Poll: long road ahead to universal acceptance of minorities

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Modu Sidibeh, a 46-year-old Gambian-born youth worker who works in Kauniainen, is shocked, but not really surprised, to read the results of a poll commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat.
      The columns and the percentages indicate that a third of Finns would not consider the black man a welcome candidate for a son-in-law.
      Sitting next to him, his mother-in-law Ritva Siikala shakes her head.
      “People have terrible attitudes because they do not know any other kinds of people.
     
When Sidibeh moved to Finland in 1994 and married Siikala’s daughter Katja he became familiar with what he thought was some kind of greeting.
      It was actually an inquiry, laced with a crude obscenity, asking him what he is doing in Finland.
     
The survey, conducted by TNS Gallup, shows that more than half of Finns would take a negative view of the idea that a close relative might marry a Roma. Meanwhile, a white American would be a welcome addition to the families of most Finns. More than a third would not want a Somali family as neighbours.
      The views of those who identified themselves as supporters of the True Finns party were the most severe: 62 per cent of them said that they would not want a Somali family as neighbours. The figure for supporters of the Centre Party was 56 per cent, and for those of the National Coalition Party it was 40 per cent.
     
Ritva Siikala, who has an adopted son from Ethiopia, was shocked in the 1990s to see how Finns treated Somalis who had fled the war in their country.
      “People threw stones at the homes of Somalis. I wanted to do something.”
     
Siikala, a theatre director and author, set up the International Art Centre Kassandra, which seeks to build bridges between people of different languages and skin colours. The work brought her close to the dark side of Finland – including death threats sent to her.
      One play was about a well-to-do Finnish family whose members end up as refugees in an imaginary country called Zambezi. Not everyone liked the idea. “I have been called a black person’s whore and told to go to Africa.”
     
After the electoral success of the True Finns, Siikala says that she constantly hears from friends who are members of minority groups that overt expressions of racism have increased.
      There are confrontations on public transport, and sometimes people send abusive e-mails.
      “I have heard so many shameful things that I sometimes cannot believe that this is our country.”
     
Some foreigners draw their conclusions and leave Finland.
      Sidibeh’s friend from the Ivory Coast was sitting on a bus when a Finnish man approached her and spat in her face. She and her husband moved to Brussels.
      Sidibeh sees some reasons for optimism as well. He notes that 80 per cent of Finns did not vote for the True Finns, and not all of the True Finns fit into a single stereotypical mould.
      Furthermore, 38 per cent of people who identified with the True Finns in the poll felt that it would be positive or fairly positive if a close relative were to marry an African, and nearly a third of True Finns would welcome Somali neighbours.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Poll: Majority of Finns see Finland as racist country (14.11.2011)
  HS interview: President Halonen urges Finns to dare defend victims of racism (15.11.2011)

Helsingin Sanomat