stupidest member.
      "You ask who the perpetrators are; it's hard to say. Even though the Somali community is fairly small, not everyone knows each other. Inside information travels mainly within families."
      "It's probably those drug users", Omer ponders.
      He takes the news of the stabbing on Saturday night quite hard. "It's up to the police to find the one who did it. We have to hope that the act of one person does not label the whole nation."
      Omer, who has done youth work, and who is studying community pedagogy, says that the key to reducing violence would be to offer young people who are in danger of being marginalised something positive to do and a possibility for a future.
     
Prejudices have added fuel to the flames sparked by the news of more violence. Everyone present feels that they are under suspicion.
      Yusuf Ali airs his frustration in a loud voice. "I was with my friends at the station, and the police wanted to see all of our papers. Nobody had done anything, but all seven of us were ordered to crowd into a single police car."
      He also says that a friend of his was beaten near his home. A white person had accused his friend of being a "Somali thief".
      "Even in Lohja, where I study, a passer-by stopped me and asked me if I had been involved in robberies", said Omer, who attends a polytech. "I couldn't really say anything other than ‘what?'".
      "Every day in the Metro you hear how old men and women say that there's one of those robbers", says 19-year-old Anwar Abdi. "If you stayed and thought about it would make you furious. You just have to let the words go in one ear and out the other. That's the only way to cope."
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 2.10.2005  

More on this subject:
 Blacklisted

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police arrest main suspects of stabbing in Helsinki (4.10.2005)

TEPPO MOISIO / Helsingin Sanomat
teppo.moisio@hs.fi